Photos from open sources
There are still untouched places on the planet where the way of life is the same as a couple of millennia ago.
Today, there are about a hundred tribes that are hostile to modern society and do not want to let civilization into their lives.
Off the coast of India on one of the Andaman Islands - North Sentinel Island - such a tribe lives.
They were nicknamed the Sentinelese. They fiercely resist all possible contact from the outside.
The first evidence of a tribe inhabiting the North Sentinel Island of the Andaman Archipelago dates back to the 18th century: navigators, being nearby, left records of strange "primitive" people who do not allow them to descend to their land.
With the development of navigation and aviation, the ability to observe the islanders has increased, but all the information known to date has been collected remotely.
Until now, not a single outsider has managed to find himself in the circle of the Sentinelese tribe without losing his life. This non-contact tribe lets a stranger come no closer than bow-shot distance. They even throw rocks at helicopters flying too low. The last daredevils to try to make their way to the island were poachers in 2006. Their families are still unable to pick up the bodies: the Sentinelese killed the intruders, burying them in shallow graves.
However, interest in this isolated culture is not diminishing: researchers are constantly looking for opportunities to contact and study the Sentinelese. At various times, coconuts, dishes, pigs and much more were thrown at them, which could improve their living conditions on a small island. It is known that they liked coconuts, but the representatives of the tribe did not guess that they could be planted, but simply ate all the fruits. The islanders buried the pigs, doing it with honors and without touching their meat.
The experiment with kitchen utensils turned out to be interesting. The Sentinelese accepted the metal utensils favorably, and the plastic ones were divided by color: they threw out the green buckets, and the red ones suited them. There are no explanations for this, just as there are no answers to many other questions. Their language is one of the most unique and completely incomprehensible to anyone on the planet. They lead a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, hunting, fishing, and gathering wild plants for their livelihood, while they have not mastered the agricultural activity in the millennia of their existence.
It is believed that they do not even know how to make a fire: using accidental fires, they then carefully store smoldering logs and coals. Even the exact size of the tribe remains unknown: the numbers vary from 40 to 500 people; such a scatter is also explained by observations only from the side and assumptions that some of the islanders at this moment may be hiding in the thicket.
Despite the fact that the Sentinelese do not care about the rest of the world, they have defenders on the mainland. Tribal rights organizations call the people of North Sentinel Island “the most vulnerable society on the planet” and remind that they have no immunity to any common infection in the world. For this reason, their policy of driving away outsiders can be seen as self-defense against certain death.
In our society, the transition from the state of a child to the state of adulthood is not specifically marked in any way. However, among many peoples of the world, a boy becomes a man, and a girl a woman, only if they endure a series of severe trials.
For boys, this is initiation, the most important part of which for many peoples was circumcision. At the same time, naturally, it was not done at all in infancy, as among modern Jews. Most often, boys aged 13-15 were subjected to it. In the Kipsigi African tribe of Kenya, boys are brought one at a time to an elder who marks the spot on the foreskin where the incision will be made.
The boys then sit down on the ground. In front of each stands a father or older brother with a stick in his hand and demands that the boy look straight ahead. The ceremony is performed by an elder, he cuts off the foreskin in the marked place.
During the entire operation, the boy has no right not only to cry out, but also to show in general that he is in pain. It is very important. Indeed, before the ceremony, he received a special amulet from the girl with whom he was engaged. If now he screams in pain or winces, he will have to throw this amulet into the bushes - not a single girl will go for such a person. For the rest of his life, he will be a laughingstock in his village, because everyone will consider him a coward.
Among the Australian Aborigines, circumcision is a complex, multi-stage operation. First, a classical circumcision is performed - the initiate lies on his back, after which one of the elderly people pulls his foreskin as far as possible, while the other cuts off excess skin with a quick sweep of a sharp flint knife. When the boy recovers, the next, main operation takes place.
It is usually held at sunset. At the same time, the boy is not dedicated to the details of what will happen now. The boy is placed on a kind of table made up of the backs of two adult men. Then one of those who performs the operation pulls the boy's penis along the abdomen, and the other ... rips it along the ureter. Only now the boy can be considered a real man. Before the wound heals, the boy will have to sleep on his back.
Such ripped penises in Australian aborigines during an erection take on a completely different shape - they become flat and wide. At the same time, they are not suitable for urination, and Australian men relieve themselves by squatting.
But the most peculiar method is common among some peoples of Indonesia and Papua, such as the Bataks and Kiwais. It consists in the fact that a hole is made across the penis with a sharp piece of wood, where various objects can later be inserted, for example, metal - silver or, who is richer, gold sticks with balls on the sides. It is believed here that during intercourse this creates additional pleasure for the woman.
Not far from the coast of New Guinea, among the inhabitants of the island of Waigeo, the ritual of initiation into men is associated with abundant bloodletting, the meaning of which is "cleansing from filth." But first you need to learn how to ... play the sacred flute, and then clean the tongue with emery until it bleeds, because in deep childhood the young man sucked his mother's milk and thereby “defiled” the tongue.
And most importantly, it is necessary to “cleanse” after the first sexual intercourse, for which it is necessary to make a deep incision in the head of the penis, accompanied by profuse bleeding, the so-called “male menstruation”. But this is not the end of the torment!
The men of the Kagaba tribe have a custom according to which, during sexual intercourse, sperm should never fall to the ground, which is regarded as a grave insult to the gods, which means that it can lead to the death of the whole world. According to eyewitnesses, the "Kagabins" do not find anything better in order not to spill sperm on the ground, "like putting a stone under a man's penis."
But the young boys of the Kababa tribe from Northern Colombia, according to custom, are forced to have their first sexual intercourse with the ugliest, toothless and ancient old woman. It is no wonder that the men of this tribe have a strong aversion to sex for the rest of their lives and do not live well with legal wives.
In one of the Australian tribes, the custom of initiation into men, which is carried out with 14-year-old boys, is even more exotic. To prove his maturity to everyone, a teenager must sleep with his own mother. This ritual means the return of the young man to the mother's womb, which symbolizes death, and orgasm - rebirth.
In some tribes, the initiate must pass through the "toothed womb." The mother puts a mask of a terrible monster on her head, and inserts the jaw of some predator into her vagina. Blood from a wound on the teeth is considered sacred, it is used to lubricate the face and genitals of the young man.
Much more fortunate were the young men of the Wandu tribe. They can become a man only after they graduate from a special sex school, where a female sex instructor gives young men extensive theoretical and later practical training. Graduates of such a school, initiated into the secrets of sexual life, delight their wives with the full force of the sexual possibilities given to them by nature.
EXCORIATION
In many Bedouin tribes in the west and south of Arabia, despite the official ban, the custom of skinning the penis has been preserved. This procedure consists in the fact that the skin of the penis is cut along its entire length and torn off, as they are torn off the skin from an eel during cutting.
Boys from ten to fifteen years of age consider it a matter of honor not to utter a single cry during this operation. The participant in the action is exposed, and the slave manipulates his penis until an erection occurs, after which the operation is performed.
WHEN TO WEAR A HAT?
The young men of the Kabiri tribe in modern Oceania, having reached maturity and having passed severe trials, are entitled to put on their heads a pointed cap, smeared with lime, decorated with feathers and flowers; it is glued to the head and even go to bed in it.
YOUNG FIGHTER COURSE
Like many other tribes, among the Bushmen, the initiation of the boy is also carried out after his preliminary training in hunting and worldly skills. And most often young people go through this science of life in the forest.
After completing the "course of a young fighter", the boy is made deep incisions over the bridge of the nose, where they rub the ashes of the burnt tendons of a pre-killed antelope. And, of course, he must endure this entire painful procedure in silence, as befits a real man.
BITIE EDUCATES COURAGE
In the African Fulani tribe, during a male initiation ceremony called "soro", each teenager was hit several times with a heavy club on the back or chest. The subject had to endure this execution in silence, without betraying any pain. Subsequently, the longer the marks of beatings remained on his body and the more terrible he looked, the more respect he gained among his fellow tribesmen as a man and a warrior.
SACRIFICE TO THE GREAT SPIRIT
Among the Mandans, the rite of initiation of young men into men consisted in the fact that the initiate was wrapped with ropes, like a cocoon, and hung on them until he lost consciousness.
In this insensible (or lifeless, as they put it) state, he was laid on the ground, and when he came to his senses, he crawled on all fours to the old Indian, who was sitting in a medical hut with an ax in his hands and a buffalo skull in front of him. The young man raised the little finger of his left hand as a sacrifice to the great spirit, and he was cut off (sometimes along with the index finger).
LIME INITIATION
Among the Malaysians, the ritual of entering into a secret male union ingyet consisted of the following: during the initiation, a naked elderly man, smeared from head to toe with lime, held the end of the mat, and gave the other end to the subject. Each of them in turn pulled the mat towards himself until the old man fell on the newcomer and had sexual intercourse with him.
INITIATION AT ARANDA
Among the Aranda, initiation was divided into four periods, with gradually increasing complexity of the rites. The first period is relatively harmless and simple manipulations performed on the boy. The main procedure was to toss it into the air.
Before that, it was smeared with fat, and then painted. At this time, the boy was given certain instructions: for example, not to play with women and girls anymore and to prepare for more serious tests. At the same time, the boy's nasal septum was drilled.
The second period is the circumcision ceremony. It was carried out on one or two boys. All members of the clan participated in this action, without the invitation of outsiders. The ceremony lasted about ten days, and during all this time the members of the tribe danced, performed various ritual actions in front of the initiates, the meaning of which was immediately explained to them.
Some of the rites were performed in the presence of women, but when they started circumcision, they ran away. At the end of the operation, the boy was shown a sacred object - a wooden tablet on a string, which the uninitiated could not see, and explained its meaning, with a warning to keep it secret from women and children.
For some time after the operation, the initiate spent some time away from the camp, in the thickets of the forest. Here he received a whole series of instructions from the leaders. He was inspired by the rules of morality: not to commit bad deeds, not to walk along the "road of women", to observe food prohibitions. These prohibitions were quite numerous and painful: it was forbidden to eat the meat of an opossum, the meat of a kangaroo rat, the tail and rump of a kangaroo, the insides of an emu, snakes, any water bird, young game, and so on and so forth.
He was not supposed to break bones to extract the brain, and eat a little soft meat. In a word, the most delicious and nutritious food was forbidden to the initiate. At this time, living in the thickets, he learned a special secret language, which he spoke with men. Women could not approach him.
Some time later, before returning to the camp, a rather painful operation was performed on the boy: several men bit his head in turn; it was believed that after that hair would grow better.
The third stage is the release of the initiate from maternal care. He did this by throwing a boomerang in the direction of finding the maternal "totemic center".
The last, most difficult and solemn stage of initiation is the engvura ceremony. The trial by fire occupied a central place in it. Unlike the previous stages, the whole tribe and even guests from neighboring tribes participated here, but only men: two hundred or three hundred people gathered. Of course, such an event was arranged not for one or two initiates, but for a large party of them. The festivities lasted a very long time, several months, usually between September and January.
During the whole time, religious thematic rites were performed in a continuous series, mainly for the edification of the initiates. In addition, various other ceremonies were arranged, partly symbolizing the break of initiates with women and their transition into a group of full-fledged men. One of the ceremonies consisted, for example, of the initiates walking past the women's camp; at the same time, women threw burning brands at them, and the initiates defended themselves with branches. After that, a feigned attack on the women's camp was arranged.
Finally, it was time for the main test. It consisted in the fact that a large fire was lit, it was covered with damp branches, and the initiated young men lay down on top of them. They had to lie there, completely naked, in the heat and smoke, without moving, without screaming and moaning, for four or five minutes.
It is clear that the fiery ordeal demanded from the young man great endurance, willpower, but also uncomplaining obedience. But they prepared for all this by lengthy previous training. This test was repeated twice. One of the researchers describing this action adds that when he tried to kneel down on the same green floor above the fire for the experiment, he was forced to immediately jump up.
Of the subsequent rites, a mocking roll call between initiates and women, arranged in the dark, is interesting, and in this verbal duel not even the usual restrictions and rules of decency were observed. Then emblematic images were painted on their backs. Further, the fiery test was repeated in an abbreviated form: small fires were lit in the women's camp, and the young men knelt on these fires for half a minute.
Before the end of the festival, dances were again arranged, the exchange of wives, and, finally, the ritual offering of food to those dedicated to their leaders. After that, the participants and guests gradually dispersed to their camps, and that was the end of it: from that day on, all prohibitions and restrictions on initiates were lifted.
TRAVEL… ZUBA
During the ceremony of initiation, some tribes have a custom to remove one or more front teeth from boys. Moreover, certain magical actions are subsequently carried out with these teeth. So, among some tribes of the Darling River region, a knocked-out tooth was thrust under the bark of a tree growing near a river or a hole with water.
If the tooth became overgrown with bark or fell into the water, there was no cause for concern. But if he protruded outside, and ants ran over him, then the young man, according to the natives, was threatened with a disease of the oral cavity.
Murring and other tribes of New South Wales first entrusted the care of a knocked-out tooth to one of the old men, who passed it on to another, that to a third, and so on, until, having circled the whole community, the tooth returned to the father of the young man and, finally, to himself. young man. At the same time, none of those who kept the tooth had to put it in a bag with "magic" items, since it was believed that otherwise the owner of the tooth would be in great danger.
YOUTH VAMPIRISM
There was a custom among some Australian tribes from the Darling River, according to which, after the ceremony on the occasion of reaching maturity, the young man did not eat anything for the first two days, but only drank blood from the veins opened on the hands of his friends who voluntarily offered this food to him.
Having put a ligature on the shoulder, they opened a vein on the inside of the forearm and released blood into a wooden vessel or into a piece of bark that had the shape of a dish. The young man, kneeling in his bed of fuchsia branches, leaned forward, holding his hands behind him, and licked the blood from the vessel placed in front of him with his tongue, like a dog. Later, he is allowed to eat meat and drink duck blood.
AIR INITIATION
The Mandan tribe, which belongs to the group of North American Indians, probably has the most brutal initiation ceremony. It happens as follows.
The initiate first gets on all fours. After that, one of the men, with the thumb and forefinger of the left hand, pulls back about an inch of flesh on his shoulders or chest and, clutched in the right hand with a knife, on the double-edged blade of which, to increase the pain caused by another knife, notches and notches are made, pierces the pulled skin. His assistant standing next to him inserts a peg or hairpin into the wound, the supply of which he keeps ready in his left hand.
Then several men of the tribe, having climbed in advance to the roof of the room in which the ceremony takes place, lower two thin ropes through the holes in the ceiling, which are tied to these hairpins, and begin to pull the initiate up. This continues until his body is lifted off the ground.
After that, the skin on each arm below the shoulders and on the legs below the knees is pierced with a knife, and hairpins are also inserted into the resulting wounds, and ropes are tied to them. For them, initiates are pulled even higher. After that, on the hairpins sticking out of the limbs flowing with blood, the observers hang the bow, shield, quiver belonging to the young man passing the rite, etc.
Then the victim is again pulled up until it hangs in the air so that not only its own weight, but also the weight of the weapon hung on the limbs, falls on those parts of the body to which the ropes are attached.
And so, overcoming exorbitant pain, covered with gore, the initiates hung in the air, biting their tongues and lips so as not to utter the slightest groan and triumphantly pass this highest test of strength of character and courage.
When the elders of the tribe, who led the initiation, considered that the young men had adequately endured this part of the rite, they ordered their bodies to be lowered to the ground, where they lay without visible signs of life, slowly recovering.
But the torment of the initiates did not end there. They had to pass one more test: "the last run", or in the language of the tribe - "eh-ke-nah-ka-nah-peak."
Two older and physically strong men were assigned to each of the young men. They took up positions on either side of the initiate and grasped the free ends of the wide leather straps tied around his wrists. And heavy weights were hung to the hairpins penetrating various parts of the body of the young man.
On command, the attendants began to run in wide circles, dragging their ward with them. The procedure continued until the victim passed out from blood loss and exhaustion.
ANTS DETERMINE…
In the Amazonian Mandruku tribe, there was also a kind of sophisticated torture-initiation. At first glance, the tools used in its implementation looked quite harmless. They were like two, deaf at one end, cylinders, which were made from the bark of a palm tree and had a length of about thirty centimeters. Thus, they resembled a pair of huge, crudely made mittens.
The initiate put his hands into these cases and, accompanied by onlookers, who usually consisted of members of the whole tribe, began a long tour of the settlement, stopping at the entrance to each wigwam and performing a kind of dance.
However, these gauntlets were actually not as harmless as they might seem. For inside each of them was a whole collection of ants and other stinging insects, selected on the basis of the greatest pain caused by their bites.
In other tribes, a gourd bottle with ants is also used for dedication. But the candidate member of the society of adult men does not make a round of the settlement, but stands still until the wild dances of the tribe take place to the accompaniment of wild cries. After the young man has endured the ritual "torture", his shoulders are decorated with feathers.
TISSUE OF GROWTH
In the South American Ouna tribe, the "ant test" or "wasp test" is also used. To do this, ants or wasps stick into a special mesh fabric, often depicting some fantastic quadruped, fish or bird.
The whole body of the young man is wrapped in this cloth. From this torture, the young man faints, and in an unconscious state he is carried to a hammock, to which he is tied with ropes; and a small fire burns under the hammock.
It remains in this position for one to two weeks and can only eat cassava bread and a small variety of smoked fish. Even in the use of water there are restrictions.
This torture is preceded by a magnificent dance festival that lasts several days. Guests come in masks and huge headdresses with beautiful feather mosaics, and in various decorations. During this carnival, the young man is beaten.
LIVE NET
A number of Caribbean tribes also used ants during the initiations of boys. But before that, young people with the help of a tusk of a wild boar or the beak of a toucan were scratched to blood on the chest and skin of the hands.
And only after that they began to torture with ants. The priest who carried out this procedure had a special device similar to a grid, in the narrow loops of which 60-80 large ants were placed. They were placed so that their heads, armed with long sharp stingers, were located on one side of the net.
At the moment of initiation, the net with ants was pressed against the boy's body, and kept in this position until the insects stuck to the skin of the unfortunate victim.
During this ritual, the priest applied the net to the chest, arms, lower abdomen, back, back of the thighs and calves of the defenseless boy, who was not supposed to express his suffering in any way.
It should be noted that in these tribes, girls are also subjected to a similar procedure. They must also endure the stings of angry ants calmly. The slightest groan, a painful distortion of the face deprives the unfortunate victim of the opportunity to communicate with the elders. Moreover, she is subjected to the same operation until she bravely endures it without showing the slightest sign of pain.
PILLAR OF COURAGE
An equally cruel test had to be endured by young people from the North American Cheyenne tribe. When the boy reached the age when he could become a warrior, his father tied him to a pole that stood near the road along which the girls walked for water.
But they tied the young man in a special way: parallel incisions were made in the pectoral muscles, and belts made of raw leather were stretched along them. With these straps, the young man was tied to a pole. And not just tied, but left alone, and he had to free himself.
Most of the youths leaned back, pulling on the straps with the weight of their bodies, causing them to cut into the flesh. Two days later, the tension of the belts weakened, and the young man was released.
The more courageous grabbed hold of the straps with both hands and pulled them back and forth, thanks to which they were released after a few hours. The young man, thus freed, was praised by all, and he was looked upon as a future leader in the war. After the young man had freed himself, he was brought into the hut with great honor and looked after with great care.
On the contrary, while he remained tied, the women, passing him with water, did not speak to him, did not offer to quench their thirst, and did not provide any help.
However, the young man had the right to ask for help. Moreover, he knew that it would be immediately rendered to him: they would immediately speak to him and set him free. But at the same time he remembered that this would be a lifelong punishment for him, because from now on he would be considered a “woman”, dressed in a woman’s dress and forced to do women’s work; he will not have the right to hunt, carry weapons and be a warrior. And, of course, no woman would want to marry him. Therefore, the vast majority of Cheyenne youths endure this cruel torture in a Spartan way.
WOUNDED SKULL
In some African tribes, during initiation after the circumcision ritual, an operation is performed to inflict small wounds over the entire surface of the skull until blood appears. Initially, the purpose of this operation was clearly to make holes in the cranial bone.
ROLE GAME ASMATS
If, for example, the Mandruku and Ouna tribes use ants for initiation, then the Asmats from Irian Jaya cannot do without human skulls during the ceremony of initiating boys into men.
At the beginning of the ritual, a specially painted skull is placed between the legs of a young man passing through the initiation, who sits naked on the bare floor in a special hut. At the same time, he must constantly press the skull to his genitals, keeping his eyes on him for three days. It is believed that during this period all the sexual energy of the owner of the skull is transferred to the candidate.
When the first ritual is completed, the young man is led to the sea, where a canoe awaits him under sail. Accompanied and led by his uncle and one of his close relatives, the young man sets off towards the sun, where, according to legend, the ancestors of the Asmats live. The skull at this time lies in front of him at the bottom of the canoe.
During a sea voyage, a young man is supposed to play several roles. First of all, he must be able to behave like an old man, and so weak that he can’t even stand on his own legs and falls all the time to the bottom of the boat. The adult accompanying the young man each time raises him, and then, at the end of the ritual, throws him into the sea along with the skull. This act symbolizes the death of the old man and the birth of a new man.
The subject must also cope with the role of an infant who can neither walk nor speak. In playing this role, the young man demonstrates how grateful he is to his close relative for helping him pass the test. When the boat approaches the shore, the young man will already behave like a grown man and bear two names: his own and the name of the owner of the skull.
That is why it was very important for the Asmat, who gained the nasty popularity of ruthless "skull hunters", to know the name of the person they killed. The skull, whose owner's name is unknown, was turned into an unnecessary item, and it could not be used in initiation ceremonies.
The following incident, which took place in 1954, can serve as an illustration of the above statement. Three foreigners were guests in an Asmat village, and the locals invited them for a meal. Although the Asmats were hospitable people, nevertheless, they looked at the guests primarily as "carriers of skulls", intending to deal with them during the holiday.
First, the hosts sang a solemn song in honor of the guests, and then asked them to give their names in order to allegedly insert them into the text of the traditional chant. But as soon as they named themselves, they immediately lost their heads.
Modern society cannot exist in an isolated world. Trade, awareness, scientific innovation and other factors require establishing contacts with the outside world. But there were such people who live in their own world, isolated from the environment. They not only refused the benefits and conveniences of modern civilization, but also avoid contact with people in every possible way.
A tribe that lives on North Sentinel Island. Formally, the island belongs to the Hindu territories. By the name of the island, it is customary to call savages, because no one knows what they call themselves. Well, this is actually almost all the information that is known about the Sentinels themselves. Even the exact population size is not known.
But why is there so little information about them and how did they manage to hide for so long? It's all about the aggressive behavior of the natives. They meet approaching helicopters and boats with bows and arrows, the bloodthirsty tribe immediately kills random guests. The local authorities are afraid of the Sentinelese like fire, so they try not to poke their nose into their possessions.
The people were discovered in 1970 by archaeologists in southeastern Papua. Like thousands of years ago, they use stone tools, eat almost everything that moves and live in trees.
How did they manage to stay isolated for so long?
Korowai live in the most impenetrable forests. The census service in 2010 tried to count the number of Korowais, so they got to the settlements through the jungle and thickets for more than two weeks. It is believed that the Korowai tribe are cannibals. It is possible that they simply ate their discoverers.
The loneliest man in the world lives in the dense forests of Brazil. He builds huts out of palm trees and digs rectangular pits one and a half meters deep. No one knows why he needs these holes. With any attempt to make contact with him, he leaves the hut in which he lived, looks for a new place and rebuilds a new hut with a rectangular pit. He has been leading this lifestyle for at least 15 years. Scientists believe that he is the only representative of a certain extinct tribe.
Brazil once passed a law on the forced relocation of tribes. Those who did not want to obey the new law were simply exterminated. Perhaps such a fate befell the tribe of this lonely man.
Old Believers- The Lykov family. This is how the family called themselves, found in 1978 on the territory of harsh and inhospitable Siberia. The first meeting with a man horrified them, because they had no idea about the existence of other people. The Lykovs lived in a log hut, in everyday life they used everything home-made: both dishes and clothes.
As it turned out, this is not the only hermit family. In 1990, a family was discovered in Siberia that led an isolated lifestyle.
Back in the 17th century, when the church split, several Old Believer families left their homes and settled in the remote lands of Siberia in order to avoid reprisals.
Mashko-Piro- an isolated tribe that aggressively resisted making contact. Any attempt at dialogue was met with a barrage of arrows and stones. To protect tourists, the Peruvian authorities forbade approaching the Mashko-Piro area.
However, the inhabitants of the tribe themselves decided to reveal their existence and began to appear in open areas. Why would this wild tribe decide to make contact? As it turned out, they were interested in pots and machetes, so necessary in the economy.
Pintubi. In 1984, in the Australian desert, the Pintubi people met for the first time a white man. Seeing white people, the Pintubi decided that they were evil spirits - and the first meeting was, to put it mildly, not friendly. But later, having decided that the "pink man" does not pose a threat and can even be useful, they relented. The concealment of the Pintubi tribe from the outside world is due to the nomadic way of life.
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It is quite difficult for a modern person to imagine how one can do without all the benefits of civilization to which we are accustomed. But there are still corners on our planet where tribes live, which are extremely far from civilization. They are not familiar with the latest achievements of mankind, but at the same time they feel great and are not going to make contact with the modern world. We invite you to get acquainted with some of them.
Sentinelese. This tribe lives on an island in the Indian Ocean. They fire arrows at anyone who dares to approach their territory. This tribe has absolutely no contact with other tribes, preferring to enter into intra-tribal marriages and maintain its population in the region of 400 people. Once, National Geographic employees tried to get to know them better, having previously laid out various offerings on the coast. Of all the gifts, the Sentinelese left only red buckets for themselves, everything else was thrown into the sea. Even the pigs, which were also among the offerings, they shot with a bow from afar, and buried the carcasses in the ground. It didn't even occur to them that they could be eaten. When the people, who decided that it was now possible to get to know each other, decided to approach, they were forced to take cover from the arrows and flee.
Piraha. This tribe is one of the most primitive known to mankind. The language of this tribe does not shine with diversity. It does not contain, for example, the names of various color shades, the definition of natural phenomena - the set of words is minimal. Housing is built from branches in the form of a hut, there is almost nothing from household items. They don't even have a number system. In this tribe, it is forbidden to borrow the words and traditions of foreign tribes, but they also do not have the concept of their own culture. They have no idea about the creation of the world, they do not believe anything that has not been experienced by themselves. However, they are not aggressive at all.
Loaves. This tribe was discovered quite recently, in the late 90s of the XX century. Little monkey-like men live in huts in the trees, otherwise the "sorcerers" will get them. They behave very aggressively, they let strangers in reluctantly. As pets, wild pigs are tamed, which are used on the farm as horse-drawn vehicles. Only when the pig is already old and unable to carry cargo can it be fried and eaten. Women in the tribe are considered common, but they make love only once a year, at other times women cannot be touched.
Masai. This is a tribe of born warriors and herdsmen. They do not consider it shameful to take away cattle from another tribe, since they are sure that all the cattle in the area belong to them. They are engaged in cattle breeding and hunting. While the man is dozing in the hut with a spear in his hands, his wife takes care of the rest of the household. Polygamy in the Maasai tribe is a tradition, and in our time this tradition is forced, as there are not enough men in the tribe.
Nicobar and Andaman tribes. These tribes do not disdain cannibalism. From time to time they raid each other to profit from the little man. But since they understand that such food as a person grows and is not added very quickly, recently they began to organize such raids only on a certain day - the holiday of the goddess of Death. In their free time, the men make poison arrows. To do this, they catch snakes, and stone axes are sharpened to such a state that it costs nothing to cut off a person’s head. In especially hungry times, women can even eat their children and the elderly.
I wonder if our lives would be much calmer and less nervous and hectic without all the modern technological advances? Probably yes, but more comfortable - hardly. Now imagine that on our planet in the 21st century, tribes live calmly, which easily do without all this.
1. Yarava
This tribe lives in the Andaman Islands in the Indian Ocean. It is believed that the age of Yarava is from 50 to 55 thousand years. They migrated there from Africa and now there are about 400 of them left. The Yarawa live in nomadic groups of 50 people, hunt with bows and arrows, fish in coral reefs and collect fruits and honey. In the 1990s, the Indian government wanted to provide them with more modern living conditions, but the Yarawa refused.
2. Yanomami
The Yanomami lead their usual ancient way of life on the border between Brazil and Venezuela: 22,000 live on the Brazilian side and 16,000 on the Venezuelan side. Some of them have mastered metalworking and weaving, but the rest prefer not to contact the outside world, which threatens to disrupt their centuries-old life. They are excellent healers and even know how to fish with plant poisons.
3. Nomole
About 600-800 representatives of this tribe live in the tropical forests of Peru, and only since about 2015 did they begin to show up and carefully contact civilization, not always successfully, I must say. They call themselves "nomole", which means "brothers and sisters". It is believed that the people of Nomole do not have the concept of good and evil in our understanding, and if they want something, they will not hesitate to kill an opponent in order to take possession of his thing.
4. Ava Guaya
The first contact with Ava Guaya occurred in 1989, but it is unlikely that civilization has made them happier, since deforestation actually means the disappearance of this semi-nomadic Brazilian tribe, of which there are no more than 350-450 people. They survive by hunting, live in small family groups, have many pets (parrots, monkeys, owls, agouti hares) and have their own names, naming themselves after their favorite forest animal.
5. Sentinelese
If other tribes somehow make contact with the outside world, then the inhabitants of the North Sentinel Island (Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal) are not particularly friendly. Firstly, they are supposedly cannibals, and secondly, they simply kill everyone who comes into their territory. In 2004, after the tsunami, many people suffered on neighboring islands. When anthropologists flew over North Sentinel Island to check on its strange inhabitants, a group of natives came out of the forest and threateningly waved stones and bows and arrows in their direction.
6. Huaorani, Tagaeri and Taromenane
All three tribes live in Ecuador. The Huaorani had the misfortune of living in an oil-rich area, so most of them were resettled in the 1950s, while the Tagaeri and Taromenane broke away from the main Huaorani group in the 1970s and moved into the rainforest to continue their nomadic, ancient lifestyle. . These tribes are rather unfriendly and vengeful, therefore, special contacts were not established with them.
7. Kawahiva
The remaining representatives of the Brazilian tribe Kawahiwa are mostly nomads. They do not like to interact with humans and simply try to survive by hunting, fishing and occasional farming. The Kawahivas are endangered due to illegal logging. In addition, many of them died after communicating with civilization, picking up measles from people. According to conservative estimates, there are now no more than 25-50 people left.
8. Hadza
The Hadza are one of the last tribes of hunter-gatherers (about 1300 people) living in Africa near the equator near Lake Eyasi in Tanzania. They still live in the same place for the last 1.9 million years. Only 300-400 Hadza continue to live the old fashioned way and even officially reclaimed part of their land in 2011. Their way of life is based on the fact that everything is shared, and property and food should always be shared.
