These are previously unpublished images revealed by the British newspaper The Guardian and the Brazilian daily O Globothe first photos of an uncontacted indigenous people living in the Amazon rainforest. Members of the Massaco people, photographed by automatic cameras. Their presence was known through indirect traces, but these observations allow us to know them better, and to see that their community seems to be thriving.
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These are photos taken between 2019 and 2024, made public for the first time by daily newspapersThe Guardian and Brazilian O Globo. Small groups of men between 30 and 40 years old, sometimes younger, are installing picks in the jungle.
The Massacos are a people who take their name from the river that passes nearby. But in reality, no one knows what they call themselves, or what their beliefs or social structures are. This group is in fact one of the 61 uncontacted peoples recorded.
Known from traces
Their existence is known, by the discovery of their traces. It is the National Foundation of Indigenous Peoples (FUNAI) in Brazil which carries out this monitoring work and it is its agents who placed the automatic cameras which made it possible to obtain these photos.
Their study allows us to deduce that this community is doing well, that its population is growing. A trend that has been reversed over the past thirty years.
Until the end of the 1980s, the mission of the foundation was precisely to come into contact with these indigenous communities uncontacted people who were obstacles to the economic development of the region. This approach proved catastrophic: illness and misery accompanied their encounter with the rest of the world.
Since then, the strategy has been opposed, and the Massaco region is exclusively reserved for this community without any other activity.
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