Uncontacted Tribe Attack Intruding Loggers With Arrows In The Peruvian Amazon

An uncontacted tribe has attacked loggers using bows and arrows in a contested part of the Peruvian Amazon, according to a local Indigenous coalition. The organization is sharing news of the incident to highlight how the government hasn't done enough to protect the territory of the Mashco Piro from the extraction of forest resources.

FENAMAD , a federation of tribes that live around the Madre de Dios River, claims that at least one logger was seriously injured by an arrow fired by a member of the Mashco Piro tribe on July 27 in the basin of the Pariamanu River in Peru.

The violence reportedly occurred inside part of the rainforest that's acknowledged by the government to be Mashco Piro territory, but has not received formal protection, according to Survival International .

FENAMAD has asked the Peruvian Ministry of Culture, which is responsible for the protection of Indigenous peoples, to coordinate “urgent intervention” to ensure the safety of the Mashco Piro people and prevent future clashes.

“The attack provides further evidence of just how important – and urgent – it is for the whole Mashco Piro territory to be properly protected. It reinforces the need for all the logging licenses in the Mashco Piro territory to be revoked, as it is impossible to protect the lives of either the Mashco Piro or the logging workers,” Survival International, an NGO supporting Indigenous and tribal peoples' rights, said in a statement sent to IFLScience.

The Mashco Piro people are a community of nomadic hunter-gatherers who live in the rainforests of southeast Peru, thought to be one of the largest uncontacted tribes in the world with an estimated 750 members.

The reclusive tribe has good reason to be dubious of outsiders. In the late 19th century, the tribe endured huge suffering at the hands of colonial rubber barons in the western Amazon. Thousands were enslaved, while countless others were hunted down, beaten, chained, robbed, raped, and murdered.

Many of these horrors are documented in the book The Putumayo, the Devil's Paradise by Walter Ernest Hardenburg, first published in 1912. It reads: “They are flogged inhumanly until their bones are laid bare, and great raw sores cover them. They are given no medical treatment, but are left to die, eaten by maggots, when they serve as food for the chiefs’ dogs. They are castrated and mutilated, and their ears, fingers, arms, and legs are cut off. They are tortured by means of fire and water, and by tying them up, crucified head down. Their houses and crops are burned and destroyed wantonly and for amusement.”

Today, the tribe is facing a new threat: deforestation and illegal logging. Just last month, Survival released photographs showing how members of the Mashco Piro tribe were living “dangerously close” to parts of the forest being eyed up by logging companies.

“This is a humanitarian disaster in the making – it’s absolutely vital that the loggers are thrown out, and the Mashco Piro’s territory is properly protected at last,” Caroline Pearce, Survival International Director, said in a statement in July.