For 600 years the Mashco Piro clan – also known as
Cujareno people – have lived in the forest in Peru close to
the border with Brazil and had no contact with the outside
But recently – threatened by 21st century logging, drugs
cartels and tourism – the rarely seen indigenous tribe have
broken cover from the forest to raid villages for food, tools
and weapons to hunt.
In May, Leonardo Perez, 20, was killed when he was shot
with an arrow by tribe members who wanted his tools.
In 2011 local guide Shaco Flores (pictured above), a
Matsigenka Indian, was murdered by the tribe.
Shaco had given them machetes, pots and pans for 20 years
and had developed a good relationship with the clan.
But it is believed he was killed with an arrow to the heart
after he tried to persuade them to settle and end to their
nomadic hunter-gatherer life.
‘The Mashco Piro have been present in this area for as long
as anyone can remember, and have in a way been enticed
out of their forest home onto the riverbanks by
missionaries and other missionised indigenous people,’
Rebecca Spooner for campaign group International Survival
‘They have been given pots and land and machetes, and are
now asking for more.’
The increasing contact between the Mashco Piro people
and other indigenous communities is slowly peeling back
the layers of secrecy that have shielded them from modern
Members of the tribe have been spotted a record 100 times
already this year, Peru’s deputy culture minister Patricia
While others have even left the forest and now live among
the neighbouring Yine Indians, who speak a similar
Culled from UK Daily Mail