Blog: Uncontacted tribes aren’t ‘Stone Age.’ They just want — and deserve — to be left alone

Even under the best of circumstances, contact has proved dangerous. Brazil’s Department for Indigenous Affairs conducted “first contact” expeditions in the 1970s and 1980s. One of the most experienced expedition leaders, Sydney Possuelo, said: “I set up a system with doctors and nurses. I stocked up with medicines to combat the epidemics which always follow. I had vehicles, a helicopter, radios and experienced personnel. ‘I won’t let a single Indian die,’ I thought. And the contact came, the diseases arrived, the Indians died.” The expeditions were abandoned.