The tribes that have established contact with the modern world wear leather clothes made from the animals they catch. Most of the uncontacted tribes living deep in the jungle go naked, except for the jewelry they make from bones and teeth. The clothing tradition and habits differ from tribe to tribe.
Tribes normally live a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, feasting on vegetables, fruits, grains, fish, and animals such as wild pigs, alligators, monkeys, jaguars, sloths, armadillo’s, ocelot, snakes, tarantulas, scorpions, otters, and birds. The Amazon is the biggest jungle and the home to a vast variety of wild food, as well as many animal species consumed by humans. It is likely they use the same plants to make natural oils included in modern types of mosquito repellent.
Other tribes use vegetable dyes that are a natural insect repellent, to paint their bodies.
For example, the Korubo tribe plaster clay on their skin to keep mosquitos off, which is why they are called Korubo, or “the dirty ones’’. Some defense mechanisms against these insects have become tribal symbols. One small but mighty threat is mosquitos. In the past several centuries, they have been hiding from the “outside world” in order to protect themselves from people with the intention to harm them.ĭespite their protection from the foreign people, tribes also face the dangers of Mother Nature. Skilled in constructing houses very quickly, the forest tribes use a practice of digging very deep holes in the ground for hiding, as they use them to hide from animals and enemy tribes that they can’t defeat. In both rivers and deep forest settlements, tribes live in deceptively simple houses made of bamboo and wood. Tribes within the Amazon forest have access to different areas, with different natural resources and conditions. They specialize in the manufacture of bow and arrow as a tool to hunt, which also involves detailed work and craftsmanship.Īmazonian Indians Habitat, Food and Clothes The Matsés people that live on the shores of the Yaquerana river, an area between the borders of Peru and Brazil, and si nce 1998, have legal titles to their own territory. The Matsés tribe is another example in which some members of the community still live in isolation. However, over the last 20 years, sightings of tribe members have increased, reaching out to outsiders asking for food or clothing. During the rubber boom era, the tribe was slaughtered by the army of the Peruvian rubber Barron Carlos Fitzcarrald, forcing the few survivors to retreat to the depths of the rainforest. This tribe of nomadic hunter-gatherers speak a dialect of the Yine language, which is part of the ancient indigenous linguistic family of “Arawak”.
The Mashco-Piro tribe are among the uncontacted native people that live in Manú National Park, in the Madre de Dios region of Peru. The Peruvian Amazon is home to an estimated 15 uncontacted tribes, almost all nomads that change location across the rainforest depending on the season, rainy or dry. However, the term “uncontacted” is rather imprecise given the fact that there are very few tribes that have managed to completely avoid contact with the outside world, choosing only to engage with neighboring tribes. Many of these tribes are nomadic, and over the past several decades have been forced to move constantly in order to avoid contact with modern settlers. The tribes that defiantly resist contact with the outside world by living deep inside the Amazon rainforest are referred to as “indigenous peoples in isolation”. Being very skilled hunters, they also use handmade bows and arrows to catch animals and fish for food. They use the fertile soil for agriculture, growing fruits, and vegetables such as corn and beans. Most of the Amazon tribes that live by the rivers are in contact with the rest of the world. The Amazon rainforest today still houses many indigenous tribes, some of which are referred to as “uncontacted” - tribes continuously trying to live by the rules of nature alone.ĭivided into around 400 tribes, Indians of the Amazon rainforest live in settled villages by the rivers, or as nomads deep inside the forest. People have always been a part of the rich biodiversity of Amazonia as it is the ancestral home to more than one million native Indians. The largest tropical rainforest in the world, the Amazon jungle spreads over 5.5 million km² and has been the life-giving home to countless species for millions of years.