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It rises in Ethiopia’s Shewa Highlands, and flows for 760 kms through terraced hillsides, volcanic outcrops and fertile grasslands as far as the world’s greatest desert lake, Lake Turkana, in Kenya. The lower valley of the Omo River is believed by some historians to have been a cultural crossroads for thousands of years, where a…
His name means “Hawk” in his language. Yet even with the acuity of vision the moniker suggests, Karapiru could not have foreseen thetragedy that befell his people, the Awá tribe of northeastern Brazil. He could never have imagined the day that he would flee for his life far into the rainforest, a shotgun pellet burning…
For International’s Women Day on the 8th of March I profiled the pictures and stories of inspiring tribal women around the world who are fighting for their fundamental human rights. Tribal women have known brutal displacement, fear, murder and rape at the hands of invaders, for decades. They have suffered humiliation by governments that…
“You say laughter and I say larfter,” sang Louis Armstrong. The difference is subtle. Across the world, however, from the Amazon to the Arctic, tribal peoples say it in 4,000 entirely different ways. Sadly, no one now says “laughter” in Eyak, a language from the Gulf of Alaska, whose last fluent speaker died in 2008, or in the…
ON the forested western edge of Maranhao state in north-east Brazil lives the Awá tribe. One of only two nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes left in Brazil, the Awa have long lived in this area, which lies between the equatorial forests of Amazonia and the drier savannas to the east. They are the most threatened tribe in…
We live in a beautiful world. For generations, tribal peoples have been the guardians of their diverse habitats - tundra, sea-ice, mountains, deserts, oceans and prairies; for most, land and life are inextricably linked. Earth is the bedrock of their lives, the provider of food and shelter, the sacred burial ground of their ancestors and…
Between the dry grasslands of the cerrado savanna and the tropical forest of western Brazil lies the valley of the Juruena river, the homeland of the Enawene Nawe. The Mato Grosso state government is building a series of hydroelectric dams upriver of the tribe’s land. The dams threaten the tribe’s forest home, the fish they…
In north-east Brazil, between the equatorial forests of Amazonia and the dry cerrado savanna, lies Maranhão state, home to the Awá tribe. One of only two nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes left in Brazil, the tribe has a profoundly intimate relationship with their forest, which provides food, shelter and spiritual solace. They survive by hunting for game…
The view from the air: a brilliant green sea of Amazonian forest, interrupted by a circular, palm-thatched dwelling. It was once thought that all Yanomami Indians of the Brazilian Amazon had been contacted during the latter half of the 20th century. This photograph shows otherwise. Released by Survival International this week, the image reveals that…
‘I was born in the forest, and I grew up there. I know it well, ‘ says Davi Kopenawa, a Yanomami spokesman from the Brazilian Amazon, who has devoted his life to fighting for the Yanomami’s human rights and the environmental protection of his ancestral home. Davi’s knowledge is unsurprising: the Yanomami have lived…
A couple of years ago, I sat with a group of Hadza hunters on a rocky outcrop in the bushland of north-west Tanzania, and listened to them talk about their homeland. It was just after dawn in Yaeda Chini, an area that lies to the south of the Serengeti plains. The Hadza men were…
Autumn in Northern Norway, and a hundred hooves power their way through the freezing waters of Kågsundet fjord, the dark mountains of Uløya rising in the distance. During the summer months, Sámi herders round up their reindeer in Arnøy’s high mountains, in preparation for the migration to the tundra plateau on the mainland. The…
A Mursi boy from Ethiopia’s Omo valley leans on a stick used for ‘thagine’, the tribe’s ritual duelling, and stares at the camera. His upper arms are decorated with beaded cuffs, his face painted with white clay. The lower valley of the Omo River is believed to have been a cultural crossroads for thousands…
On every continent, from the green depths of the Amazon basin to the icy reaches of the Arctic tundra, children raised in tribal communities are taught the skills and values that have ensured the survival of their peoples for generations. Tribal children are the inheritors of their territories, languages and unique ways of seeing the…
A hundred years ago in Peru, a tall history professor from Yale University left his camp in a valley northwest of Cusco, and walked through cloud forest to a mountain ridge more than 7,500 feet above sea level. There, high above the roaring Urubamba river, he found an ancient stone citadel; sculpted terraces of temples…
The rainforest of Sarawak in Borneo, East Malaysia, is one of the most ancient and biologically rich forests on earth, and home to the Penan people, a hunter-gatherer tribe. The Penan have lived in harmony with their forest with its vast trees, rare orchids, fast-flowing rivers and twisting networks of limestone caves for thousands of…
Kallawaya Medicine Man, Bolivia. © 2011 Yoshi Shimizu / www.yoshi-shimizu.com The Bolivian Kallawaya, itinerant healers who are thought to have been the naturopathic healers for Inca Kings, still travel through the Andean mountain valleys and highland plateaus in search of traditional herbs. They have their own family language that has been handed down from father…
Picture Gallery ‘Words by Joanna Eede, editorial consultant at Survival International, the international movement for tribal peoples (www.survivalinternational.org). Photographs by © Cat Vinton.
The remaining hundred uncontacted tribes in the world capture the imagination of millions of “civilized” people. Yet they are the last cultures fully engaged with their natural environment. If they are stripped of their ancestral land, all of humankind will have lost the last people who truly understand our connections with the Earth.
