Look at the Bright Side: They're More Civilized Than the Palestinians

They just want to be left alone.

In a palm-hut encampment, members of an "uncontacted" Amazon tribe fire arrows at an airplane above the rain forest borderlands of Peru and Brazil earlier this month. The black and red dyes covering their bodies are made from crushed seeds and are believed to signal aggression, native-rights experts say.

Released yesterday, the photo—one of several—was taken by officials from Brazil's National Indian Foundation (FUNAI).

Peruvian officials and energy interests have publicly expressed doubt that uncontacted tribes exist in the Amazon.

But the new photos are more proof that uncontacted, seminomadic tribes do exist in the increasingly threatened Amazon rain forest, according to Survival International, an international indigenous-rights group that works closely with FUNAI.

"We are very confident the photos are genuine," said Miriam Ross, a spokesperson for Survival International, which estimates that half of the hundred or so uncontacted tribes in the world live in the rain forests of Brazil and Peru.

It's a jungle down there.

Update: Mike at the Monkey Tennis Centre unearthed some more photos.