The most isolated peoples on the planet. Where do the world's last non-contact tribes live? Wild tribes of the planet

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 collecting 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 age of high technology, a variety of gadgets and broadband Internet, there are still people who have not seen all this. Time seems to have stopped for them, they do not really make contact with the outside world, and their way of life has not changed for thousands of years.

In the forgotten and undeveloped corners of our planet, such uncivilized tribes live that you are simply amazed how time has not touched them with its modernizing hand. Living, like their ancestors, among palm trees and eating hunting and grazing, these guys feel great and are not in a hurry to the "concrete jungle" of big cities.

OfficePlankton decided to highlight the wildest tribes of modern times that actually exist.

1 Sentinelese

Having chosen the island of North Sentinel, between India and Thailand, the Sentinelese have occupied almost the entire coast and meet with arrows anyone who tries to establish contact with them. Being engaged in hunting, gathering and catching fish, entering into family marriages, the tribe maintains a number of approximately 300 people.

An attempt to contact these people ended with the shelling of the National Geographic group, however, after they left gifts on the shore, among which red buckets were especially popular. They shot the left pigs from afar and buried them, not even thinking to eat them, everything else was thrown into the ocean in a heap.

An interesting fact is that they predict natural disasters and massively hide deeper into the jungle when storms approach. The tribe survived the 2004 Indian earthquake and the numerous devastating tsunamis.

2 Masai

These born pastoralists are the largest and most warlike tribe in Africa. They live only by cattle breeding, not neglecting the theft of cattle from other, “lower”, as they consider, tribes, because, in their opinion, their supreme god gave them all the animals on the planet. It is in their photographs with drawn earlobes and disks the size of a good tea saucer inserted into the lower lip that you stumble across the Internet.

Maintaining good morale, considering as a man only all those who killed a lion with a spear, the Massai fought back both European colonialists and invaders from other tribes, owning the ancestral territories of the famous Serengeti Valley and the Ngorongoro volcano. However, under the influence of the 20th century, the number of people in the tribe is declining.

Polygamy, which used to be considered honorable, has now become simply necessary, as there are fewer and fewer men. Children graze cattle almost from the age of 3, and the rest of the household is in charge of women, while men doze with a spear in their hand inside the hut in peacetime or run with guttural sounds on military campaigns against neighboring tribes.

3 Nicobar and Andaman tribes

An aggressive company of cannibal tribes lives, you guessed it, by raiding and eating each other. The superiority among all these savages is held by the Korubo tribe. Men, neglecting hunting and gathering, are very skilled in making poisoned darts, catching snakes with their bare hands for this, and stone axes, grinding the edge of the stone for days to such an extent that it becomes a very doable task to cut off their heads.

Constantly fighting among themselves, the tribes, however, do not raid endlessly, as they understand that the supply of "humans" is very slowly renewable. Some tribes generally set aside only special holidays for this - the holidays of the goddess of Death. Women of the Nicobar and Andaman tribes also do not disdain to eat their children or old people in case of unsuccessful raids on neighboring tribes.

4 Piraha

A rather small tribe also lives in the Brazilian jungle - about two hundred people. They are notable for the most primitive language on the planet and the absence of at least some system of calculus. Holding primacy among the most undeveloped tribes, if it can certainly be called primacy, the feasts have no mythology, history of the creation of the world and gods.

They are forbidden to speak about what they did not know from their own experience, to adopt the words of other people and introduce new designations into their language. There are also no shades of flowers, designations of weather, animals and plants. They live mainly in huts made of branches, refusing to accept as a gift all kinds of objects of civilization. Piraha, however, are quite often called out as guides to the jungle, and, despite their ineptness and underdevelopment, have not yet been seen in aggression.

5 Karavai

The most brutal tribe lives in the forests of Papua New Guinea, between two mountain ranges, they were discovered very late, only in the 90s of the last century. There is a tribe with a funny Russian-sounding name, as if in the Stone Age. Dwellings - children's huts from twigs on trees that we built in childhood - protection from sorcerers, they will find them on the ground.

Stone axes and knives made from animal bones, noses and ears are pierced with the teeth of dead predators. Loaves hold wild pigs in high esteem, which they do not eat, but tame, especially those taken from their mother at a young age, and used as riding ponies. Only when the pig is old and can no longer carry cargo and little ape-like men, which loaves are, can the pig be slaughtered and eaten.
The entire tribe is extremely militant and hardy, the warrior cult flourishes there, the tribe can sit on larvae and worms for weeks, and despite the fact that all the women of the tribe are “common”, the love festival occurs only once a year, the rest of the time men should not pester to women.

Surprisingly, in our age of atomic energy, laser guns and the exploration of Pluto, there are still primitive people who are almost unaware of the outside world. Throughout the earth, except for Europe, a huge number of such tribes are scattered. Some live in complete isolation, perhaps not even knowing about the existence of other "bipeds". Others know and see more, but are in no hurry to make contact. And still others are ready to kill any stranger.

What about us civilized people? Trying to "make friends" with them? Should you watch them carefully? Completely ignore?

Just in these days, disputes resumed when the authorities of Peru decided to make contact with one of the lost tribes. Aboriginal defenders are strongly against it, because after contact they can die from diseases to which they have no immunity: it is not known whether they will agree to medical care.

Let's see who we are talking about, and what other tribes, infinitely far from civilization, are found in the modern world.

1. Brazil

It is in this country that most non-contact tribes live. In just 2 years, from 2005 to 2007, their confirmed number increased by 70% at once (from 40 to 67), and today more than 80 are already on the lists of the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI).

There are extremely small tribes, only 20-30 people each, others can number as many as 1.5 thousand. At the same time, all together they make up less than 1% of the population of Brazil, but the "original lands" assigned to them are 13% of the country's territory (green spots on the map).


To search for and account for isolated tribes, authorities periodically fly around the dense forests of the Amazon. So in 2008, hitherto unknown savages were seen near the border with Peru. First, anthropologists noticed from the plane their huts, similar to elongated tents, as well as half-naked women and children.



But during a repeated flight a few hours later, men with spears and bows, painted red from head to toe, and the same warlike woman, all black, appeared at the same place. They probably mistook the plane for an evil bird spirit.


Since then, the tribe has remained unexplored. Scientists only guess that it is very numerous and prosperous. The photo shows that people are generally healthy and well-fed, their baskets are full of roots and fruits, from the plane they even noticed something like orchards. It is possible that this people has existed for 10,000 years and since then has kept primitive.

2. Peru

But the very tribe with which the Peruvian authorities want to make contact is the Mashko-Piro Indians, who also live in the wilderness of the Amazonian forests in the territory of the Manu National Park in the southeast of the country. Previously, they always rejected strangers, but in recent years they have often come out of the thicket into the "outside world." In 2014 alone, they were spotted more than 100 times in populated areas, especially along the banks of the river, from where they pointed to passers-by.


“It seems that they themselves are making contact, and we cannot pretend that we do not notice this. They also have the right to do so,” the government says. They emphasize that in no case will the tribe be forced either to contact or to change their lifestyle.


Officially, Peruvian law forbids contact with lost tribes, of which there are at least a dozen in the country. But many have already managed to “talk” with Mashko-Piro, from ordinary tourists to Christian missionaries, who shared clothes and food with them. Maybe also because there is no punishment for violating the ban.


True, not all contacts were peaceful. In May 2015, mashko-piros came to one of the local villages and, having met the inhabitants, attacked them. One guy was killed on the spot, pierced by an arrow. In 2011, members of the tribe killed another local and wounded a national park ranger with arrows. Authorities hope the contact will help prevent future deaths.

This is probably the only civilized Indian Mashko-Piro. As a child, local hunters stumbled upon him in the jungle and took him with them. Since then, he has been named Alberto Flores.

3. Andaman Islands (India)

A tiny island of this archipelago in the Bay of Bengal between India and Myanmar is inhabited by extremely hostile to the outside world, the Sentinelese. Most likely, these are the direct descendants of the first Africans who ventured to leave the black continent about 60,000 years ago. Since then, this small tribe has been engaged in hunting, fishing and gathering. How they make fire is unknown.


Their language is not identified, but judging by its striking difference from all other Andamanese dialects, these people did not come into contact with anyone for thousands of years. The size of their community (or scattered groups) is also not established: presumably, from 40 to 500 people.


The Sentinelese are typical Negritos, as ethnologists call them: rather short people with very dark, almost black skin and short, fine curls of hair. Their main weapons are spears and bows with different types of arrows. Observations have shown that they accurately hit the target of human growth from a distance of 10 meters. Any outsiders are considered enemies by the tribe. In 2006, they killed two fishermen who were sleeping peacefully in a boat that accidentally washed up on their shore, and then met a search helicopter with a hail of arrows.


There were only a few "peaceful" contacts with the Sentinelese in the 1960s. Once, coconuts were left on the shore for them to see if they would plant them or eat them. - Ate. Another time they "gave" live pigs - the savages immediately killed them and ... buried them. The only thing that seemed useful to them was red buckets, as they were hurried to carry them deep into the island. And exactly the same green buckets were not touched.


But you know what is the strangest and most inexplicable thing? Despite their primitiveness and extremely primitive shelters, the Sentinelese generally survived the terrible earthquake and tsunami in the Indian Ocean in 2004. But along the entire coast of Asia, almost 300 thousand people died then, which made this natural disaster the deadliest in modern history!

4. Papua New Guinea

The vast island of New Guinea in Oceania holds many unexplored secrets. Its hard-to-reach mountainous regions, covered with dense forests, only seem uninhabited - in fact, this is the home of many non-contact tribes. Due to the peculiarities of the landscape, they are hidden not only from civilization, but also from each other: it happens that there are only a few kilometers between two villages, but they are unaware of the neighborhood.


The tribes live in such isolation that each has its own customs and its own language. Just think - linguists distinguish about 650 Papuan languages, and in total more than 800 languages ​​are spoken in this country!


The same differences may be in their culture and way of life. Some tribes turn out to be relatively peaceful and generally friendly, like a nation funny to our ears. the fuck, which Europeans learned about only in 1935.


But the most sinister rumors circulate about others. There were cases when members of expeditions specially equipped to search for Papuan savages disappeared without a trace. This is how one of the richest American family members, Michael Rockefeller, disappeared in 1961. He separated from the group and is suspected to have been caught and eaten.

5. Africa

At the junction of the borders of Ethiopia, Kenya and South Sudan, several nationalities live, numbering about 200 thousand people, who are collectively called Surma. They raise cattle, but do not roam and share a common culture with very cruel and strange traditions.


Young men, for example, for the sake of winning brides, arrange stick fights, which can result in serious injuries and even death. And the girls, decorating themselves for a future wedding, remove their lower teeth, pierce their lip and stretch it so that a special plate fits there. The larger it is, the more cattle will be given for the bride, so that the most desperate beauties manage to squeeze in a 40-centimeter dish!


True, in recent years, the youth of these tribes have begun to learn something about the outside world, and more and more Surma girls are now refusing such a “beauty” ritual. However, women and men continue to adorn themselves with curly scars, which they are very proud of.


In general, the acquaintance of these peoples with civilization is very uneven: for example, they remain illiterate, but quickly mastered the AK-47 assault rifles that came to them during the civil war in Sudan.


And one more interesting detail. The first people from the outside world to come into contact with Surma in the 1980s were not Africans, but a group of Russian doctors. The natives then got scared, mistaking them for the walking dead - after all, they had never seen white skin before!

It is believed that there are no less than a hundred "isolated tribes" in the world, still living in the farthest corners of the world. The members of these tribes, who have preserved traditions long left behind by the rest of the world, provide anthropologists with an excellent opportunity to study in detail the development of various cultures over many centuries.

10. The Surma People

The Ethiopian Surma tribe avoided contact with the Western world for many years. However, they are quite known to the world for their huge plates that they put on their lips. However, they did not want to hear about any government. While colonization, world wars and the struggle for independence were in full swing around them, the people of Surma lived in groups of several hundred people each, and continued to engage in their modest cattle ranching.

The first people who managed to establish contact with the people of Surma were several Russian doctors. They met the tribe in 1980. Due to the fact that the doctors were white-skinned, the members of the tribe at first thought they were the living dead. One of the few pieces of equipment that members of the Surma people have adapted into their lives is the AK-47, which they use to protect their livestock.

Source 9Peruvian tribe discovered by tourists


Wandering in the jungles of Peru, a group of tourists suddenly encountered members of an unknown tribe. The whole incident was filmed: the tribe tried to communicate with the tourists, but because the members of the tribe did not know either Spanish or English, they soon despaired of making contact and left the puzzled tourists where they found them.

After examining the footage recorded by the tourists, the Peruvian authorities soon realized that the group of tourists had encountered one of the few tribes that had not yet been discovered by anthropologists. Scientists knew about their existence and unsuccessfully searched for them for many years, and tourists found them without even looking.

8. Single Brazilian


Slate magazine called him "the most isolated person on the planet." Somewhere in the thickets of the Amazon there is a tribe consisting of only one person. Like Bigfoot, this mysterious man disappears just as scientists are about to discover him.

Why is he so popular, and why won't he be left alone? It turns out that according to scientists, he is the last representative of an isolated Amazon tribe. He is the only person in the world who has preserved the customs and language of his people. Communication with him will be tantamount to finding a treasure trove of information, part of which is the answer to the question of how he managed to live alone for so many decades.

7. Tribe Ramapo (Ramapough Mountain Indians or The Jackson Whites)


During the 1700s, European settlers completed their colonization of the east coast of North America. By this point, every tribe between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mississippi River has been added to the catalog of known peoples. As it turned out, all but one were listed in the catalogue.

In the 1790s, a previously unknown tribe of Indians emerged from the forest just 56 kilometers from New York. They somehow managed to avoid contact with the settlers, despite some of the biggest battles, such as the Seven Years' War and the Revolutionary War, actually taking place in their backyards. They became known as "Jackson Whites" because of their light skin color and because they were thought to be descended from "Jacks" (slang for the British).

6. Vietnamese Ruk tribe (Vietnamese Ruc)


During the Vietnam War, unprecedented bombardments of regions isolated at that time took place. After one particularly heavy American bombing raid, North Vietnamese soldiers were shocked to see a group of tribal members emerge from the jungle.

This was the first contact of the Ruk tribe with people with advanced technology. Because their jungle home was so badly damaged, they decided to stay in present-day Vietnam and not return to their traditional homes. However, the values ​​and traditions of the tribe, passed down from generation to generation for many centuries, did not please the Vietnamese government, which led to mutual hostility.

5. The Last of the Native Americans


In 1911, the last Native American untouched by civilization calmly walked out of the forest in California, in full tribal attire - and was promptly arrested by the shocked police. His name was Ishi and he was a member of the Yahia tribe.

After interrogation by the police, who were able to find a local college interpreter, it was revealed that Ishi was the only survivor of his tribe after his tribe had been massacred by settlers three years earlier. After he tried to survive alone, using only the gifts of nature, he finally decided to turn to other people for help.

Ishi took under his wing a researcher from the University of Berkeley (Berkeley University). There, Ishi told the teaching staff all the secrets of his tribal life, and showed them many survival techniques, using only what nature gave. Many of these techniques were either long forgotten or unknown to scientists at all.

4 Brazilian Tribes


The Brazilian government has been trying to figure out how many people live in isolated areas of the Amazonian lowland in order to put them on the population register. Therefore, a government aircraft equipped with photographic equipment regularly flew over the jungle, trying to detect and count the people below it. Tireless flights really gave a result, albeit a very unexpected one.

In 2007, an aircraft on a routine low flight to take photographs was unexpectedly hit by a rain of arrows from a previously unknown tribe firing bows at the aircraft. Then, in 2011, satellite scans picked up a few specks in a corner of the jungle that wasn't even supposed to have people: as it turned out, the specks were humans after all.

3. Tribes of New Guinea


Somewhere in New Guinea, there are likely to be dozens of languages, cultures and tribal customs that are still unknown to modern man. However, due to the fact that this area is almost unexplored, and also because the nature and intentions of these tribes are uncertain, with often slipping reports of cannibalism, the wild part of New Guinea is very rarely explored. Despite the fact that new tribes are often discovered, many expeditions aimed at tracking down such tribes never reach them, or sometimes simply disappear.

For example, in 1961, Michael Rockefeller set out to find some of the lost tribes. Rockefeller, the American heir to one of the largest fortunes in the world, was separated from his group and apparently captured and eaten by members of the flame.

2. The Pintupi Nine


In 1984, an unknown group of Aboriginal people was discovered near a settlement in Western Australia. After they fled, the Pinupi Nine, as they were later called, were hunted down by those who spoke their language and told them that there was a place where water ran from pipes and there was always an ample supply of food. Most of them decided to stay in the modern city, a few of them became artists working in the style of traditional art. However, one out of nine, named Yari Yari, returned to the Gibson Desert, where he lives to this day.

1 The Sentinelese


The Sentinelese are a tribe of about 250 people who live on North Sentinel Island, between India and Thailand. Almost nothing is known about this tribe, because as soon as the Sentinelese see that someone has sailed to them, they meet the visitor with a hail of arrows.

A few peaceful encounters with this tribe in 1960 have given us practically everything we know about their culture. The coconuts brought to the island as gifts were eaten, not planted. Live pigs were shot with arrows and buried without being eaten. The most popular items among the Sentinelese were red buckets, which were quickly taken apart by members of the tribe - however, exactly the same green buckets remained in place.

Anyone who wanted to land on their island had to write their will first. The National Geographic team was forced to turn around after the team leader was shot in the thigh and two local guides were killed.

The Sentinelese have earned a reputation for their ability to survive natural disasters - unlike many modern people living in similar conditions. For example, this coastal tribe successfully escaped the effects of the tsunami caused by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake that wreaked havoc and terror in Sri Lanka and Indonesia.

Despite the fact that today almost every person has the opportunity to purchase the attributes of modern life, such as a mobile phone, with the money earned, there are still places on our planet where people live close to the primitive level in terms of development.

Africa is the place on Earth where today in the impenetrable jungle or desert you can meet creatures that are very reminiscent of us in the distant past. Scientists agree that it was from the African continent that Homo sapiens originated.

Africa is unique in itself. Not only common species of animals are concentrated here, but also endangered species. Due to its direct location on the equator, the mainland has a very hot climate, which is why the nature there is the most diverse. That is why there were conditions for the preservation of life in the form in which the wild tribes remained.

A striking example of such a tribe is the wild Himba tribe. They live in Namibia. Everything that civilization has achieved has passed by the Himba. There is no hint of modern life here. The tribe is engaged in cattle breeding. All the huts where the members of the tribe live are located around the pasture.

The beauty of the women of the tribe is determined by the presence of a large number of jewelry and the amount of clay applied to the skin. But the presence of clay is not only a ritual, but also fulfills a hygienic purpose. The scorching sun, the constant lack of water - these are just a few list of difficulties. The presence of clay allows the skin not to be subjected to thermal burns and the skin gives less water.

Women in the tribe are involved in all household affairs. They take care of livestock, build huts, raise children, and make ornaments. This is the main entertainment in the tribe.

Men in the tribe are given the role of husbands. Polygamy is accepted in the tribe if the husband is able to feed the family. Marriage is expensive. The cost of a wife reaches 45 cows. Fidelity of the wife is not a mandatory thing. A child born from another father will remain in the family.

Tourist guides often turn to the tribe for tours. For this, savages receive souvenirs and money, which are then exchanged for things.

In the northwest of Mexico, there is another tribe that civilization has bypassed. It is called Tarahyumara. They are also called "beer people". The name stuck to them due to their ritual of drinking maize beer. Beating the drums, they drink beer, which is mixed with narcotic herbs. True, there is another translation option: “running soles” or “those with light legs.” And he is also well deserved, but more on that later.

They paint their bodies in bright colors. You can imagine how it looks when you realize that the tribe has 60 thousand people.

From the 17th century, savages learned to cultivate the land and began to grow cereals. Prior to this, the tribe ate roots and herbs.

Video: The Tarahumara - A Hidden Tribe of Superathletes Born to Run. The Indians of this tribe are considered the best runners, but not in speed, but in endurance. They can run 170 km without any problems. do not stop. There is a recorded case of an Indian running about 600 miles in five days.

Palawan is an island in the Philippine archipelago. The Taut Batu tribe lives in the mountains there. These are the people of the mountain caves. They live in caves and grottoes. The tribe has existed since the 11th century and human achievements are not known to them. By the way, here is the underground river Puerto Princesa.

When the monsoon rains do not come, and they can go on for half a year, the tribe is engaged in growing potatoes and rice. This is the only time when members of the tribe get out of the caves. When it starts to rain again, the whole tribe climbs into their grottoes and just sleeps, waking up only to eat.

Video: Philippines, Palawan, Tau't Batu or "People of the Rocks".

The list of tribes could go on and on. But it doesn't matter anymore. You just have to remember that somewhere on Earth there are places where life has stopped in its development, allowing others to develop further. Looking at the wild tribes, at their customs, dances, rituals, you understand that they do not want to change anything. They lived like this for thousands of years before they were discovered and, apparently, plan to continue to exist for as long.

Movies, a small selection.

Hunting for survival (Kill to survive) / Kill To Survive. (From the series: In Search of the Hunter Tribes)

There are also series: Keepers of Traditions; Sharp-toothed nomads; Hunting in the Kalahari;

An even more interesting series about the life of people in harmony with nature is Human Planet.

Also, there is such an interesting program as the Magic of Adventure. Moderator: Sergey Yastrzhembsky.

For example, one of the series. Adventure Magic: The Man in the Tree.