Automatic cameras in the Brazilian rainforest show images of the Massaco people, who are flourishing despite environmental threats Remarkable images t

Exclusive: photographs reveal first glimpse of uncontacted Amazon community

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2024-12-22 06:30:04

Automatic cameras in the Brazilian rainforest show images of the Massaco people, who are flourishing despite environmental threats

Remarkable images taken by automatic cameras in the Brazilian rainforest reveal an isolated community that appears to be thriving despite pressure from ranchers and illegal encroachment into the Amazon.

The pictures, of a group of men, offer the outside world its first glimpse of the community – and give further evidence the population is growing. The group is known as the Massaco after the river that runs through their lands, but no one knows what they call themselves, while their language, social fabric and beliefs remain a mystery.

Despite unrelenting pressure from agribusiness, loggers, miners and drug traffickers, the Massaco have at least doubled since the early 1990s – to an estimated 200 to 250 people – according to the Brazilian National Indigenous Peoples Foundation (Funai), which has been working for decades to protect the territory. Funai placed the cameras at a spot where it periodically leaves metal implements as gifts, a practice used to dissuade uncontacted people from venturing into farms or logging camps to get tools – as has happened in the past with tragic consequences. Photos of Massaco settlements have been captured previously during Funai expeditions into areas that satellite imagery confirmed had been abandoned.

Years of such indirect observation meant the Massaco were known to hunt with bows that are three metres long, and to move their villages around from season to season within the forest. They discourage outsiders by planting thousands of foot and tyre-piercing spikes in the ground.

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