Grann on the lost Amazonian tribe "hoax"

A few months back we were talking about the so-called "lost Amazonian tribe" that had been much discussed in the news in May of 2008.



David Grann has an interesting post with an update on the 'hoax' at the Huffington Post. Some of it is publicity for his new book, but there's some interesting information, and useful back links, so I thought I'd link to it here as well. It raises some thought-provoking questions on the reporting of anthropological news, especially in this day of 24 hour news cycles. Here's an excerpt:

The dispute over the photographs stemmed from confusion over the meaning of "uncontacted," as these groups are commonly designated. Though Meirelles had never said the tribe was unknown, many in the press had initially portrayed the group as such. In fact, like many of these tribes, the group's existence had had long been known about--its presence detected either by frontiersmen or by satellite imagery. Indeed, it is likely that many of these tribes have had some form of fleeting "contact" with outsiders over the years.

But that did not make the photographs "fakes" or a "hoax." The reason these tribes are classified as "uncontacted" is because they have retreated into the jungle and consciously avoided any interaction with settlers--an interaction that has frequently led to the extinction of Amazonian tribes.

Might making yourself 'uncontacted' be a form of territoriality driven by concerns not considered in the readings on the topic we discussed?