January 28, 2010 • 24 mins
In this episode, Josh and Chuck discuss whether there are any truly "undiscovered" groups of people left on the planet, the definition of undiscovered -- and why groups might want to avoid modern civilization.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
from house Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always as
Charles W. Bryant. I'm always there for you, Josh as always. Yes,
(00:25):
I'm contractually obligated today. I know, I know, I know.
So Chuck, you doing are Yeah, dude, how are you doing?
Pretty good? It's Thursday, it's not Friday, but it's a
little gray out for my tastes. Yeah, it's sprinkling, by
the way, I thought it was like pouring rain. Is
it sprinkling? It's sprinkling. That's good. So, um, Chuck, do
(00:46):
you remember can we go back year or so May two, eight?
How many years after Ghostbusters? Let's see how it was?
And yes, we do know that there is a four
years a sequel coming by the way, Yes, Ghostbusters three.
That's gonna be awesome. Should be the entire original caste
(01:07):
except for Sigourney Weaver, which that's okay. Um, yeah, Ghostbusters
three coming out? Right? Where are we So we're we're
twenty four years after Ghostbusters? And um, the news cycle
had this kind of strange occurrence where a bunch of
undiscovered human beings were splashed across the front pages of
(01:31):
newspapers everywhere. Yeah. Yeah, so there's this photo. There are
several photos of these people living in um primitive huts
actually primitive longhouses is what it looks like. Uh. And
they are the it's an aerial photo taken from a
low flying helicopter and they are piste. They have their
(01:52):
like aiming their bows and arrows at the at the camera.
Like see the picture is pretty cool, yea, like get
out of here. Um. And so yeah, like this this
whole thing made the made the news cycle. And Chuck,
I imagine I take from what you said before we
started recording that you have a tad bit of disdain
for the let's see journalism that was applied to this. Yeah. Well,
(02:14):
first of all, should we go ahead and refute it?
Why not? Because they were not, in fact under undiscovered people. No,
And there's actually a huge, huge distinction between undiscovered people
and uncontacted or isolated people, right right, But you would
not know that by reading the Independent from London, which
I'm disappointed because I like that paper. No, I'm sorry,
(02:36):
I could care less about the Independence The Guardian Like, yeah,
you like the Guardian, not the Daily Mail the Independent. Uh.
Here's here's how the article opens up. Beneath the picture
of the you know, clearly savage and everything, with the
arrow pointing at the helicopter, three near naked figures are
visible in the forest clearing. Two of them are in
(02:57):
their bodies daubed with a red dye and are aiming
their bows at the sky. A third figure appears to
be a woman, her body blackened and only her pale
hands and face betraying her natural color. This remarkable photograph
is the first proof of existence of one of the
world's last uncontacted tribes. So they do say uncontacted. That's good,
(03:19):
but not everybody did, though sure it's a little overblown.
That was a fine dramatic reading their chuck. I think
the funniest thing that would have happened is if he
would have shot that arrow and it would have somehow
disrupted the propeller of the helicopter and it would have,
you know, landed safely on the beach for them to
be eaten. That would have been a nice ending. There
are tons of rumors of cannibalism about undiscovered purple right. Um.
(03:42):
In this specific case, there is a guy named Carlos
dos race Moreles. My Spanish is a little rusty, but
I think that's about right. Um. And uh he is
an Indian expert. I just made air quotes and these
photos were taken in Brazil, right Um. This guy laid
the search for this tribe, right and um. As the
(04:06):
as I guess he kind of watched with horror hopefully
as they were described as undiscovered and knowing had ever
found them before. He's he came out and was like, wait, wait,
now I've been following these people for the last twenty years,
so they're not undiscovered. See, I thought he that was
part of the deploy for him. That was he taken
aback by that, you think? I thought, maybe that's how
we got the funding to get the research team, by
(04:28):
saying that we'll find out. Well, let's talk about it.
Is it even possible to be undiscovered? Well that's what
this podcast is about, buddy. And you know what, it's
kind of impossible these days. Yeah. We have things like GPS,
we have things like heat sensors that can be attached
to airplanes, which you know, body heat sensors. Um. There
(04:50):
is almost complete and total encroachment and harnessment of any
square parcel of land on the planet. Yeah, most everywhere.
But that doesn't mean that there aren't people who are
who live outside I guess the French, who live primitively
and remain in a I guess primitive state. These are
(05:13):
the uncontacted people. Yeah, isolation. Basically, they first they called
them undiscovered, then they say uncontacted, and then they finally
settle on isolated, which means more than anything is they
don't want any part of us, Yeah, and that we
don't want a part of them, because we're always interested.
We are, and usually with um murderous results. Right. Yeah,
(05:34):
these people have learned the hard way. Um. And some
of these uncontacted tribes also, we should say, don't even
we have no idea what they call themselves. Right. So
there's this there's a group actually called Survival International, and
they are dedicated to preserving indigenous ways of lives these tribes,
for these for uncontacted tribes who have rejected modernization. Right,
(05:58):
because that's the thing you think about it, when it's
undiscovered or they're uncontacted, you you kind of pointed out,
we just tend to think like, oh, they don't know
about civilization or you know, these poor fools they don't
know about you know, television or running theft Auto six
And they would clearly be better off if we gave
them TV, or made them Christians, or or did whatever
(06:23):
you know, made them slaves. Yeah, which we have a fine,
fine tradition of doing. And um in this Uh, who's
this kid who wrote this? Patrick Kaiger? Yeah, I hadn't either,
but he's pretty good. Yeah, he does say that it
goes back to Columbus, it goes well back before that. Um.
The Portuguese in particular love to enslave Africans, and actually
(06:44):
African tribes used to enslave one another. They had a
completely different method and system of slavery. Uh. Slaves were
treated much better among African tribes, especially West African tribes,
um so where they would eat at the same table
as the people that own them. And of course the
Romans use slaves. The jew spent a good portion of
(07:07):
their history as slaves of the Egyptians. So I mean
whenever we come upon new people or subjugate them, we
we have a history of enslaving them. Like, yeah, we
tend to conquer. Like Chris Columbus met the very friendly
Arowack people and instead of saying, well, we can learn
from them, he thought they would make really good servants, right,
how hard working they are and they don't even speak English,
(07:28):
so who cares, right, exactly? Well. They were also looked
upon as savages are less than human, which definitely aided
the subjugation of their their I don't know, blood right,
Do you know why? Why? Because back before everything was
discovered and there was still a lot of undiscovered land
and they were making maps, the map makers would often
(07:49):
chart these undiscovered lands as being filled with you know,
mutant human beings and scary beasts for some reason, like
here there be monsters because we haven't gotten around the
mapping this area yet, so just assume that there's some
sort of water serpent that's going to eat your boat. Yeah,
I guess I don't know why. They tended to strike
fear into people into explorers instead of saying there might
be very friendly people. Maybe caution fear of the unknown.
(08:12):
You think so, But Josh, these days, virtually every corner
of the Earth has been explored, except for obviously parts
of Antarctica and map which I had never heard of, you,
whereas in Brazil, and they said that this territory in
northern Brazil is still unexplored forest, right, so it's possible
(08:34):
there are undiscovered people out there maybe, right, If there
are undiscovered people out there, they are in big trouble
because if the uncontacted or isolated people are any indication
in their polite um, then yeah, any undiscovered people are
really kind of screwed. Um. You know, we talked about
Chris Columbus and subjugating people and actually, uh, Columbus is
(08:57):
quite the little genocidal maniac was. We covered that in
one of the other podcasts we did. We did um
because not only did he enslave them, he killed them,
had them killed like the entire groups of people are
assumed to have been wiped out by European colonization, and
not just through brute force, but this, uh, this type
of genocide, and especially if you look at a genocide
(09:20):
as the the by its definition that it's the systematic
wiping out of a group, right like a people or
a population, then it's still continues today as recently as
the the eighties the nineties in Brazil are you talking
about the microbes or are you talking about outright violence,
violence specifically against the akun Zoo. Yes, Josh, the akun
(09:44):
Zoo who seemed like a friendly tribe that grew corn
and hunted and remote Brazil for thousands of years until
they were discovered and it was discovered that their land
could be used for soy cultivation and cattle right so
uh and log actually right, So the companies put in
logging roads and into these this virgin territory where the
(10:07):
accun Zoo lived, and they actually came upon them. And
it's part of Brazil's constitution that, um, the moment you
meet an uncontacted tribes person or an undiscovered person, all
work stops. So with the logging companies and the soybean
farming concerns and the cattle ranchers did was higher assassins
(10:31):
like death squads. When they did meet the accun Zoo
uh and sent them in and actually masacred them with guns.
These people used bows and arrows, and these guys came
in with machine guns and killed all but seven of
the entire tribe. Then they fled, sadly they fled, and
into just last year, a newspaper reported that there were
(10:53):
only five living a kun zoo in the world and
that was that wasn't you know, very shameful. Yeah, but
they are not Josh the most isolated tribe according to
Survival International, aren't they know? That would be the Sentinel Ees.
Have you ever heard of these guys? Now? I hadn't
(11:13):
and I saw that video you sent me. There's a
clip on you tube. Yeah, I think what did you
just search the centinnalies and it came up there was
a couple of eclips, I think nat g. I went
down there and they did the same thing. They came
out of the jungle onto the beach and what it
looked like in the video, or that is their interpretation,
was they were making friendly gestures. Um. I did see
another one where they had the bow and arrow out
(11:34):
and um I was laughing that. When I was watching
it earlier, part of me expected like hippie Rob to
come out as their leader. Yeah, he's like the God,
He's like Brando and Apocalypse now exactly. Um and the
Sentinel needs Josh where they They are believed to be
descended from the very first humans in Africa, and technically
(11:54):
we all are, but These people are directly descended from
the first group that migrated out about sixty thousand years ago. Right.
They live on the and Aman Islands, Indian Ocean. And
did you notice how clear that water was and how
white those beaches were. I wouldn't leave either, dude, it
was gorgeous. Needs TV and Xbox when you've got that,
you know, Right, So these people will come out of
(12:17):
the jungle if you throw coconuts into the water at
the beach. That's what they were doing, right, what was it. Yeah,
these this group of people were sitting there throwing coconuts
into the water, and the uh sentinels came out and
we're like, thanks for the coconuts. Well, they probably thought
it's raining coconuts from the giant monster. But they are
actually not primitive Stone age folks from what they say.
(12:39):
Survival International says they're actually do make tools and weapons
from recovered metal from shipwrecks. Right, pretty cool. They are
actually not threatened. They're very isolated and relatively uncontacted. Um,
but they're not threatened. They live on an island that
no one really has any interest in, right exactly. But
as we saw with the a Kunzo though, UM if
(13:02):
there is money to be made off of the indigenous land,
you're you're in trouble. Soy oil, Yeah, Cattle Survival International
actually named all of those oil um farming, cattle and
logging UH as the the dominant threat to uncontacted tribes.
There's supposedly an estimated hundred uncontacted tribes in the world. Yeah,
(13:27):
I was kind of surprised. That's a lot. And it's
sad that these people are around for sixty thou years
doing their thing, doing their thing long before us, and
we just come in and say, hey, this would make
a great soy farm. So I'm going to massacre you.
Then about the bail out and they're like, we're staying here,
not for us now. So UM, there's five regions that
(13:50):
are under the greatest threat right now and they're in Brazil, Paraguay,
and Peru. And actually there's tons of evidence there's groups
dedicated like Rival International UM and other n g o s.
And then there's actually government ministries set up in Brazil
and in Peru and I think Paraguay UM that are
(14:13):
in charge of keeping track of these uncontacted tribes, which
is really difficult to do UH. And a lot of times.
These uncontacted tribes are slivers offshoots of other tribes that
have had their land disturbed by logging or um mining
oil companies. So they would join up with another tribe
and you know, they just take off into the forest.
(14:35):
No one would know how many there were, that kind
of thing, but yeah, they would be living primitively, but
they're getting pushed further and further out or being massacred,
or they're coming into contact with disease. Right, Yeah, that's
what I'm talking about with the microbes. Violence is obviously
a big threat, but they say that a bigger threat
are uh, these people that these tribes that lack communities
(14:57):
to these awful diseases that twentieth century man has twenty
century man, excuse me, sure it's the future. Yeah, uh yeah,
there's actually uh that favorite book of mine in four
Charles C. Man talks about how there's an estimated hundred
million people living on in the America's uh in four
(15:20):
and then I think nine were wiped out by smallpox,
thank you, like within a few decades. And Josh, it
didn't just happen way back then, like you said. In
the eighties, the some Christian missionaries made contact with the
Zoe tribe in Brazil, and in pretty short form, forty
five members of that tribe died from the flu, malaria,
(15:43):
and respiratory diseases. Just like that. And uh, more recently,
in nine half of the Maroon whoa maroona whoa tribe
I think in Brazil. Uh, they were contacted by illegal
loggers and half of the tribe was wiped out, um
from respiratory illnesses. I think. So it's not like to
(16:05):
bring up one of our favorite movies again. It's not
like bringing orange soda to the Waponi Woo. Joe versus
the Volcano. Oh yeah, it's not like that in real life.
I thought you were talking about, Um, the gods must
be crazy. Not another good one though. But it's not
like the Joe Versus Volcano. It's not all happy, go lucky.
They usually make contact with them. And even in the
(16:25):
case of the Christian missionaries who were trying to do
good I guess, and ended up killing a lot of them,
and the Brazilian government stepped in and actually kicked them
out the religious group and said now you gotta get
out of here. Yeah. And apparently even when the thing
is when contact is made as safely as possible and
there's a medical contingency plan in place. Uh, it's expected
that a lot of the tribes people will die. But
(16:48):
if there's if it's if they're made through illegal loggers
or a Christian missionary group that doesn't know what they're doing,
then uh, yeah, a lot of people die. If not
the entire group. Right, That tribe did recover, though, we
should note, yeah, which is good news to get out
of here Christian missionary so we can live peacefully and helpfully.
So Chuck, is it good to even contact these people? Well,
(17:10):
it can be good and bad because obviously if you
make contact and you know a little bit about their
way of life, you can protect them. But it's also,
like this newspaper article, it also opens them up to
a being invaded or watched or in this case, what
what was the the tourism trip? Tell him about that
that's awful savage tourism. Yeah. Actually, the guy who um
(17:33):
was responsible for leading the expedition that produced those photographs
that made the paper in two thousand and eight was
apparently approached by travel agents who wanted him to set
up a savage tourism trip, which can't you just see
a bunch of like fat white Germans and Americans Like
who I want to touch you right now? Your whole
tribes wiped out And now let's get back on the
(17:54):
cruise ship and look at the ice sculpture. Like like
I said, Um, the Brazil has it in has mentioned
uncontacted and undiscovered people in its constitution in large part
because of that unexplored forests in that just that one territory.
They have a real You don't have that in America,
(18:14):
Like we don't have to worry about, you know, how
to treat undiscovered tribes. We figured out how to treat
the ones we're familiar with badly enough, right, Um. But
so Brazil apparently recognizes that like, hey, this is your land,
right and you legally own it. If you're an uncontacted
or isolated tribe, nobody can touch it, but then has
(18:34):
a really terrible history of following through on stopping people
from going in logging in oil. Peru's history is even worse.
They have some uncontacted tribes and threatened uncontacted tribes and
Peru's president is like, I'm not even sure they exist.
And by the way, the French oil company that's working
in this area where they supposedly exist. I've now just
(18:57):
decreed that their work is a national nessas city. So
when you when you're an uncontacted tribe and you're butting
heads with an oil company, you're gonna lose. Yeah, I
would say so, but I will say Paraguay, hats off
to Paraguay because they actually the environmental nice Chuck just
took his head off to the environmental ministry revoked the
(19:18):
license of a ranching concern that was just decimating and
I don't mean in the literal like removing ten percent term, right,
I mean like decimating all you Latin speakers out there,
the um the this land that technically belongs to the
indigenous uncontacted tribes there. So so they booted them out
(19:39):
or they just took away their permits. They took away
their permits, which is pretty much tantamount to booting them out. Awesome. Yeah,
it's just so sad that when you know, such a
modernist point of view to see these undiscovered or uncontacted
people and think that their savages and that their way
of life is is savage and primitive. It's just they
were here first. Well, I mean we were, we were,
(20:01):
we were all here first, we were all here at
the same time. But it's just a complete lack of
recognition of other people's choices. Yeah, and in respect for
other other cultures in ways of life, and because again
didn't fly around here. There's no grand theft auto in
the jungle. No, there's not. No, there's no auto. If
you want to learn more about people undiscovered or otherwise,
(20:22):
you should try typing in people in the Andy serge
bar How stuff works dot com. It brings up a
hidden sub channel. Really yes, uh and uh, I guess
since I said hidden subchannel, that means it's time for
what Chuck listener mail, Yes, Josh, it is. And before
we do that, we want to send a thank you
to Dan of the pottery Dan Dan made, Dan made.
(20:46):
He has a little uh etsy website, Dan made dot
et s y dot com and he makes pottery. And
he sent us some really awesome coffee mugs. Yes, Dan
made very cool mugs. And actually it's my my work mug.
Now that's what do he is? I noticed cool detail.
You've got an octopus on yours with a pipe smoking
a pipe. I can't tell what mine is. It's some
(21:06):
little dude. But it's just got cool details, got swirls
in the bottom, little intentions, and only some parts of
it are glazed and others raw. It's Dan, Maide knows
what he's doing. So thanks Dan, and you know what,
you want to bring up people who have been sending
us little gifts, and it's just really nice to come
into work and have someone you know, Uh what was
her name that sent us the Twinkie the homemade Twinkie
(21:27):
the Kid shirts. I don't remember her name. She's like
Kaya or something like Kyla. I believe she should write
in because I told her that I would mention her
little website too. Okay, yeah, yeah, we got Twinky the
Kid t shirts because remember we talked about how badly
we wanted something. So with that listener, ma'am all right,
I'm gonna call this, uh organ donation details from someone
(21:50):
who knows. Uh. Hi, Josh and Chuckers and Jerry. I'm
an anesthesiologist who specializes an organ transplantation, specifically livers and kidneys.
In fact, we performed a liver transplant just last night
and I'm home resting after what is always an exhausting procedure. Ah,
he thought we might want a few more details about
organ donations. So he says this um they do not
(22:13):
get to meet the donor and the recipient until after
a period of time, usually a year, and only after
both agreed to meet. But we also had people that
wrote in and said they met like weeks later, So
it might vary by hospital or state. Yeah, I'm not sure,
or maybe there's just an agreement you go into. But
he says, they can trade letters and get very basic,
(22:33):
unidentifiable information about each other, but it all gets censored
by the organ procurement organization. This is because of this
recipient does not live or the organ fails, the recipient
or donor won't blame the donor or in their families. Also,
if the organ works, they don't want the parties involved
feeling unduly indebted to the donor. After all, it's supposed
(22:53):
to be a free gift with no strings attached. After
they have both had time to adjust to their new
lives and agreed and prepared to meet, they can meet.
That being said, people can still find each other if
they are looking in turn to the same websites specifically
designed to link donor to recipient. Although it is strongly discouraged,
So maybe that was the deal. They did it in serpticism.
(23:13):
So I thought somebody came up at the website and
make money off of people who want to meet the
people who donated a kidney to them. What a great
world we live in. I thought your listeners would want
to know this, and I hope it encourages would be
donors that they don't have to meet the recipient if
they think it would be too difficult with guards. Todd.
Thanks Todd the anesthesiologist. Yeah, and didn't he say that
(23:36):
it's uh like you. You die very easily if you're
over anesthetized during a liver Yeah, he's a ps here.
If you want to know why an anesty caesiologist would
need to specialize in liver transplantation, ask yourself if you
would like to wake up during a procedure where patients
don't tolerate anesthetics very well, and if you would like
your new liver to have something to cleanse. He says,
(23:59):
very mysterious. Stud I just asked myself that, and I
have no answer. I don't need So if you bring
people to the drink of death and you want to
tell us about it, or if you make money off
of genuine human kindness. We want to hear your ploy.
You can write it in an email and send it
to stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com. For
(24:27):
more on this and thousands of other topics, is that
how stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works,
check out our blogs on the house. Stuff works dot
com home page. Brought to you by the reinvented two
thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
from house Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always as
Charles W. Bryant. I'm always there for you, Josh as always. Yes,
(00:25):
I'm contractually obligated today. I know, I know, I know.
So Chuck, you doing are Yeah, dude, how are you doing?
Pretty good? It's Thursday, it's not Friday, but it's a
little gray out for my tastes. Yeah, it's sprinkling, by
the way, I thought it was like pouring rain. Is
it sprinkling? It's sprinkling. That's good. So, um, Chuck, do
(00:46):
you remember can we go back year or so May two, eight?
How many years after Ghostbusters? Let's see how it was?
And yes, we do know that there is a four
years a sequel coming by the way, Yes, Ghostbusters three.
That's gonna be awesome. Should be the entire original caste
(01:07):
except for Sigourney Weaver, which that's okay. Um, yeah, Ghostbusters
three coming out? Right? Where are we So we're we're
twenty four years after Ghostbusters? And um, the news cycle
had this kind of strange occurrence where a bunch of
undiscovered human beings were splashed across the front pages of
(01:31):
newspapers everywhere. Yeah. Yeah, so there's this photo. There are
several photos of these people living in um primitive huts
actually primitive longhouses is what it looks like. Uh. And
they are the it's an aerial photo taken from a
low flying helicopter and they are piste. They have their
(01:52):
like aiming their bows and arrows at the at the camera.
Like see the picture is pretty cool, yea, like get
out of here. Um. And so yeah, like this this
whole thing made the made the news cycle. And Chuck,
I imagine I take from what you said before we
started recording that you have a tad bit of disdain
for the let's see journalism that was applied to this. Yeah. Well,
(02:14):
first of all, should we go ahead and refute it?
Why not? Because they were not, in fact under undiscovered people. No,
And there's actually a huge, huge distinction between undiscovered people
and uncontacted or isolated people, right right, But you would
not know that by reading the Independent from London, which
I'm disappointed because I like that paper. No, I'm sorry,
(02:36):
I could care less about the Independence The Guardian Like, yeah,
you like the Guardian, not the Daily Mail the Independent. Uh.
Here's here's how the article opens up. Beneath the picture
of the you know, clearly savage and everything, with the
arrow pointing at the helicopter, three near naked figures are
visible in the forest clearing. Two of them are in
(02:57):
their bodies daubed with a red dye and are aiming
their bows at the sky. A third figure appears to
be a woman, her body blackened and only her pale
hands and face betraying her natural color. This remarkable photograph
is the first proof of existence of one of the
world's last uncontacted tribes. So they do say uncontacted. That's good,
(03:19):
but not everybody did, though sure it's a little overblown.
That was a fine dramatic reading their chuck. I think
the funniest thing that would have happened is if he
would have shot that arrow and it would have somehow
disrupted the propeller of the helicopter and it would have,
you know, landed safely on the beach for them to
be eaten. That would have been a nice ending. There
are tons of rumors of cannibalism about undiscovered purple right. Um.
(03:42):
In this specific case, there is a guy named Carlos
dos race Moreles. My Spanish is a little rusty, but
I think that's about right. Um. And uh he is
an Indian expert. I just made air quotes and these
photos were taken in Brazil, right Um. This guy laid
the search for this tribe, right and um. As the
(04:06):
as I guess he kind of watched with horror hopefully
as they were described as undiscovered and knowing had ever
found them before. He's he came out and was like, wait, wait,
now I've been following these people for the last twenty years,
so they're not undiscovered. See, I thought he that was
part of the deploy for him. That was he taken
aback by that, you think? I thought, maybe that's how
we got the funding to get the research team, by
(04:28):
saying that we'll find out. Well, let's talk about it.
Is it even possible to be undiscovered? Well that's what
this podcast is about, buddy. And you know what, it's
kind of impossible these days. Yeah. We have things like GPS,
we have things like heat sensors that can be attached
to airplanes, which you know, body heat sensors. Um. There
(04:50):
is almost complete and total encroachment and harnessment of any
square parcel of land on the planet. Yeah, most everywhere.
But that doesn't mean that there aren't people who are
who live outside I guess the French, who live primitively
and remain in a I guess primitive state. These are
(05:13):
the uncontacted people. Yeah, isolation. Basically, they first they called
them undiscovered, then they say uncontacted, and then they finally
settle on isolated, which means more than anything is they
don't want any part of us, Yeah, and that we
don't want a part of them, because we're always interested.
We are, and usually with um murderous results. Right. Yeah,
(05:34):
these people have learned the hard way. Um. And some
of these uncontacted tribes also, we should say, don't even
we have no idea what they call themselves. Right. So
there's this there's a group actually called Survival International, and
they are dedicated to preserving indigenous ways of lives these tribes,
for these for uncontacted tribes who have rejected modernization. Right,
(05:58):
because that's the thing you think about it, when it's
undiscovered or they're uncontacted, you you kind of pointed out,
we just tend to think like, oh, they don't know
about civilization or you know, these poor fools they don't
know about you know, television or running theft Auto six
And they would clearly be better off if we gave
them TV, or made them Christians, or or did whatever
(06:23):
you know, made them slaves. Yeah, which we have a fine,
fine tradition of doing. And um in this Uh, who's
this kid who wrote this? Patrick Kaiger? Yeah, I hadn't either,
but he's pretty good. Yeah, he does say that it
goes back to Columbus, it goes well back before that. Um.
The Portuguese in particular love to enslave Africans, and actually
(06:44):
African tribes used to enslave one another. They had a
completely different method and system of slavery. Uh. Slaves were
treated much better among African tribes, especially West African tribes,
um so where they would eat at the same table
as the people that own them. And of course the
Romans use slaves. The jew spent a good portion of
(07:07):
their history as slaves of the Egyptians. So I mean
whenever we come upon new people or subjugate them, we
we have a history of enslaving them. Like, yeah, we
tend to conquer. Like Chris Columbus met the very friendly
Arowack people and instead of saying, well, we can learn
from them, he thought they would make really good servants, right,
how hard working they are and they don't even speak English,
(07:28):
so who cares, right, exactly? Well. They were also looked
upon as savages are less than human, which definitely aided
the subjugation of their their I don't know, blood right,
Do you know why? Why? Because back before everything was
discovered and there was still a lot of undiscovered land
and they were making maps, the map makers would often
(07:49):
chart these undiscovered lands as being filled with you know,
mutant human beings and scary beasts for some reason, like
here there be monsters because we haven't gotten around the
mapping this area yet, so just assume that there's some
sort of water serpent that's going to eat your boat. Yeah,
I guess I don't know why. They tended to strike
fear into people into explorers instead of saying there might
be very friendly people. Maybe caution fear of the unknown.
(08:12):
You think so, But Josh, these days, virtually every corner
of the Earth has been explored, except for obviously parts
of Antarctica and map which I had never heard of, you,
whereas in Brazil, and they said that this territory in
northern Brazil is still unexplored forest, right, so it's possible
(08:34):
there are undiscovered people out there maybe, right, If there
are undiscovered people out there, they are in big trouble
because if the uncontacted or isolated people are any indication
in their polite um, then yeah, any undiscovered people are
really kind of screwed. Um. You know, we talked about
Chris Columbus and subjugating people and actually, uh, Columbus is
(08:57):
quite the little genocidal maniac was. We covered that in
one of the other podcasts we did. We did um
because not only did he enslave them, he killed them,
had them killed like the entire groups of people are
assumed to have been wiped out by European colonization, and
not just through brute force, but this, uh, this type
of genocide, and especially if you look at a genocide
(09:20):
as the the by its definition that it's the systematic
wiping out of a group, right like a people or
a population, then it's still continues today as recently as
the the eighties the nineties in Brazil are you talking
about the microbes or are you talking about outright violence,
violence specifically against the akun Zoo. Yes, Josh, the akun
(09:44):
Zoo who seemed like a friendly tribe that grew corn
and hunted and remote Brazil for thousands of years until
they were discovered and it was discovered that their land
could be used for soy cultivation and cattle right so
uh and log actually right, So the companies put in
logging roads and into these this virgin territory where the
(10:07):
accun Zoo lived, and they actually came upon them. And
it's part of Brazil's constitution that, um, the moment you
meet an uncontacted tribes person or an undiscovered person, all
work stops. So with the logging companies and the soybean
farming concerns and the cattle ranchers did was higher assassins
(10:31):
like death squads. When they did meet the accun Zoo
uh and sent them in and actually masacred them with guns.
These people used bows and arrows, and these guys came
in with machine guns and killed all but seven of
the entire tribe. Then they fled, sadly they fled, and
into just last year, a newspaper reported that there were
(10:53):
only five living a kun zoo in the world and
that was that wasn't you know, very shameful. Yeah, but
they are not Josh the most isolated tribe according to
Survival International, aren't they know? That would be the Sentinel Ees.
Have you ever heard of these guys? Now? I hadn't
(11:13):
and I saw that video you sent me. There's a
clip on you tube. Yeah, I think what did you
just search the centinnalies and it came up there was
a couple of eclips, I think nat g. I went
down there and they did the same thing. They came
out of the jungle onto the beach and what it
looked like in the video, or that is their interpretation,
was they were making friendly gestures. Um. I did see
another one where they had the bow and arrow out
(11:34):
and um I was laughing that. When I was watching
it earlier, part of me expected like hippie Rob to
come out as their leader. Yeah, he's like the God,
He's like Brando and Apocalypse now exactly. Um and the
Sentinel needs Josh where they They are believed to be
descended from the very first humans in Africa, and technically
(11:54):
we all are, but These people are directly descended from
the first group that migrated out about sixty thousand years ago. Right.
They live on the and Aman Islands, Indian Ocean. And
did you notice how clear that water was and how
white those beaches were. I wouldn't leave either, dude, it
was gorgeous. Needs TV and Xbox when you've got that,
you know, Right, So these people will come out of
(12:17):
the jungle if you throw coconuts into the water at
the beach. That's what they were doing, right, what was it. Yeah,
these this group of people were sitting there throwing coconuts
into the water, and the uh sentinels came out and
we're like, thanks for the coconuts. Well, they probably thought
it's raining coconuts from the giant monster. But they are
actually not primitive Stone age folks from what they say.
(12:39):
Survival International says they're actually do make tools and weapons
from recovered metal from shipwrecks. Right, pretty cool. They are
actually not threatened. They're very isolated and relatively uncontacted. Um,
but they're not threatened. They live on an island that
no one really has any interest in, right exactly. But
as we saw with the a Kunzo though, UM if
(13:02):
there is money to be made off of the indigenous land,
you're you're in trouble. Soy oil, Yeah, Cattle Survival International
actually named all of those oil um farming, cattle and
logging UH as the the dominant threat to uncontacted tribes.
There's supposedly an estimated hundred uncontacted tribes in the world. Yeah,
(13:27):
I was kind of surprised. That's a lot. And it's
sad that these people are around for sixty thou years
doing their thing, doing their thing long before us, and
we just come in and say, hey, this would make
a great soy farm. So I'm going to massacre you.
Then about the bail out and they're like, we're staying here,
not for us now. So UM, there's five regions that
(13:50):
are under the greatest threat right now and they're in Brazil, Paraguay,
and Peru. And actually there's tons of evidence there's groups
dedicated like Rival International UM and other n g o s.
And then there's actually government ministries set up in Brazil
and in Peru and I think Paraguay UM that are
(14:13):
in charge of keeping track of these uncontacted tribes, which
is really difficult to do UH. And a lot of times.
These uncontacted tribes are slivers offshoots of other tribes that
have had their land disturbed by logging or um mining
oil companies. So they would join up with another tribe
and you know, they just take off into the forest.
(14:35):
No one would know how many there were, that kind
of thing, but yeah, they would be living primitively, but
they're getting pushed further and further out or being massacred,
or they're coming into contact with disease. Right, Yeah, that's
what I'm talking about with the microbes. Violence is obviously
a big threat, but they say that a bigger threat
are uh, these people that these tribes that lack communities
(14:57):
to these awful diseases that twentieth century man has twenty
century man, excuse me, sure it's the future. Yeah, uh yeah,
there's actually uh that favorite book of mine in four
Charles C. Man talks about how there's an estimated hundred
million people living on in the America's uh in four
(15:20):
and then I think nine were wiped out by smallpox,
thank you, like within a few decades. And Josh, it
didn't just happen way back then, like you said. In
the eighties, the some Christian missionaries made contact with the
Zoe tribe in Brazil, and in pretty short form, forty
five members of that tribe died from the flu, malaria,
(15:43):
and respiratory diseases. Just like that. And uh, more recently,
in nine half of the Maroon whoa maroona whoa tribe
I think in Brazil. Uh, they were contacted by illegal
loggers and half of the tribe was wiped out, um
from respiratory illnesses. I think. So it's not like to
(16:05):
bring up one of our favorite movies again. It's not
like bringing orange soda to the Waponi Woo. Joe versus
the Volcano. Oh yeah, it's not like that in real life.
I thought you were talking about, Um, the gods must
be crazy. Not another good one though. But it's not
like the Joe Versus Volcano. It's not all happy, go lucky.
They usually make contact with them. And even in the
(16:25):
case of the Christian missionaries who were trying to do
good I guess, and ended up killing a lot of them,
and the Brazilian government stepped in and actually kicked them
out the religious group and said now you gotta get
out of here. Yeah. And apparently even when the thing
is when contact is made as safely as possible and
there's a medical contingency plan in place. Uh, it's expected
that a lot of the tribes people will die. But
(16:48):
if there's if it's if they're made through illegal loggers
or a Christian missionary group that doesn't know what they're doing,
then uh, yeah, a lot of people die. If not
the entire group. Right, That tribe did recover, though, we
should note, yeah, which is good news to get out
of here Christian missionary so we can live peacefully and helpfully.
So Chuck, is it good to even contact these people? Well,
(17:10):
it can be good and bad because obviously if you
make contact and you know a little bit about their
way of life, you can protect them. But it's also,
like this newspaper article, it also opens them up to
a being invaded or watched or in this case, what
what was the the tourism trip? Tell him about that
that's awful savage tourism. Yeah. Actually, the guy who um
(17:33):
was responsible for leading the expedition that produced those photographs
that made the paper in two thousand and eight was
apparently approached by travel agents who wanted him to set
up a savage tourism trip, which can't you just see
a bunch of like fat white Germans and Americans Like
who I want to touch you right now? Your whole
tribes wiped out And now let's get back on the
(17:54):
cruise ship and look at the ice sculpture. Like like
I said, Um, the Brazil has it in has mentioned
uncontacted and undiscovered people in its constitution in large part
because of that unexplored forests in that just that one territory.
They have a real You don't have that in America,
(18:14):
Like we don't have to worry about, you know, how
to treat undiscovered tribes. We figured out how to treat
the ones we're familiar with badly enough, right, Um. But
so Brazil apparently recognizes that like, hey, this is your land,
right and you legally own it. If you're an uncontacted
or isolated tribe, nobody can touch it, but then has
(18:34):
a really terrible history of following through on stopping people
from going in logging in oil. Peru's history is even worse.
They have some uncontacted tribes and threatened uncontacted tribes and
Peru's president is like, I'm not even sure they exist.
And by the way, the French oil company that's working
in this area where they supposedly exist. I've now just
(18:57):
decreed that their work is a national nessas city. So
when you when you're an uncontacted tribe and you're butting
heads with an oil company, you're gonna lose. Yeah, I
would say so, but I will say Paraguay, hats off
to Paraguay because they actually the environmental nice Chuck just
took his head off to the environmental ministry revoked the
(19:18):
license of a ranching concern that was just decimating and
I don't mean in the literal like removing ten percent term, right,
I mean like decimating all you Latin speakers out there,
the um the this land that technically belongs to the
indigenous uncontacted tribes there. So so they booted them out
(19:39):
or they just took away their permits. They took away
their permits, which is pretty much tantamount to booting them out. Awesome. Yeah,
it's just so sad that when you know, such a
modernist point of view to see these undiscovered or uncontacted
people and think that their savages and that their way
of life is is savage and primitive. It's just they
were here first. Well, I mean we were, we were,
(20:01):
we were all here first, we were all here at
the same time. But it's just a complete lack of
recognition of other people's choices. Yeah, and in respect for
other other cultures in ways of life, and because again
didn't fly around here. There's no grand theft auto in
the jungle. No, there's not. No, there's no auto. If
you want to learn more about people undiscovered or otherwise,
(20:22):
you should try typing in people in the Andy serge
bar How stuff works dot com. It brings up a
hidden sub channel. Really yes, uh and uh, I guess
since I said hidden subchannel, that means it's time for
what Chuck listener mail, Yes, Josh, it is. And before
we do that, we want to send a thank you
to Dan of the pottery Dan Dan made, Dan made.
(20:46):
He has a little uh etsy website, Dan made dot
et s y dot com and he makes pottery. And
he sent us some really awesome coffee mugs. Yes, Dan
made very cool mugs. And actually it's my my work mug.
Now that's what do he is? I noticed cool detail.
You've got an octopus on yours with a pipe smoking
a pipe. I can't tell what mine is. It's some
(21:06):
little dude. But it's just got cool details, got swirls
in the bottom, little intentions, and only some parts of
it are glazed and others raw. It's Dan, Maide knows
what he's doing. So thanks Dan, and you know what,
you want to bring up people who have been sending
us little gifts, and it's just really nice to come
into work and have someone you know, Uh what was
her name that sent us the Twinkie the homemade Twinkie
(21:27):
the Kid shirts. I don't remember her name. She's like
Kaya or something like Kyla. I believe she should write
in because I told her that I would mention her
little website too. Okay, yeah, yeah, we got Twinky the
Kid t shirts because remember we talked about how badly
we wanted something. So with that listener, ma'am all right,
I'm gonna call this, uh organ donation details from someone
(21:50):
who knows. Uh. Hi, Josh and Chuckers and Jerry. I'm
an anesthesiologist who specializes an organ transplantation, specifically livers and kidneys.
In fact, we performed a liver transplant just last night
and I'm home resting after what is always an exhausting procedure. Ah,
he thought we might want a few more details about
organ donations. So he says this um they do not
(22:13):
get to meet the donor and the recipient until after
a period of time, usually a year, and only after
both agreed to meet. But we also had people that
wrote in and said they met like weeks later, So
it might vary by hospital or state. Yeah, I'm not sure,
or maybe there's just an agreement you go into. But
he says, they can trade letters and get very basic,
(22:33):
unidentifiable information about each other, but it all gets censored
by the organ procurement organization. This is because of this
recipient does not live or the organ fails, the recipient
or donor won't blame the donor or in their families. Also,
if the organ works, they don't want the parties involved
feeling unduly indebted to the donor. After all, it's supposed
(22:53):
to be a free gift with no strings attached. After
they have both had time to adjust to their new
lives and agreed and prepared to meet, they can meet.
That being said, people can still find each other if
they are looking in turn to the same websites specifically
designed to link donor to recipient. Although it is strongly discouraged,
So maybe that was the deal. They did it in serpticism.
(23:13):
So I thought somebody came up at the website and
make money off of people who want to meet the
people who donated a kidney to them. What a great
world we live in. I thought your listeners would want
to know this, and I hope it encourages would be
donors that they don't have to meet the recipient if
they think it would be too difficult with guards. Todd.
Thanks Todd the anesthesiologist. Yeah, and didn't he say that
(23:36):
it's uh like you. You die very easily if you're
over anesthetized during a liver Yeah, he's a ps here.
If you want to know why an anesty caesiologist would
need to specialize in liver transplantation, ask yourself if you
would like to wake up during a procedure where patients
don't tolerate anesthetics very well, and if you would like
your new liver to have something to cleanse. He says,
(23:59):
very mysterious. Stud I just asked myself that, and I
have no answer. I don't need So if you bring
people to the drink of death and you want to
tell us about it, or if you make money off
of genuine human kindness. We want to hear your ploy.
You can write it in an email and send it
to stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com. For
(24:27):
more on this and thousands of other topics, is that
how stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works,
check out our blogs on the house. Stuff works dot
com home page. Brought to you by the reinvented two
thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you
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Josh Clark
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