Stone-Age Links

I found a couple of interesting links browsing through the comments section on BoingBoing’s post about the “uncontacted” Amazon tribe Strong just wrote about.

The first is the story of the “Stone Age Tasaday“:

Who are the Tasaday? Depending on whom you ask, you’ll hear very different answers to this question. You’ll either hear that they’re a group of leaf-wearing, stone-age-tool-using cave dwellers who, when they were discovered in 1971 living in a rain forest on the Philippine island of Mindanao, believed they were the only people in the world. Or you’ll hear that they’re a complete fraud… poor farmers who were cynically coerced into posing as a stone-age tribe by powerful politicians. What’s the truth? To that there is no simple answer.

The second is a 10 minute contribution by Werner Herzog to a 2002 film. Herzog’s segment is called “10,000 years older” and can be found on YouTube in three parts (Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3).

There is also a short film on the Survival International website.

We’ve also had a number of “first contact” related posts on Savage Minds:

• More for ‘First Contact’ Junkies
• Breaking News: Intrepid Explorer’s First Contact with a Vanishing Race of Noble Savages
• By Aeroplane to Pygmyland
• Syllabi-o-rama! (Direct link to Rex’s First Contact syllabus.)

I’ll update this post with additional links as I find them.

P. Kerim Friedman is an assistant professor in the Department of Ethnic Relations and Cultures at National Dong Hwa University, in Taiwan, where he teaches linguistic and visual anthropology. He is co-director of the film Please Don't Beat Me, Sir!, winner of the 2011 Jean Rouch Award from the Society of Visual Anthropology. Follow Kerim on Twitter.