Kawahiva Tribe Amazon – Raw Video Footage
Caught on camera: Isolated Amazon Kawahiva tribe captured for the first time on video before vanishing into the woods after encounter with ‘the enemy’
A newly released video captures the first fleeting images of an indigenous tribe living in Brazil’s Amazon jungle that is thought to have been almost entirely isolated from the outside world.
The rare images show several members of the Kawahiva tribe walking through dense foliage.
Naked men carry bows and arrows, and a woman totes a child on her back. The woman runs away after noticing the camera, and one man briefly doubles back to investigate.
Loggers first reported the existence of the Kawahiva in 1999. A reservation was created last year in the western state of Mato Grosso, but members of the tribe still face grave threats from loggers and farmers.
The video was shot in 2011 by a government agency overseeing indigenous affairs, but was only released Wednesday.
The video clip, which clocks in at 1 minute, 26 seconds, was made by a team of explorers from the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI) – the Brazilian government agency responsible for mapping out and protecting lands traditionally inhabited by indigenous communities.
The recording shows nine members of the rarely seen Kawahiva tribe walking naked through the jungle, armed with bows and arrows.
They were spotted while traveling from one village to another in the heart of the forest bordering the states of Mato Grosso and Amazonas, according to the Brazilian site Jornal Hoje.
At one point, an indigenous woman appears in the frame carrying a child. In the next moment, she becomes alarmed after noticing strangers filming them.
After being warned by his clansmen, a Kawahiva warrior retraces his steps and then hides behind the foliage to observe the intruders.
Once they establish that the newcomers pose no danger to them, the entire group disappear into the dense woods.
The original video recorded by the FUNAI employees contained audio, which picked up on conversations between the Kawahiva tribesman spoken in the Tupi-Kawahiva language, which is common to several tribes in the region.
According to Suely Cabral Anna Arruda, a linguist from the University of Brasilia, the indigenous peopleS in the video were discussing an upcoming hunting expedition when one of the women noticed the camera crew, yelling to the others, ‘tapui,’ which can be roughly translated as ‘it’s the enemy.’
FUNAI employee Jair Candor, who recorded the footage, has made many trips to the remote area of the Amazon to monitor and protect the tribe without forcing contact with them.
‘We were not there to meet them,’ he emphasized to Jornal Hoje.
Prior to the 2011 expedition, which yielded the rare footage of the tribe, scientists only had scant evidence to rely upon in their study of the Kawahiva.
Over the course of two decades, experts have come across several temporary camps in the jungle and found many objects produced by the tribesmen, including a primitive loom used in the making of arrows.
The Kawahiva are hunters-gatherers and lead a nomadic lifestyle, which requires a large territory.
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