Vale do Javari (

English language English is a West Germanic language that developed in early medieval England and has since become a English as a lingua franca, global lingua franca. The namesake of the language is the Angles (tribe), Angles, one of the Germanic peoples th ...

: Javari Valley) is one of the largest indigenous territories in

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

, encompassing 85,444.82 km² (32,990 mi²) – an area larger than

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

. It is named after the Javari River, the most important river of the region, which since 1851 has formed the border with

Peru Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pac ...

. It includes much of the

Atalaia do Norte Atalaia do Norte is the most western municipality in the Brazilian state of Amazonas. As of 2020, its population was 20,398 and its area is 76,355 km2, thus making it the third largest municipality in Amazonas and the seventh largest in Bra ...

municipality as well as adjacent territories in the western section of Amazonas state. Besides the Javari it is transected by the

Pardo In the former Portuguese and Spanish colonies in the Americas, ''pardos'' (feminine ''pardas'') are triracial descendants of Europeans, Indigenous Americans and Africans. History In some places they were defined as neither exclusively ...

, Quixito, Itaquai and Ituí rivers.

Inhabitants

Vale do Javari is home to 3,000

indigenous peoples of Brazil Indigenous peoples in Brazil or Native Brazilians () are the peoples who lived in Brazil before European contact around 1500 and their descendants. Indigenous peoples once comprised an estimated 2,000 district tribes and nations inhabiting what ...

with varying degrees of contact, including the

Matis The Matis people (also called Matsë in their own native language) are an indigenous people of Brazil. Outsiders sometimes call them the Jaguar People, but they do not like the name. They currently live in the far west of Brazil, in the Vale d ...

, the Matses, the Kulina, and others. The uncontacted indigenous peoples are estimated to be more than 2,000 individuals belonging to at least 14 tribes including the ''Isolados do Rio Quixito'', ''Isolados do Itaquai'' (

Korubo The Korubo or Korubu, also known as the , are a largely uncontacted, Panoan-speaking indigenous people of Brazil living in the lower Vale do Javari in the western Amazon Basin. The group calls themselves , and in Portuguese they are referred ...

), ''Isolados do Jandiatuba'', ''Isolados do Alto Jutai'', ''Isolados do Sao Jose'', ''Isolados do Rio Branco'', ''Isolados do Medio Javari'' and ''Isolados do Jaquirana-Amburus''. These are believed to be living deep inside its reservation areas. The uncontacted tribes live in some 19 known villages identified by air. According to Fabricio Amorim from the Brazilian National Indigenous People Foundation (

FUNAI is a Japanese consumer electronics company headquartered in Daitō, Osaka. Currently, it is in liquidation. Apart from producing its own branded electronic products, it was also an OEM providing assembled televisions and video players/recor ...

), the region contains "the greatest concentration of isolated groups in the Amazon and the world". The Brazilian government has made it illegal for non-indigenous people to enter the territory; the area (along with its inhabitants) is observed by the government from the air with rare overland treks by

officials and local guides. Non-indigenous people living in the area at the time were forcibly removed, sometimes without fair compensation.''The Unconquered: In Search of the Amazon's Lost Tribes'', First Edition, Crown Publishers, United States, 2011

Illegal economic activities

The region is known for being a trafficking route for cocaine. Illegal activities, like fishing (mostly to export ''

pirarucu The arapaima, pirarucu, or paiche is any large species of bonytongue in the genus ''Arapaima'' native to the Amazon and Essequibo basins of South America. ''Arapaima'' is the type genus of the subfamily Arapaiminae within the family Osteogloss ...

'' and ''

piracatinga ''Calophysus macropterus'', known natively as the piracatinga/pirácatina, piranambú, pintadinho, zamurito, water buzzard, or by its popular English name vulture catfish, is a species of catfish (order Siluriformes) of the monotypic genus ''Calo ...

''), logging and mining, help criminal groups linked to drug trafficking to

launder money Money laundering is the process of illegally concealing the origin of money obtained from illicit activities (often known as dirty money) such as drug trafficking, sex work, terrorism, corruption, and embezzlement, and converting the funds in ...

and import more drugs to Brazil. "Contacted" native tribes additionally have been reported to make illegal contact with "uncontacted" tribes to exploit their superior hunting skills.

Rubber boom

During the

Amazon rubber boom The Amazon rubber cycle or boom (, ; , ) was an important part of the socioeconomic history of Brazil and Amazonian regions of neighboring countries, being related to the commercialization of Natural rubber, rubber and the genocide of indigenous ...

, natives along the Javari River were subjected to slave raids, which were aimed at acquiring a workforce to extract rubber.

In the media

In October 2009, a plane with eleven people aboard emergency-landed in the middle of the reservation. People from the Matis tribe found the wreckage and alerted local authorities, who dispatched a rescue mission that flew nine survivors out of the reservation. Vale do Javari is the setting of the 2011 report ''The Unconquered: In Search of the Amazon's Last Uncontacted Tribes'' by ''National Geographic'' writer Scott Wallace. It details a 76-day expedition in 2002 led by

Sydney Possuelo Sydney Ferreira Possuelo (born 19 April 1940, in Santos Dumont) is a Brazilian explorer, social activist and ethnographer who is considered the leading authority on Brazil's remaining isolated Indigenous Peoples. Life and career Sydney Possuelo ...

to find the status of the " Arrow People", an uncontacted tribe. In June 2022, British freelance journalist

Dom Phillips Dominic Mark Phillips (23 July 1964 – 5 June 2022) was a British freelance journalist. He wrote for ''The Guardian'' and ''The Washington Post'', and contributed to ''The Times'', the ''Financial Times'' and Bloomberg News, among others. On ...

and

Bruno Pereira Bruno da Cunha Araújo Pereira (15 August 1980 – 5 June 2022) was a Brazilian indigenist and career employee of the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI). He was an expert on uncontacted or recently contacted indigenous people in the country an ...

, a Brazilian expert on indigenous peoples of Amazonas, were murdered by poachers for helping to protect indigenous people from illegal drug traffickers, miners, loggers, and hunters. In late 2023,

Starlink Starlink is a satellite internet constellation operated by Starlink Services, LLC, an international telecommunications provider that is a wholly owned subsidiary of American aerospace company SpaceX, providing coverage to around 130 countries ...

devices introduced the Internet to a number of remote villages in the area, including the Marubo tribes.

References

External links

Unknown Tribes of Javari Valley
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vale do Javari History of Amazonas (Brazilian state) Indigenous Territories (Brazil) Indigenous topics of the Amazon Uncontacted peoples