The Observer in London revealed today that the "undiscovered" tribe, located in the Amazon near the Brazilian and Peruvian borders and whose pictures were blasted across major news bureaus all around the world a few weeks ago, aren't so recently discovered after all.
Carlos Meirelles, a "sertanista," or expert on indigenous tribes, working for the Brazilian Indian Protection Agency, apparently had knowledge of this particular tribe for over 20 years and also admitted that the tribe was first known almost a century ago. Meirelles actually sought out the tribe's location and took pictures as a publicity stunt in order to draw public attention to the threat of the logging industry in the Amazon and its impact on indigeneous populations.
Even though it turns out the tribe was not just discovered, it is still quite fascinating for those of us who had previously not been aware that there are many tribes of people living in various parts of the world who have never had direct contact with "modern" civilization and who possibly live as humans did thousands of years ago. To us, the "newly discovered" tag does still apply.
Meirelles says that one reason why he took the pictures and passed them off as an undiscovered tribe was to prove to naysayers (including the president of Peru) who did not believe the claims of the Indian Protection Agency that isolated tribes still exist!
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