One heartening element in our battle to save civilization is human nature itself, with its tendency to prevail even against ideological deformations. First Contact: Lost Tribes of the Amazon (2016) is a short documentary featuring José Carlos dos Reis Meirelles, an expert working with FUNAI, Brazil’s National Indian Foundation, which deals with issues concerning the indigenous peoples of the Amazon. For over twenty years Meirelles has been observing various isolated tribes on the border of Peru and Brazil from afar, in keeping with the anthropological directive that they must be left undisturbed to preserve their culture.
But more recently the heroic Meirelles has risked his life to make contact, as small groups have been emerging from the jungle often in need of one kind of thing or another. This contact carries danger, since these indigenous people are thought to
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