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Amazon Tribe's Contact With Outside World Caught On Video

Incredible Video Shows Amazon Tribe's Contact With Outside World

Rare footage of indigenous Amazonian tribesmen's first contact with the outside world has emerged, capturing the attention of millions around the world.

First contact with the natives dates back to June 26, with a second encounter on June 30. The second meeting was caught on camera during an encounter with Brazil's National Indian Foundation, Funai. The group released their eight-minute-long video on YouTube Thursday. You can watch the incidents unfold in the clip below.

In the video, several tribesmen, dressed in nothing but loincloths, make contact with members of the Ashanika community across the Envira River in Brazil's Acre state, located near the Brazilan-Peru border, the CBC reports.

It's believed the men are from the Rio Xinane tribe, part of the Panoan linguistic group, according to the International Business Times.

The footage then shifts (near the 1:55 mark) to another scene where the tribesmen are on shore, carrying bows and arrows in a peaceful interaction with a group of clothed Brazilian men. Roughly three minutes into the video, two young men from the tribe accept bananas from a man part of the Ashanika community. The video ends with one final scene of three men walking away from the community, now armed with a fire axe and a machete.

Funai says the Amazonian natives are among some 77 native tribes living in the Amazon that have yet to make contact with the modern world. CTV says the meeting between the natives was spurred after non-natives, possibly involved in illegal logging and drug trafficking, attacked the group.

"The majority of old people were massacred by non-Indians in Peru, who shot at them with firearms and set fire to the houses of the uncontacted," Ze Correia, a Panoan interpreter told tribal protection group Survival International.

"They say that many old people died and that they buried three people in one grave," he added. "So many people died that they couldn't bury them all and their corpses were eaten by vultures," Correia added.

And when it wasn't strangers killing natives, the flu and diphtheria wrecked havoc on their lives as well, Funai notes.

Due to minimal contact with outsiders, the immune system of isolated natives aren't able to deal with diseases like the flu. In some cases, diseases have wiped out entire groups.

Since the incident with the natives, Funai has sent a specialist medical team to treat the men, who have since returned to their village, the Guardian reports.

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