ON 3 March 2004, a group of 17 previously uncontacted Ayoreo Indians emerged from the jungle 100 kilometres north-east of Filadelfia in Paraguay. They were desparately thirsty, as cattle ranchers had muscled in on their territory and taken control of their water supply. The group reluctantly decided to approach some other Ayoreo who were setting up a new community in the last sizeable chunk of protected forest in the region and ask for their help.
This encounter may be the most recent example of what anthropologists call 鈥渇irst contact鈥�, but it certainly won鈥檛 be the last. According to Survival International, which helps protect tribal peoples, there are still over a hundred tribes around the world 鈥� an estimated 40,000 people 鈥� who still have no sustained contact with outsiders.
How do we know such people exist? Usually it鈥檚 from reports by missionaries, organisations like Survival International, government investigators or neighbouring tribes, who may have had fleeting glimpses of the people or seen telltale signs of fires.
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For some, no contact is clearly the way they want it. One of the best known groups is the Sentinelese, a tribe of between 50 and 200 people who live on the tiny North Sentinel Island in the Andaman Islands. They have resisted contact for as long as anyone can remember, sometimes resorting to violence. In January 2006 they killed two fishermen who strayed too close to the shore, and when the Indian government sent a reconnaissance helicopter in the wake of the 2004 tsunami they fired arrows at it.
The Sentinelese are unusual in that they are the original settlers of the land they inhabit. Most people who resist contact are essentially refugees, fleeing to avoid loggers, oil companies, farmers, missionaries, drug traffickers or tourists.
Many of these communities are on the brink of extinction. In 1995, for example, FUNAI, the Brazilian government鈥檚 Indian affairs department, made contact with the Kano锚 people in Rond么nia who were under siege from hostile cattle ranchers. There were only five left. Soon after, the Kano锚 told FUNAI about another isolated group of six, called the Akuntsu, living nearby.
Sometimes the decision to make contact is taken by the tribe itself, as a last resort. In 1998 another Andaman tribe, the Jarawa, came out of the forest to visit settlements. It seems that pressure from poachers drove them to it.
According to Survival International, a tribe鈥檚 population often plummets after first contact as a result of violence or disease. In the early 1970s, up to 80 per cent of the Panar谩 tribe in Brazil were wiped out within 10 years of first contact. If they survive the initial shock they usually begin to grow again after 20 to 30 years.
Could there be any more uncontacted people out there that we don鈥檛 know about? Perhaps. In January, FUNAI reportedly upped its 2005 estimate of the number of uncontacted tribes in Brazil from 40 to 67. In an aerial survey of West Papua, Indonesia, in 2002, missionaries reported sightings of over 40 tribes, but that鈥檚 probably an underestimate. Large parts of the island of New Guinea have yet to be explored by outsiders because they are inaccessible or simply too dangerous.
So where might be the last place on Earth to make contact with outsiders? The depths of the Amazon or the forests in New Guinea are both good bets, but for the sake of the people themselves, let鈥檚 hope first contact doesn鈥檛 happen for a long time. Or better still, that it doesn鈥檛 happen at all.
