Lots of people that live in remote jungle and desert settings go around with very little clothing.
Could a western adult survive in the jungle with say, just a loin cloth, with no preparation?
I would ponder to guess that bugs, sun, scratches & scrapes and dirt in places we’re not used to having them would cause a lot of skin irritation and we might not have the correct immune systems that it’d take to survive.
I’m not talking about having enough food or enough know-how to not be eaten by an anaconda. Imagine our westerner joined a tribe that totally takes care of those needs. I’m just wondering how a grown-up human body that’s been living in cotton undies and taking antibiotics for 30 years would fare when exposed to the jungle.
It would take a bit for your feet to toughen up enough to walk barefoot, but other than that there wouldn’t be too much of a problem aside from getting used to things.
Our immune systems aren’t so different from those of the locals that it would really jeopardize survival. It would of course take you awhile to get used to the bug bites and scratches, but that would come in time.
Scratches and other minor injuries do have a strong tendency to become infected in the tropics, and have to be cared for carefully, but this is true for anyone, locals included.
I’d be most worried about sunburn and skin cancer. I go nearly naked for at least a couple of weeks in the summer (I wear a skirt, so call it a “loincloth” and you’re nearly there) and a whole lot of sunscreen. A whole lot - I use at least 16 ounces of 50+ spf in two weeks just on me. And I still burn. And this is in New York State, where the sun is a whole lot less intense then near the equator and the days are shorter. That much skin exposure + lack of melanin means crispy crunchy time in just a few days. Which, in turn, increases risk of infection, dehydration, etc., not to mention sheer miserableness. Never underestimate the sensitivity of sunburnt areolas. :eek:
OTOH, the jungle proper provides a lot of shade. OTOOH, not too many people live in the jungle itself, I don’t think. I could be wrong about that, but my impression was that most folks live next to the jungle, and go into it occasionally to hunt or gather what little food is in there, or for building materials.
To answer the OP, and agree with previous posters, it’d take a while to toughen your skin up. It would take longer, as WhyNot suggests, for fair skinned people to adapt, but it would happen in time.
Yes, for the melanin-challenged exposure to tropical sun is going to be initially one of the worst problems, if for some reason you need to spend time in the open. But most people will eventually bronze up enough so this will not be a major concern.
However, even locals spend as much time in the shade as possible. Even if you don’t sunburn readily, the tropical sun is hot.
Actually, as I understand the audition process for Survivor, it helps if you are young, attractive and have a telegenic personality. However, they usually mix throw in a few curveballs so anything is possible so long as you are willing to sign the release.
I don’t know, an ex of mine once spent 35 minutes basking in the sun without sunblock and by morning had a high fever and was immobilized with pain. The emergency room doctor didn’t believe she was only out for 35 minutes because she was already getting blisters, prescribed opiates, antibiotics and some sort of a burn ointment. I would imagine two or three hours could’ve probably killed her.
How do you suppose a person that melanin-challenged can bronze up?
However, the question mentions jungles, which are probably easier to survive than deserts if you are white as chalk. Personally, I’ll take my chances with the desert – at least I wouldn’t be paranoid about something deadly jumping on me from above. After all, I can only either watch where I step or watch out!
I did say most people. Certainly some people are very susceptible to sunburn, and will have a problem especially in the tropics.
The problem mainly arises with light-skinned people from northern climates who, as your ex was, were deliberately basking in the sun and are unaware of how fast the tropical sun burns. My brother and his family got pretty burned at the beach when they visited me here a few months ago, even though I warned them. I usually wear a t-shirt even when swimming; my arms are pretty dark but I still smear on lots of sunscreen there.
Unless they are at the beach, though, most people will try to stay out of direct sunlight at mid day in the tropics because its hot. Therefore they generally won’t get badly burned, and will have the opportunity to darken.
You’ve seen too many Tarzan movies. I’ve spent many months camped in jungles around the world and have never had anything deadly, or even seriously harmful, fall on me from above. (Nor do I know anyone who has.) The dangers posed by jungles are wildly exaggerated; walking around in the forest in Panama is not significantly more dangerous than walking around in one in Georgia.
[nitpick]In the summer time, the days are longer in New York than they are in the tropics (the daylight lasts pretty close to 12 hours all year long in the tropics, but at the summer solstice in NYC, it is about 15 hours from sunrise to sunset). No arguement on the intensity, though.[/nitpick]
I spent two years on a tropical island in Micronesia while I was in the Peace Corps and I wore little more than a loin cloth.
I had no real problem with the sun. The tropical areas I have been in usually have a good canopy of foliage and when I went out fishing with the men folk I often wore an old shirt as they did.
Insects were a problem. The mosquitos would hit and then the flys would infect the scratched bites (it almost crippled me a couple of times). After I had been on the island about six months, however, the mosquitos seemed less of a problem.
Feet got tough after a while and it was hard to return to shoes.
If Survivor can be used as a yardstick, then the first couple weeks would be a total bitch as far as insect bites are concerned–by the second or third episode they look like they’re being eaten alive. It goes away after that, but I wouldn’t put it past the producers to slip some insect repellent into the first aid kit after a while, once they figure out the bikini models don’t look so good with infected bug bites all over their bodies.
They also pick up a lot of bumps, cuts and bruises, but that might have more to do with the challenges than just plain survival.
I read an account of a guy’s crossing Borneo on foot a couple of years ago. His snerakers eventually gave out, and he didn’t wear any special clothing (or carry a tent), so he had no problems.
The most prevalent kinds of malaria generally don’t kill you, even if you lack much resistance. But such diseases are a problem whether you are clothed or not (although wearing clothes will give you some protection).
Just before Christmas I spent a week camped on uninhabited islands in the Pearl Archipelago in Panama where two of the Survivor series were filmed. I can attest that the sandflies were so bad I was wondering how the contestants dealt with them.
I don’t know about mosquito bites, but I know that I become more resistant to chigger bites after a time. If I go out in the forest after not having been there for some time, I get a much worse case than if I am going out weekly. And my reaction is usually far less than neophytes who haven’t been exposed before. I assume this is a reduction in the allergic reaction to the bite over time.
I wondered about this myself-I didn’t belive that the Amazon Survivor people actually camped out at night. in my experiece, the amazon jungle comes ALIVE at dusk-the sandflies, mosquitos, etc. are terrible. that is why the native people stay inside their huts-which are full of smoke (to repel the bugs). i don’t think ANYBODY develops any kind of immunity to bug bites-and the chances of infection 9if you scratch the bites) is quite high. All of those "ethno-botanists’ who have searched the rainforest jungles for pharmaceutical plants-have they ever found anything that reliably repels insects?
As others have noted, if you are in the jungle, most of the time there is deep shade-but you DO NOT want to be out (unprotected0 under the equatorial sun 9from 10 AM- 2PM)-it can kill you.
