It seems to us that we are all literate, intelligent people, enjoying all the benefits of civilization. And it is hard to imagine that there are still tribes on our planet that are not far from the Stone Age.

Tribes of Papua New Guinea and Barneo. Here they still live according to the rules adopted 5 thousand years ago: men go naked, and women cut off their fingers. There are only three tribes still engaged in cannibalism, these are Yali, Vanuatu and Carafai. . These tribes with great pleasure eat both their enemies and tourists, as well as their own old people and deceased relatives.

In the highlands of the Congo lives a tribe of pygmies. They call themselves Mong. The amazing thing is that they have cold blood, like reptiles. And in cold weather they were able to fall into suspended animation, like lizards.

On the banks of the Amazonian river Meiki lives a small (300 individuals) tribe Piraha.

The inhabitants of this tribe do not have time. They have no calendars, no clocks, no past and no tomorrow. They have no leaders, they decide everything together. There is no concept of "mine" or "yours", everything is common: husbands, wives, children. Their language is very simple, only 3 vowels and 8 consonants, there is also no counting, they cannot even count to 3.

Sapadi Tribe (Ostrich Tribe).

They have an amazing property: there are only two fingers on their feet, and both are big! This disease (but can this unusual structure of the foot be called that?) Is called claw syndrome and is caused, according to doctors, by incest. It is possible that the cause of it is some unknown virus.

Sinta larga. They live in the Amazon Valley (Brazil).

A family (a husband with several wives and children) usually has a house of their own, which is abandoned when the land in the village becomes less fertile and game leaves the forests. Then they move out and look for a new site for the house. When moving, Sinta larga change their names, but each member of the tribe keeps the “true” name a secret (only mother and father know it). Sinta larga have always been famous for their aggressiveness. They are constantly at war both with neighboring tribes and with "foreigners" - white settlers. Fighting and killing is an integral part of their traditional way of life.

Korubo live in the western part of the Amazon Valley.

In this tribe, literally, the strongest survive. If a child is born with some kind of defect, or falls ill with a contagious disease, he is simply killed. They know neither bows nor spears. They are armed with clubs and blowpipes that shoot poisoned arrows. Korubo are spontaneous, like small children. As soon as they smile, they start laughing. If they notice fear on your face, they begin to look around warily. This is almost a primitive tribe, which civilization has not touched at all. But it is impossible to feel calm in their environment, as they can become furious at any moment.

There are approximately 100 more tribes that cannot read and write, do not know what television, cars are, moreover, they still practice cannibalism. They shoot them from the air, and then mark these places on the map. Not in order to study or enlighten them, but in order not to let anyone near them. Contact with them is undesirable, not only because of their aggressiveness, but also for the reasons that wild tribes may not be immune from the diseases of modern man.

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.

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.

Ethnic diversity on Earth is striking in its abundance. People living in different parts of the world are at the same time similar to each other, but at the same time they differ greatly in their way of life, customs, language. In this article, we will talk about some unusual tribes that you will be interested to know about.

Piraha Indians - a wild tribe inhabiting the Amazon jungle

The Pirahã Indian tribe lives in the Amazonian rainforest, mostly on the banks of the Maici River, in the state of Amazonas, Brazil.

This people of South America is known for their language, pirahão. In fact, Pirahão is one of the rarest languages ​​among the 6,000 spoken languages ​​around the world. The number of native speakers ranges from 250 to 380 people. The language is amazing because:

- does not have numbers, for them there are only two concepts "several" (from 1 to 4 pieces) and "many" (more than 5 pieces),

- verbs do not change either in numbers or in persons,

- it does not have names for colors,

- consists of 8 consonants and 3 vowels! Isn't it amazing?

According to linguists, Piraha men understand basic Portuguese and even speak very limited topics. True, not all males can express their thoughts. Women, on the other hand, have little understanding of the Portuguese language and do not use it at all for communication. However, the Pirahão language has several loanwords from other languages, predominantly from Portuguese, such as "cup" and "business".

Speaking of business, the Piraha Indians sell Brazil nuts and provide sexual services to buy consumables and tools, such as machetes, milk powder, sugar, whiskey. Chastity is not a cultural value for them.

There are several other interesting points associated with this nationality:

- Piraha have no coercion. They don't tell other people what to do. It seems that there is no social hierarchy at all, no formal leader.

- This Indian tribe has no idea about deities and God. However, they believe in spirits that sometimes take the form of jaguars, trees, people.

- it seems that the Piraha tribe are people who do not sleep. They can take a nap for 15 minutes or at most two hours throughout the day and night. They rarely sleep through the night.

The Wadoma tribe is an African tribe of people with two toes.

The Wadoma tribe lives in the Zambezi Valley in northern Zimbabwe. They are known for being ectrodactyly by some members of the tribe, missing the three middle toes and turning the outermost two inwards. As a result, members of the tribe are called "two-toed" and "ostrich-footed." Their huge two-toed feet are the result of a single mutation on chromosome number seven. However, in the tribe, such people are not considered inferior. The reason for the frequent occurrence of ectrodactyly in the Wadoma tribe is isolation and a ban on marriage outside the tribe.

Life and life of the Korowai tribe in Indonesia

The Korowai tribe, also called the Kolufo, lives in the southeast of the autonomous Indonesian province of Papua and consists of about 3,000 people. Perhaps until 1970 they were unaware of the existence of other people besides themselves.

Most clans of the Korowai tribe live in their isolated territory in tree houses, which are located at a height of 35-40 meters. In this way, they protect themselves from floods, predators, and arson by rival clans who enslave people, especially women and children. In 1980, some of the Korowai moved to settlements in open areas.

Korowai have excellent hunting and fishing skills, gardening and gathering. They practice slash-and-burn agriculture, when the forest is first burned, and then cultivated plants are planted in this place.

As far as religion is concerned, the Korowai universe is filled with spirits. The most honorable place is given to the spirits of ancestors. In difficult times, they sacrifice domestic pigs to them.

They don't know what a car, electricity, a hamburger and the United Nations are. They get their food by hunting and fishing, they believe that the gods send rain, they do not know how to write and read. They may die from catching a cold or the flu. They are a godsend for anthropologists and evolutionists, but they are dying out. They are wild tribes that have preserved the way of life of their ancestors and avoid contact with the modern world.

Sometimes the meeting happens by chance, and sometimes scientists are specifically looking for them. For example, on Thursday, May 29, in the Amazon jungle near the Brazilian-Peruvian border, several huts were found surrounded by people with bows who tried to shoot at the plane with the expedition. In this case, specialists from the Peruvian Center for Indian Tribes flew around the jungle in search of savage settlements.

Although recently, scientists rarely describe new tribes: most of them have already been discovered, and there are almost no unexplored places on Earth where they could exist.

Wild tribes live in South America, Africa, Australia and Asia. According to rough estimates, there are about a hundred tribes on Earth that do not or rarely come into contact with the outside world. Many of them prefer to avoid interaction with civilization by any means, so it is quite difficult to keep an accurate record of the number of such tribes. On the other hand, tribes that willingly communicate with modern people gradually disappear or lose their identity. Their representatives gradually assimilate our way of life or even go to live "in the big world."

Another obstacle that prevents the full study of tribes is their immune system. "Modern savages" have long developed in isolation from the rest of the world. The most common diseases for most people, such as a runny nose or flu, can be fatal for them. In the body of savages there are no antibodies against many common infections. When the flu virus strikes a person from Paris or Mexico City, his immune system immediately recognizes the "attacker" because it has already met him before. Even if a person has never had the flu, immune cells "trained" for this virus enter his body from his mother. The savage is practically defenseless against the virus. As long as his body can develop an adequate "response", the virus may well kill him.

But recently the tribes have been forced to change their habitual habitats. The development of new territories by modern man and the deforestation where savages live, force them to found new settlements. In the event that they are close to the settlements of other tribes, conflicts may arise between their representatives. And again, cross-contamination with diseases typical of each tribe cannot be ruled out. Not all tribes were able to survive when faced with civilization. But some manage to maintain their numbers at a constant level and not succumb to the temptations of the "big world".

Be that as it may, anthropologists have managed to study the way of life of some tribes. Knowledge about their social structure, language, tools, creativity and beliefs helps scientists to better understand how human development proceeded. In fact, each such tribe is a model of the ancient world, representing possible options for the evolution of culture and thinking of people.

Piraha

In the Brazilian jungle, in the valley of the Meiki River, lives the Pirahã tribe. There are about two hundred people in the tribe, they exist thanks to hunting and gathering and actively resist the introduction into the "society". Pirahã is distinguished by unique features of the language. First, there are no words for color shades. Secondly, the Pirahã language lacks the grammatical constructions necessary for the formation of indirect speech. Thirdly, Pirahã people do not know the numerals and the words "more", "several", "all" and "each".

One word, but pronounced with different intonation, serves to denote the numbers "one" and "two". It can also mean "about one" and "not very many". Due to the lack of words for numbers, Pirahãs cannot count and cannot solve simple mathematical problems. They are unable to estimate the number of objects if there are more than three. At the same time, there are no signs of a decrease in intelligence in the Piraha. According to linguists and psychologists, their thinking is artificially limited by the peculiarities of the language.

Pirahãs have no creation myths, and a strict taboo forbids them from talking about things that are not part of their own experience. Despite this, Pirahas are quite sociable and capable of organized activities in small groups.

Sinta larga

The Sinta Larga tribe also lives in Brazil. Once the number of the tribe exceeded five thousand people, but now it has decreased to one and a half thousand. The minimum social unit of the Sinta Larga is the family: a man, several of his wives and their children. They can move freely from one settlement to another, but more often establish their own home. Sinta larga are engaged in hunting, fishing and farming. When the land where their house stands becomes less fertile or game leaves the forests, the Sinta spotted seals move out and look for a new site for the house.

Each Sinta Larga has several names. One - "real name" - each member of the tribe keeps a secret, only the closest relatives know it. During the life of the Sinta Larga, they receive several more names, depending on their individual characteristics or important events that happened to them. The Sinta Larga society is patriarchal, male polygamy is widespread in it.

Sinta larga have suffered greatly due to contact with the outside world. In the jungle where the tribe lives, many rubber trees grow. Rubber collectors systematically exterminated the Indians, claiming that they interfere with their work. Later, diamond deposits were discovered in the territory where the tribe lived, and several thousand miners from all over the world rushed to develop the land of Sinta Larga, which is illegal. The members of the tribe themselves also tried to mine diamonds. Conflicts often arose between savages and diamond lovers. In 2004, 29 miners were killed by Sinta Larga people. After that, the government allocated $810,000 to the tribe in exchange for a promise to close the mines, allow them to set up police cordons near them, and not engage in stone mining on their own.

Tribes of the Nicobar and Andaman Islands

The group of Nicobar and Andaman Islands is located 1400 kilometers from the coast of India. Six primitive tribes lived in complete isolation on the outlying islands: the great Andamanese, the Onge, the Jarawa, the Shompens, the Sentinelese, and the Negrito. After the devastating 2004 tsunami, many feared that the tribes had disappeared forever. However, later it turned out that most of them, to the great joy of anthropologists, escaped.

The tribes of the Nicobar and Andaman Islands are in the Stone Age in their development. Representatives of one of them - Negrito - are considered the most ancient inhabitants of the planet, preserved to this day. The average height of a Negrito is about 150 centimeters, and even Marco Polo wrote about them as "cannibals with dog muzzles."

Korubo

Cannibalism is a fairly common practice among primitive tribes. And although most of them prefer to find other sources of food, some have retained this tradition. For example, Korubo living in the western part of the Amazon Valley. The Korubo are an extremely aggressive tribe. Hunting and raiding neighboring settlements are their main means of subsistence. The korubo's weapons are heavy clubs and poison darts. Korubo do not practice religious rites, but they have a widespread practice of killing their own children. Korubo women have equal rights with men.

Cannibals from Papua New Guinea

The most famous cannibals are perhaps the tribes of Papua New Guinea and Borneo. Cannibals of Borneo are cruel and promiscuous: they eat both their enemies and tourists or old people from their tribe. The last surge of cannibalism was noted in Borneo at the end of the past - the beginning of this century. This happened when the Indonesian government tried to colonize some areas of the island.

In New Guinea, especially in its eastern part, cases of cannibalism are observed much less frequently. Of the primitive tribes living there, only three - the Yali, the Vanuatu and the Carafai - still practice cannibalism. The most cruel is the Carafai tribe, while the Yali and Vanuatu eat someone on rare solemn occasions or out of necessity. The Yalis are also famous for their death festival, when the men and women of the tribe paint themselves in the form of skeletons and try to appease Death. Previously, for fidelity, they killed the shaman, whose brain was eaten by the leader of the tribe.

Emergency ration

The dilemma of primitive tribes is that attempts to study them often lead to their destruction. Anthropologists and travelers alike find it hard to give up the prospect of going back to the Stone Age. In addition, the habitat of modern people is constantly expanding. Primitive tribes managed to carry their way of life through many millennia, however, it seems that in the end, savages will join the list of those who could not stand the meeting with modern man.