Talk:Uncontacted peoples

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Pasted text from main article
A block of text from the Jarawa page is pasted here:

Jarawa Concerns: Change in food habits and introduction of addictives such as tobacco and alocohol Intrusion of poachers into Jarawa Reserve for removing natural resources like wild pig, fish, crab, wood and honey. These intrusions often result in violent encounters. Ongoing sexual exploitation of Jarawa women. In one case, a Jarawa woman was raped inside the GB Pant Hospital, Port Blair. In another case Jarawa woman was raped by two tribal welfare male staff.

This text is not sourced, and reads like a poorly built and poorly formatted bulleted list. Does it belong in the article? Does it belong in the linked article (3 times)?

64.101.158.211 (talk) 17:26, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

How should be the outside referred to?
(The 'outside' for the secluded people[? Is outside discrimative? By beeing not able to be outside, without beeing with the 'outsiders'?]) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.127.213.187 (talk) 02:19, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Last "uncontacted Native American in USA over 80 years ago? Pointless
You've to name some countries everywhere in a way or in another....:( There are many more "uncontacted" tribes with size much larger than a single member, if the threshold to be "uncontacted" in modern age goes back to 1920s.......this would include almost surely some tribes in Ethiopia (eg Mursiland). Please don't Americentrize even something that is inherently unrelated  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.134.27.80 (talk) 16:13, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

This is correct, so I deleted that part. I couldn't edit external reference 9, I don't know why, so if anyone can do it, please proceed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 187.233.9.140 (talk) 00:21, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

Someone reverted this, I would like to know why. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 187.234.19.152 (talk) 07:49, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

SORRY FOR WRITING IN ALL-CAPS, BUT WHY DO YOU INSIST IN KEEPING THIS IN? ISN'T IT CLEAR THAT THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE ARTICLE? THE LAST "UNCONTACTED" AMERICAN OVER 90 YEARS AGO? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? STOP IT, PLEASE. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 187.233.38.162 (talk) 07:50, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

NO ONE IS DOING ANYTHING ABOUT THIS. PEOPLE KEEP REVERSING THIS. ISN'T THERE ANYONE THAT CAN DO ANYTHING ABOUT THIS? IS ABSOLUTELY OFFENSIVE THAT "AMERICANS" KEEP TRYING TO SIMPLY "PROVE THAT THEIR COUNTRY IS ABSOLUTELY SUPERIOR TO ANY OTHER COUNTRY NO MATTER WAHT". WHAT THE FUCK?


 * The information was out of date, and wrong because it was the Lacandón people of southern Mexico who were last to be contacted, Changed today.2602:304:AF2A:1219:211F:8401:F3B5:CDA (talk) 10:25, 13 March 2015 (UTC) ..... I made the above edit to the article and talk - for some weird reason I couldn't log in until now. Twistlethrop (talk) 10:41, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Pop culture references
Cannibal Holocaust & Apocalypto, as well as the documentary; http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085544/ First Contact which actually shows the interactions between the Australian prospectors and the uncontacted people all cover this subject quite specifically. Of course, Apocalypto only covers it briefly and I've seen it mentioned that ~100 years is about the expiry date for relevance for this topic, but I thought I'd drop it in for good measure. Perhaps someone could find one of the sources covering the change in attitudes towards uncontacted people in pop culture, something that Cannibal Holocaust dealt with fairly directly! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Senor Freebie (talk • contribs) 13:20, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

New tribe found in Brazil
—Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.78.233.39 (talk) 10:16, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Contradiction
In the Vietnam section:
 * Since then, the government has made many attempts to relocate and settle them.[3] Very few attempts, however, have been made.

I don't know which sentence is correct, but clearly they can't both be. Fishvodka (talk) 20:37, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Survival International only main source?
Most of the material claims and statements in this article come exclusively from Survival International who has a less than impeccable reputation. We need to seek out additional sources that aren't just attributed to Survival international. 207.216.253.134 (talk) 01:56, 2 February 2011 (UTC)


 * This needs to be addressed. Many statistics on this article come from Survival International, but I can't find sources for their claims on their website. They only seem to have videos on the uncontactedtribes.org website to back up their claims, and these videos provide no statistic information. Before their statistic claims are confirmed, I think we should remove some claims presented as facts from this article, or at least make it clear that they may be inaccurate. This article distributes information that may be not true. Thoughts? I'll try to find some more sources. VCrane (talk) 18:02, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Link does not work anymore (Vietnam section)
In the Vietnam section: the url does not work anymore, I suggest the following: "http://vn.360plus.yahoo.com/Nang-muadong/article?mid=815&fid=-1" Zavphi (talk) 17:24, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Venezuela
According to the report of Vincent Brackelair there aren´t, strictly speaking, any uncontacted peoples in Venezuela anymore. The Yanomami have already had first hand contact with other groups. Here is the link for the report: http://www.ibcperu.org/doc/isis/687.pdf --Rivet138 (talk) 13:39, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Why "uncontacted"?
Isn't it exactly their problem that they were contacted? With all the well known consequences? They are isolated but not uncontacted. --Hans-Jürgen Hübner (talk) 15:35, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Uncontacted because no efforts in language and trade has been made. Contact them is very dangerous as they feel threatened and reacts aggressively. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.79.66.87 (talk) 22:59, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 'Uncontacted' generally means that the culture in question refuses to make contact with the outside world (i.e, formal cultural relations have never been established). While anthropologists occasionally (and rarely) encounter and study uncontacted cultures, those visits are infrequent, limited in duration, and usually just 'tolerated', rather than welcomed. 70.66.215.159 (talk) 09:36, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

Why "India"?
Adding entire India to "uncontacted" is not useful. KartikMistry (talk) 09:06, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Dangerous
Researcher Nicolás Flores was assassinated by Mascho-Piro with an arrow. The Manú Park is now closed because him (and others) leaved gifts in the park such as food and clothes. Probably the industrialized food intoxicated someone and they decided to kill him. http://noticias.uol.com.br/ultnot/cienciaesaude/ultimas-noticias/2012/01/31/ong-divulga-fotos-ineditas-de-tribo-isolada-na-amazonia-do-peru.jhtm

FUNAI is predicting a conflict "never saw in 500 years" between three tribes wich one is imigrating from Peru to Amazon/Acre (state of Brazil). People should avoid Envira region because is been disputed by the tribes, everyone who trepass this region is in extremely danger by ranger/arrow attacks. http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/poder/868656-funai-diz-que-pode-haver-confronto-com-indios-isolados.shtml

People or peoples?
There is a discrepancy in this article between the title ("Peoples", which unneccesarily adds an "s" to a word that is already a plural), and the body of the article (correctly using "people" as a collective noun).

In the interests of consistency, I propose that the title of the article be re-named "Uncontacted People".

Yes, yes, I know that some aid agencies / politically correct folks like to add an "s" to "people" on occassion, but they do all tend to belong to one particular part of the political spectrum. This is not regular English. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 180.75.255.132 (talk) 01:30, 2 February 2012 (UTC)


 * No, it is perfectly regular English, And no, people is not already plural, it is singular.


 * The problem is that the word "people" has undergone a transition in meaning in the past century or so. 100 years "people" had just one meaning: ethnic group. Hence "We, the people" in the US constitution, meaning "We, the US ethic group". If one wished to refer to more than one ethnic group, one referred to "peoples", such as "The peoples of the New World", meaning "The amalgamated ethnic groups of the New World". If one wished to refer to a group of individuals without reference to their ethnicity, one used the word "persons" or "men". At some point the distinction between "people" and "persons" became vague, and today most individuals use "people" as a perfect synonym for "persons. However the old usage still remains perfectly correct: people still means "ethnic group" and "peoples" still means "ethnic groups".


 * This is an article about uncontacted ethnic groups. It is not about uncontacted individuals. It is not about a single uncontacted ethnic group. The only correct title for such an article using regular English is "Uncontacted peoples". Any other phrasing would be incorrect using standard English.


 * I have no idea where you get the idea that "peoples" is aligned to any political group. It is standard, regular English, universal in the English speaking world. Might I suggest consulting a dictionary?Mark Marathon (talk) 01:44, 2 February 2012 (UTC)


 * "Past century"? No. The Oxford English Dictionary gives examples going back to the 14th century, just as long as the word has also been used to denote a nation or community. Largoplazo (talk) 11:39, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

Dictionaries seem to agree that the word "people" has several meanings, including as a plural of "person" and as a singular noun that pluralises to "peoples". I like the Merriam–Webster definition of the latter: "people (plural: peoples) a body of persons that are united by a common culture, tradition, or sense of kinship, that typically have common language, institutions, and beliefs, and that often constitute a politically organized group". See for example Merriam–Webster, Wiktionary, Dictionary.com. I have tried to edit the article to make it more consistent and avoid confusion, for example where it said "there were thought to be roughly 100 uncontacted people worldwide" it was unclear whether this is 100 individuals or 100 tribes. --HAdG (talk) 12:17, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

South America section - list tribes in tables or text, but not both
This section is confusing. The tribes listed in the paragraphs of text do not match the tribes listed in the tables. Lists of regions where uncontacted tribes can be found are unnecessary, since the tables also include a column for location. Suggest using tables to list the tribes and the text to describe other facts relevant to the region. Tripleblade (talk) 09:19, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Comment
Just a thought, how come is there no section about African uncontacted people? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:62A:4:427:889:20D3:918D:708B (talk) 10:35, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

I was thinking much the same thing when reading this. Is it due to the lack of centralised governments that keep registers of tribes/peoples? My parents recently lived in Lesotho where I heard anecdotes of some tribes not being located until the 1960's due to the mountainous terrain in the country. This is definitely worth looking into!195.83.178.130 (talk) 22:34, 6 June 2014 (UTC)J_alba

Article in Smithsonian
There is an article in the March, 2013 edition of Smithsonian magazine that mentions several recently discovered peoples who are not named in this article. Does this article need to be updated? Additional articles written? If so, I am not the person to do this, but wanted to call attention to the possibility, since I would love to read those future articles. This is a fascinating subject. 152.180.6.2 (talk) 12:27, 4 April 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.180.6.2 (talk) 12:22, 4 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Since this magazine is probably a reliable source, information from it can be added to articles; you can do this yourself. Please sign your entries here using four tildes. David Spector (talk) 21:35, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Sooo
What about Europe? And Africa. They should be mentioned. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.202.96.185 (talk) 13:38, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Wouldn't europe be for the Siberian peoples, which are more asian? although I could be wrong, I don't know much about it but I would be interested to find out about those two regions — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.69.176.102 (talk) 08:13, 29 November 2014 (UTC)
 * There are several ethnic groups in Siberia. And yes, some of them (though not all) are of Asiatic origin. All of them, while not necessarily integrated into the wider global culture, are in full contact. The same with Africa. So far as I know, there are no peoples who meet the criteria for inclusion in this article in either region. Quinto Simmaco (talk) 07:54, 10 March 2015 (UTC)


 * "The same with Africa." If that's the case, shouldn't the reference to central Africa be removed from the introduction. Hazpotts (talk) 00:19, 23 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Who were the last isolated tribes in Europe, or in Russia? I am thinking the last ones in Asian Russia are likely to have been some Uralic or Yakutian peoples, but one would like to know. 83.254.143.47 (talk) 23:12, 8 July 2018 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure if I'm allowed to drop this link here, so correct me if I'm not, but there was a good reddit thread on this topic: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAnthropology/comments/350aqi/are_there_any_uncontacted_peoples_left_in_europe/
 * Basically looks like the Sami and the Faroese are still pretty isolated, as a look at their wikipedia pages suggests.
 * Best, Ph03n1x77 (talk) 01:03, 6 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Lol they have the internet. They're not that isolated. 2A02:8084:4EE2:5E00:1CD7:4355:A2DA:67AF (talk) 10:48, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

Bad link to "Ruc People"
The link to "Ruc People" redirects to "Chut People", a page with no information on the Ruc...

38.112.155.163 (talk) 19:07, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

Levels of endogamy and indirect contact/contact with neighbors
It would be interesting to have something related with estimates of levels of endogamy. Some of the population estimates are extremely low, I'd guess it means they probably exchange people with neighboring tribes, "less uncontacted".

Were there instances already of ermit-like isolationists actually culturally forgetting they were once a branch of an European/other population, along with other aspects of their own history? I've heard once that in Brazil there's a village of people who think they're Catholics, but they're actually Jewish people who were once running from anti-semitism and tried to pretend they're Catholics in order to do so, but they kept Jewish rituals and so on, while at the same time they eventually forgot and came to thought they were really Catholics. They're "uncontacted" in an Amish-type of level, which is probably technically out of the definition of this article, but I was wondering if there were something more extreme than that in some localities. Unfortunately I have no other recollection about them, except that they're somewhere in the North or Northeast region. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 191.254.71.150 (talk) 18:44, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

More about them, possibly conflicting somewhat with the description I gave priviously: https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Estrela_Oculta_do_Sert%C3%A3o — Preceding unsigned comment added by 191.254.71.150 (talk) 18:49, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

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Terminology
It's great to see the caution and concern for terminology in this article, making sure we steer clear of our intellectual forebears' tendency to toss around terms like "savages". However, if you look at this edit, you'll see an unregistered user describe the Rục (Vietnam) as now being "integrated into civilized society" (emphasis mine). I am assuming that everybody else sees the problem with the term "civilized" here, so I changed it. I note it here, in case I'm wrong about everyone agreeing. —Transitive Sam (talk) 16:21, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

Uncontacted?
Is it worth pointing out that for these people, we're the uncontacted ones? Paul Magnussen (talk) 05:04, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
 * If they're explorers and they have their own Wikipedia, then I would imagine they'd list us that way.
 * More seriously, referring to the lead sentence of the article, the definition of "uncontacted peoples" doesn't describe a reciprocal relationship. "We" aren't among "communities who live, or have lived, either by choice (people living in voluntary isolation) or by circumstance, without significant contact with global civilization". Largoplazo (talk) 10:18, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

/* Mexico */ added citation for when the Lacandon became a tribe and added a citation for how many Lacandon are actually left
The facts added came from a direct source to the Lacandon people and their history. This information is coming from the book "Lacandon Maya." Cassell's Peoples, Nations and Cultures, edited by John Mackenzie, Cassell, 1st edition, 2005" and has a testimony of what brief facts are found about the Lacandon history. Everything added to the article is relevant to the topic, I added in small details to help create an image of the tribe, without divulging too much into their history, as there is another page with more information on the Lacandon people. The article is neutral, no bias or sides were taken, all the information included is factual without any outside opinions. This information comes from the "Peoples, Nations, and Cultures" and it derives off of encyclopedic material and is formatted more as an index, and does not delve much into political opinions on the multiples cultures they cover, including the Lacandon. So, the information is very neutral, with slight anthropological genres. Each point that added into the book are equally represented with the amount of information given, it would be impossible to every bit of knowledge for every single uncontacted tribe, due to dangers of encroachment and possible contamination of the uncontacted peoples' environment; naturally it would seem that some cultures may be underrepresented in the book which is due to lack of available information, not bias. The links to the citations do work, but there is a small fee if a person does not have a subscription to the website, and there is no plagiarism to be seen in article entry as the paraphrasing is all cited. The information is not out of date, this is coming from years of what little collected data is available on these tribes, anything in the last 2 decades is a win for getting information on uncontacted people. There is of course much missing information that could be added to the book, but again there is only so much investigation that can be done on uncontacted, they reserve the right to privacy, and can sometimes behold dangerous interactions to outsiders.

-Michele Lowndes IFS 201 2018 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Michele7Lowndes (talk • contribs) 05:36, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion: You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 15:22, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
 * MVC SELVA-LACANDONA-5-600x400.jpg

Constance island
In the main article it is said that Constance island merged with North Sentinel after the 2004 tsunami. It appears however from Google earth, that at least 100 meters of see still separates Constance island from North Sentinel. MathNT (talk) 16:06, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

Tasaday people (Philippines)?
I came to this article looking for details of the isolated tribe in the Philippines who were announced as an uncontacted people in the 1970s, but it later turned out their status as a "Stone Age" people was a hoax, or at least greatly exaggerated. I found nothing. A Google search turned up their name – the Tasaday, who actually have a separate WP article. Why are they not listed here? Too controversial or dubious? --Muzilon (talk) 08:15, 24 November 2018 (UTC)
 * In the absence of any feedback, I added a paragraph about the Tasaday. Happy to engage in dialogue here if anyone has an issue with it :) --Muzilon (talk) 03:22, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 00:06, 9 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Índios Isolados 4.jpg

The decision in 2018 was to keep this image, based on a discussion of Brazilian law but not adequately taking into account the moral dimension. I just posted an argument to reopen this discussion. Please consider these arguments on the discussion page. --HAdG (talk) 12:02, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

Cleanup proposal
Per the WP:OR etc. notices on this article, it is in need of an overhaul. Suggest reconsidering the content according to the following definition, from Survival International's FAQ, and pruning off-topic and unreferenced content. Proposed definition of "uncontacted peoples" for the purposes of choosing what goes in this article: --Cornellier (talk) 15:53, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Tribes without ongoing peaceful contact with people in colonizing society.
 * Uncontacted does not exclude limited contact with neighbouring tribes or very limited contact with colonizing society e.g. missionaries.
 * They should be living largely as they would have in pre-industrial times, though some may have acquired metal, for example.
 * The article should be limited to current tribes. Clearly all peoples were uncontacted peoples in the more or less distant past.
 * Although the peoples can be enumerated (e.g. "there are more than 100 such tribes in the world") Per WP:NOTDIR not every one needs to be listed.


 * Hi Cornellier, since you seem to have a vested interest in this page I thought I'd let you know that I did a bit of a cleanup and refresh on it. I'd love to get your thoughts if you have the desire to skim through it. Basically I 1) moved demographic information and estimates to the top of the article 2) gave a more specific definition based on UN documents about protected peoples in isolation 3) added a couple of stories that seemed to generally explain the common challenges and interests of uncontacted peoples under relations with the outside world, including some more modern examples of people in initial contact and 4) made some spelling, formatting, and clarification changes and added a picture.
 * Let me know if you think anything should be changed back or modified!
 * Best wishes, Ph03n1x77 (talk) 00:59, 6 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Hi Ph03n1x77, thanks for the heads-up! Looks good, a few comments:
 * the items in the definition should be a bulleted list since they are not sequential
 * "Relations with outsiders" section is mostly about government policy with a few examples, and rather biased towards Brazil. It seems rather sprawling, but includes a one-sentence sub-section, which is odd. I'd have to think a little longer to come up with a more concrete plan for improvement.
 * "In modern culture" is usually at the end of an article FWIW.
 * Could the "Further reading" listings be used for content, and converted to references?
 * still contains some bare refs
 * A good See also section includes a blurb after the link briefly summarizing why one might want to "see also" it. Like "Terra nullius" ... wut? --Cornellier (talk) 02:20, 7 October 2021 (UTC)


 * Cornellier, thanks for the suggestions and improvements!
 * I went ahead and implemented your recommendations about the list and "In modern culture" location.
 * As for further reading, bare refs, and See also I'll be honest that I usually don't touch those, mostly because I have no idea what I'm doing. My expertise is pretty much templates, images, and edits, and that's about it. I might do some reading to see what the intended purpose and best practices are for those sections and see if I can't make changes sometime later.
 * Last but not least, I agree that "relations with outsiders" has become pretty nebulous. We might want to have a discussion about what the purpose of this page is so we can understand if that information is relevant. If we wanted to, I agree most of it is tied to Brazil, and we could move it to separate pages for Brazilian tribes. However, I did try to pick examples that highlighted the shared challenges of all uncontacted peoples, and that was what I was really going for. Some historical briefing that gave more context to the definition, or how the UN/other organizations came to that definition.
 * One possibility is adding a more clear thesis statement to that section, and dividing it up into subsections. "Historical Exploitation", "Harmful and Beneficial Contact", and "Debate around initiating contact" are categories I came up with off the top of my head. Particularly in "Debate around initiating contact" we could make it more general, with possible benefits being increased integration with society and funding regardless of where the peoples reside, and possibly giving other examples to make it less specific to Brazil and FUNAI. Ph03n1x77 (talk) 03:27, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

New Guinea
Pretty much every article on the subject says something vague like "there are uncontacted tribes in New Guinea"... However, it is very difficult to find any specific information about it. Dani people does not mention it, for e.g. Suggest leaving New Guinea out of here for now until better info can be found. --Cornellier (talk) 02:02, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

Incorrect use of "peoples" to describe individuals (not groups) or contradiction
The article says "About 50 groups of indigenous peoples of the Americas live in isolation" but then says "approximately 100 Ayoreo peoples, some of whom are in the Totobiegosode tribe, live uncontacted in the forest."

I think the latter quote actually means there are 100 uncontacted individuals so "peoples" should be changed to "people." If it actually means there are 100 groups, then it must be wrong that there are only 50 such groups in the Americas. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.0.184.73 (talk) 10:20, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks for pointing that out. Fixed. --Cornellier (talk) 12:15, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Too many chapters VS too large lead
Some chapter headlines have been taken out adding the content of the chapters to the lead

Chapter headlines taken out: "Knowledge and representation" "Contact" "Global prevalence"

I argue that it doesnt hurt the article to give it a structure and easy overview, instead of a bloated lead. Nsae Comp (talk) 12:05, 29 June 2020 (UTC)


 * OK fair enough. Try it now. --Cornellier (talk) 17:49, 29 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Thanks! Looks good. I like the definition section and "..in culture". The "relation with outside" works for me, I guess it is as good as "Contact". You though took out two terms: uncontacted tribes, hidden peoples, ... They are not very important or much used, but they still are sometimes, even if their use is not very nuanced and maybe not prefered by advocacy groups. But to find the article under these terms it might be worthwhile to keep them. Maybe a paragraph like:"Other sometimes used terms are ..."? Nsae Comp (talk) 19:35, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
 * added those terms back in, thanks for the feedback. --Cornellier (talk) 11:42, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Colonial background
The following text was taken out, but I would argue that the concept of uncontacted peoples does not exist without a history. Hence I suggest to reintroduce it to reflect the colonial history and background and to invite further contextualization by editors:

"Historically there are many cases of communities and states being isolated from each other and only having poor knowledge of each other and poor contact.

One such case is the poor formal contact between Europe and China in the course of the long history of the Silk Road trade and later contact with the Mongol Empire. Frustrated with the lack of contact gave rise to the characterization of China as isolationist, and after being identified with Greater India and the Prester John european powers, like the portuguese Prince Henry the Navigator, attempted to reach the isolated Greater India westward. This made colonial powers identify the Americas as West Indies a part of Greater India and named the indigenous peoples of the Americas incorrectly as "Indians". It has been argued that for colonialism this seeking out contact proved to be a crucial element to gain controle over knowledge and representation of the other in isolation. " Nsae Comp (talk) 13:54, 29 June 2020 (UTC)


 * It depends on what you think the subject of the article is. I think the subject is peoples who are known by and whose lives are touched by, at most, their nearest neighbors, and that's it. That, before European exploration of the Americas, Africa, and the Pacific in the 16th century and thereafter, every individual on the planet knew nothing about much of the rest of the world and had contact with almost none of it isn't really the same topic. Largoplazo (talk) 14:03, 29 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Hello. I took the section out because it doesn't fit the subject of the article. The lead defines "uncontacted peoples" as "communities or groups of indigenous peoples living without sustained contact to neighbouring communities and the world community". In no way is China "groups of indigenous peoples". There was no "world community" back then. The subject of this article, "uncontacted peoples" is a modern phenomenon that only makes sense in the context of globalization. But if you want to have a discussion about the scope of this article, I'm open to that. --Cornellier (talk) 17:36, 29 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the answers. I guess you are right about the different case of a world community and not "just" two world regions without contact.  Nsae Comp (talk) 19:21, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

What's with Africa
In the Africa section of this article, there's a few question marks over rural Gabon, Republic of Congo, and DRC, but no citations or anything to back it up. Is there any evidence of there being uncontacted African people that are extant to the present? Anyone got a source?

Aqua817 (talk) 23:26, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Uh, wut? There's no Africa section of this article. --Cornellier (talk) 23:49, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
 * I think they are talking about the map image at the top of the article. Tweebuffels   talk  04:07, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

South America numbers
I've tagged the South America section as self-contradictory. It starts by saying that there are 50 or so groups in the continent as a whole. Later, it is claimed that there are 67 in Brazil alone. Looking at the dates, it may be that the 50 is simply out of date, but I wasn't sure what to update it to. Anyone have a recent, reliable figure? -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 07:15, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

Grammar issue?
Indigenous peoples, and specifically those in voluntary isolation, have been its search for the Ten Lost Tribes, being incorrectly associated with them and sometimes named as such.

This line under Western culture seems not to make much sense. Am I missing something? TheForgottenKing (talk) 06:14, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

It doesn't make sense, and the sentence before it in the "Uncontacted peoples in Western culture" section is also poorly written. The two sentences are sourced, so if I get a chance I'll look at them (unless someone else does before I get to it) and see if I can come up with suitable replacements. Largoplazo (talk) 10:30, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

black spot in Malaysia on map
Anyone know why theres a black spot on the map shown at the beginning of the article? theres no reference to an uncontacted people there in the article. Ianbambooman (talk) 00:04, 5 September 2022 (UTC)


 * There is a mention in the Guardian article (without details). I suggest the spot be deleted, it's misleading. Pakbelang (talk) 11:19, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Unregistered user here, I'm also very interested. The article goes into great detail about people in South America, and obviously there isn't much to discuss about New Guinea peoples, but the map clearly shows an uncontacted tribe in Malaysia, and seemingly some in the middle of Africa. Does anyone have any information on these tribes? Even if it's just "we know there are some uncontacted people here".

If there's no information whatsoever on these people/existence is a rumour then maybe the map should be updated? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:8003:9102:AF00:680F:209D:5D68:C5C9 (talk) 15:02, 10 December 2022 (UTC)


 * The map is inaccurate and not based on reliable sources. The black spot refers to the Temiar people of Peninsular Malaysia -- they were first contacted in the 19th century and now make frequent contact with the mainstream Malaysian society. Pakbelang (talk) 11:18, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Essay-like, December 2022
I've added the essay-like banner after coming across this page in general reading. It reads like it is conveying a narrative, especially emphasising the voluntary nature of uncontacted peoples, and for instance, the 'Relations with Outsiders' section uses "suggests" a few times too many for my liking in a way that would seem more consistent with an essay or argument. Sticking closer to cited sources and perhaps even intentionally covering the terminological debate in a separate section could go some way to cleaning up this entry and making it more encyclopaedic. MB190417 (talk) 01:46, 11 December 2022 (UTC)