
Do the Amazon’s Last Isolated Tribes Have a Future?
His name is Shuri, but everyone calls him Epa, which means father in the indigenous Pano language family. His wizened face and bare, gnomish feet are familiar to the villagers who live along the Curanja River, which flows through some of the densest rain forest of Peru’s vast Amazon region.
Most of Epa’s tribe remains deep in the jungle, unclothed, hunting with bows and arrows, picking medicinal plants to ward off illness, and avoiding outsiders. But such isolated peoples can no longer depend on the forest as a refuge. In the past year, throughout the Amazon, they have begun to emerge in settled areas in unpredictable, disturbing and occasionally violent ways, often because of hunger or desperation.… Seguir leyendo »