Guardian reports on Awá genocide.

In 'They're killing us': world's most endangered tribe cries for help, Gethin Chamberlain of The Observer reports on the plight of the Awá people, and the related upcoming Survival International campaign.

The article states that it is not just the removal of the forest that is threatening the Awá and their way of life, but also that "Hired gunmen – known as pistoleros – are reported to be hunting Awá who have stood in the way of land-grabbers"

Though their language is not mentioned, the number "355", given as the "number of surviving members". This corresponds well with the Ethnologue and UNESCO records of 370 and 283 speakers of Guaja speakers.

Amondawa Time

Several sources report on Professor Chris Sinha's paper, When Time is not Space: The social and linguistic construction of time intervals
and temporal event relations in an Amazonian culture., which discusses the nature of the time as space metaphor in the Amondawa Language:

• PressTV: Tribe with no concept of time found
• BBC: Amondawa tribe lacks abstract idea of time, study says
  
• Sun: Time? What's that?
  Tribe has no dates or ages
  
• Telegraph: Amazonian tribe has no calendar and no concept of time
  
• Metro: Amazonian tribe discovered with no concept of time
  

Notable points:

• Both Metro and PressTV report the discovery of this tribe, rather than the analysis that they lack an abstract concept of time. This is contrary to The Sun's report that they were "first contacted by the outside world in 1986".
• PressTV independently refer to the Amondawa as a "Primitive Tribe"
• The Sun points out that "They have learned Portuguese and there are fears their own language is dying."
• Metro link this story to the story of the last two Ayapeneco Speakers
• The BBC Article also includes the views of Pierre Pica, (mentioned on this blog recently, regarding Mundurucu perceptions of Geometry)
• The BBC Article mentions that although they don't map events in time to passage through space, "When the Amondawa learn Portuguese ... they have no problem acquiring and using these mappings from the language."

Geometry skills are innate, Amazon tribe study suggests

Geometry skills are innate, Amazon tribe study suggests

The BBC Reports on the study Flexible intuitions of Euclidean geometry in an Amazonian indigene group

The study investigates perceptions of geometry amongst Mundurucu speakers. The Mundurucu Language is notable in that its vocabulary of numbers stops at 5, and that words for higher numbers are approximate.

The article notes that, the Mundurucu participants outperformed their US & French counterparts in the study, when dealing with lines on the surface of a sphere. This is attributed to the prejudices of those educated in Euclidean Geometry.

This appears to be a follow-up of a study published in 2006, Core Knowledge of Geometry in an Amazonian Indigene Group by most of the same team.
which was reported on by National Geographic in 2006 (Amazon Children "Spontaneously" Understand Geometry)

The Independent reports that there are > 100 uncontacted tribes in the world

In 2011, there are 100 uncontacted tribes worldwide


Following the publication of a photo of a group of people in the Brazilian Amazon, The Independent reports that there an estimated 100 isolated tribes worldwide. The report concentrates on the Amazon, and highlights the risks posed by gold miners and oil exploration in the area.

Most isolated Brazilian

The most Isolated man in the world

Slate Magazine reports on the "last survivor of an uncontacted tribe", subject to a "policy of no contact". The reporter, Monte Reel, points out the negative attitudes of local ranchers and loggers, and mentions the alleged genocide of the Akuntsu as an example.

Another point made is the possibility that technology might help raise awareness, and enable the non-invasive mapping and monitoring of regions.