The resident Tomas Anez Dos Santos toiled in a modest glade far in the of Peru jungle when he noticed movements coming closer through the lush forest.
He realized that he stood surrounded, and froze.
“One positioned, directing with an bow and arrow,” he states. “Somehow he detected that I was present and I commenced to escape.”
He found himself face to face the Mashco Piro. For a long time, Tomas—residing in the tiny settlement of Nueva Oceania—served as almost a neighbor to these itinerant individuals, who avoid interaction with foreigners.
A recent report from a human rights organisation indicates there are at least 196 of what it calls “isolated tribes” remaining worldwide. The Mashco Piro is thought to be the biggest. The report claims a significant portion of these tribes might be decimated within ten years if governments neglect to implement additional measures to safeguard them.
It argues the greatest dangers stem from timber harvesting, extraction or exploration for petroleum. Uncontacted groups are highly vulnerable to common illness—therefore, the study notes a risk is caused by exposure with religious missionaries and online personalities looking for engagement.
Lately, members of the tribe have been appearing to Nueva Oceania increasingly, according to locals.
The village is a fishing village of seven or eight households, sitting elevated on the shores of the local river in the center of the of Peru rainforest, 10 hours from the nearest town by canoe.
The territory is not designated as a preserved zone for isolated tribes, and timber firms work here.
Tomas says that, on occasion, the sound of logging machinery can be noticed continuously, and the Mashco Piro people are seeing their forest disrupted and ruined.
Within the village, residents report they are conflicted. They dread the projectiles but they also have profound admiration for their “brothers” dwelling in the jungle and want to defend them.
“Allow them to live in their own way, we can't modify their traditions. For this reason we preserve our distance,” explains Tomas.
Inhabitants in Nueva Oceania are concerned about the harm to the tribe's survival, the risk of aggression and the possibility that loggers might subject the tribe to diseases they have no defense to.
While we were in the settlement, the Mashco Piro appeared again. Letitia Rodriguez Lopez, a woman with a two-year-old child, was in the jungle picking fruit when she heard them.
“We heard cries, shouts from others, numerous of them. As if it was a whole group calling out,” she told us.
That was the first time she had come across the tribe and she ran. An hour later, her thoughts was still pounding from fear.
“As there are deforestation crews and companies cutting down the jungle they're running away, possibly because of dread and they come close to us,” she stated. “We don't know what their response may be to us. This is what scares me.”
Two years ago, two loggers were confronted by the Mashco Piro while fishing. One was wounded by an projectile to the gut. He survived, but the other person was found dead after several days with multiple puncture marks in his body.
The Peruvian government has a policy of avoiding interaction with isolated people, rendering it illegal to initiate interactions with them.
This approach was first adopted in Brazil after decades of advocacy by community representatives, who observed that initial exposure with isolated people lead to entire groups being eliminated by disease, poverty and malnutrition.
Back in the eighties, when the Nahau people in the country first encountered with the broader society, a significant portion of their community perished within a matter of years. In the 1990s, the Muruhanua people suffered the same fate.
“Remote tribes are very at risk—in terms of health, any exposure may transmit diseases, and even the simplest ones could wipe them out,” says Issrail Aquisse from a Peruvian indigenous rights group. “In cultural terms, any contact or intrusion could be highly damaging to their existence and survival as a group.”
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