By: K-Man

K-Man — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:46:18 +0000

Yeah, I think punk’d is not right. If you told me that actually down there was Gary Coleman with red face paint then, yeah, I would say punk’d. But these guys are freakin’ real, and so whether we know about them or not before, hell I didn’t.

By: Jim B

Jim B — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 20:12:55 +0000

No one got “punked”, and nothing about the original story (when properly reported) was untrue. Meirelles and the Brazilian government never called the tribe “lost”, “unknown” or “undiscovered”. They are “uncontacted” — which means they don’t have contact with the outside world, and this is completely true. They live on a special protected reserve for uncontacted tribes. Beaumont’s June 22 Observer article is misleading, taking statements from an inverview Meirelles did with Al Jazeera and couching them in a way which makes them seem to conflict with his earlier statements, but they don’t. Don’t take my word for it. Beaumont’s Observer article has a link in the first paragraph to the Guardian’s original May 30 report on the photos, and it makes it quite clear that Meirelles was up front about the circumstances and purpose of the photos. He never said they were a “lost” tribe, and he never said it was a “chance discovery.” The only ones who said that were some lazy media outlets who picked up the story from other sources and didn’t do their homework. If you read the original May 30 coverage in the Guardian, or bbc.co.uk, or cnn.com or Yahoo! News, you’ll see that’s true, and there were no new “revelations” in the Guardian article. There more information at http://www.survival-international.org, the organization which helped release the photos to the press, and who is trying to correct the false information spread by Beaumont’s article. You should change or delete this item, as it is misleading and based on faulty information. JB

Comments on: Story of ‘Uncontacted Brazilian Tribe’ Not Entirely True

By: K-Man

By: Jim B