Members of the Mashco-Piro tribe last appeared in 2011 (Picture: AP/File)

Members of an Indian tribe that have long lived in voluntary isolation in Peru’s south-eastern Amazon have attempted to make contact with outsiders for a second time since 2011, leading to a tense standoff at a river hamlet.

Authorities are unsure what provoked the three-day encounter but say the Mashco-Piro may be upset by illegal logging in their territory as well as drug smugglers who pass through, while oil and gas exploration also affects the region.

The more than 100 members of the clan appeared across the Las Piedras river from the remote community of Monte Salvado in the Tambopata region of Madre de Dios state at the end of June, said Klaus Quicque, president of the regional Fenamad indigenous federation



They asked for bananas, rope and machetes from the local Yine people but were dissuaded from crossing the river by Fenamad rangers posted at the settlement, said Mr Quicque, who directed them to a banana patch on their side of the river.


A video of the incident shows Mashco-Piro of all ages and sexes, including men with lances, bows and arrows. In one image shot during a moment of tension, a man flexes his bow, ready to shoot.

The Mashco-Piro live by their own social code, which includes kidnapping other tribes’ women and children, according to Carlos Soria, a Lima professor and former head of Peru’s park protection agency.

Peruvian law prohibits physical contact with the estimated 15 ‘uncontacted’ tribes in the country that together are estimated to number between 12,000 and 15,000 people living in jungles east of the Andes.

The main reason is their safety: Their immune systems are highly vulnerable to germs other humans carry.

Mr Quicque said the Mashco-Piro were victimized by ‘genocide’ in the mid-1980s from the incursion of loggers, and subsequently engaged in battles with mahogany-seekers.

Members of the group reappeared in May 2011 on the banks of a different river after more than two decades in voluntary isolation.

After those sightings, and after tourists left clothing for the Mashco-Piro, authorities barred all boats from going ashore in the area.

Mashco-Piro were blamed later in 2011 for the wounding of one forest ranger and the killing of a Matsiguenka Indian who had long maintained a relationship with them and provided them with machetes and cooking pots.