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Contact! Intel
 
Sydney Possuelo granted an exclusive interview to CONTACT! producer Valerie May on October 24, 1996. The interview took place nine days after Possuelo and his team established the first recorded peaceful contact with the Korubo. The contact team spent five days with the Korubo (from October 15 to October 19), leaving the jungle for the expedition anchorage site on the Rio Ituí, where they arrived October 21. On the morning of Saturday, October 26, Possuelo and seven of his crew returned to the malocas to visit with the Korubos once more before the rainy season starts.
Stay tuned for details.

The following are excerpts from an interview conducted via satellite telephone with Possuelo on October 24. Sydney Possuelo speaks Portuguese. His comments were translated by an AT&T Language Line interpreter. The following has been lightly edited for readability.

 

     Sydney Possuelo

 

 

 

     A young Korubo woman and her pet monkey.

 

 

 

Valerie: First of all, could you congratulate Sydney on making this contact.

Interpreter: (translating for Sydney Possuelo): Thank you very much. He’s saying it’s a whole teamwork, it’s not just him.

     The expedition crew includes Brazilian officials, members of four local tribes, and journalists (two of whom were women).

 

 

 

He wants to have a little small explanation. The basic team was seven people, but then there were participants from Indian groups as well as reporters that tape everything and record everything, plus the extra people that carried all the equipment. So the total was 26 people.

Valerie: OK, and could you ask him who the Indians were that joined the group, and why were they there?

Interpreter: Marubo, Kanamari, Kulihna, and Matis. In total, eight Indians were part of the contact group.

Valerie: Why did you want to bring in this group of Indians?

Interpreter: You’re asking about the Indians that he brought in to help with the expedition?

Valerie: Right.

Interpreter: The first reason is to be able to try to have various languages to help with the communication with the Korubo. That was the main reason.

     A Matis Indian from the expedition team tries to communicate with a Korubo woman.

 

 

 

The other reason is because I feel it’s very, very important for the other Indian groups to have contact with the Korubo, so that the Korubo know that in this universe there are other kinds of Indians, other groups of Indians, that are also their friends, and there’s no other better way than to have the personal contact.

Valerie: What events preceded this contact?

Interpreter: This is the fourth entry into the jungle.

Valerie:This was the first time that you actually made face-to-face contact, correct?

Interpreter: Ok, what he’s saying is that yes, this is the first time. Maybe they could have had face-to-face contact before, but because of the risks, you know, they had to be very, very careful. So this is actually the first time.

Valerie: Could you ask Sydney to describe the contact? How he went about it and what happened?

Interpreter: Every time there’s a first contact with an isolated group it’s full of tension and people are nervous. And we’re also going to explain piece by piece so we can get it all right.

Valerie: Okay. Good. Thank you.

Next Page of Interview

 
 
©1996 National Geographic Society. All rights reserved.