Brazil’s biggest and most ambitious expedition in decades to contact a voluntarily isolated Aboriginal tribe has been declared a success after venturing deep into remote and inaccessible Amazon jungle.
The rare expedition aimed to prevent potential conflict between tribal groups in a vast and remote reserve near the Peruvian border.
Thirty people, including officials from Aboriginal agency FUNAI, Aborigines from four local tribes, a doctor and medical officials, successfully contacted and vaccinated 34 people from the Korubo tribe.
“We had some incredible moments which we will never forget. Our hope is that [the Korubos’] lives are good from here on,” expedition leader Bruno Pereira said.
The expedition made contact with group of 34 Korubo people, including eight men, six women, children and three babies, FUNAI said in a statement.
The group lives by hunting and growing crops such as banana, corn and manioc.
The expedition set off along the Coari River in the Javari Valley on March 3. The densely forested reserve — home to about 6,000 Aborigines from eight tribes and 16 voluntarily isolated groups — is only accessible by boat or helicopter.
Among its 30 members were six Korubo people who had previously made contact.
They searched the forest for more than a week, finding the isolated group’s village on March 13, but not the tribespeople.
On March 19, Xuxu Korubo, himself only contacted in 2015, and others met two men from the group out hunting — both Xuxu’s brothers. When the whole group was together, he found a third brother and others met relatives they had not seen in years.
“It was extremely emotional,” Pereira said. “They were hugging, crying a lot.”
One member of the isolated group had malaria, but has been treated and they have all now been vaccinated for viruses such as measles and flu that can prove deadly for people with no immunity.
The Korubo have a long history of resisting invaders, and the first group was contacted in 1996.
Another isolated Korubo group had a long-running dispute over territory with a neighboring tribe, the Matis, who wear Western clothes, hunt with guns and were contacted in 1975.
Pereira said it was because tensions have continued to simmer, with Matis complaining that isolated Korubo were appearing near their villages and Korubo anxious to contact relatives.
FUNAI decided to intervene to avoid “a new confrontation,” Pereira said before setting off in February, adding that he was also concerned that non-contacted Korubo could be exposed to viruses the Matis have.
“We let the relatives do the talking, we don’t want to be invasive. It is an intermediary relationship,” Pereira said. “They are suspicious of us, they don’t like our smell, the smell of soap.”
In a statement, FUNAI President Franklimberg de Freitas said that planning, specialist knowledge and dialogue with local Aborigines meant “the indigenous mission was completed.”
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