Unless you were suicidal.

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"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek
"Carl Sagan sent a message to ET,
Neil Armstrong walked in the Sea of Tranquility
Steve Squyers built Spirit and Opportunity
Dan Haylen upchucked in zero gravity." -Brent Simon, The Space Camp Song

Probablly no shock. I'm sure he is fully aware of the modern world.

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I don't agree with the implicit assumption that live in modern society is by definition a better life than the one those people are living.

I've seen Old Order Mennonites using a cellphone while driving a buggy. Around here they are allowed to use technology, but for business only.

The ancient Romans already used glasses.

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Si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses.

No order of Amish people is forbidden to use technology. They're just forbidden to use technology that isn't old enough for them to be sure of its consequences. So they do progress; they just use the rest of us as their guinea pigs and follow along a century or two behind. (For example, electricity is getting common, up to the extent that it was for us outsiders almost a century ago, but only for lights and maybe a few other things like heat or the ignition on a gas flame device.)

I just got back to this thread since the last time I posted. I think you are probably correct that this tribe has seen airplanes and probably has a word for them. My previous comment, where I wondered if they thought that airplanes came from the Gods, was due to a story I read many years ago, about an unknown tribe living on one of the Pacific Islands during World War II. Apperently, this tribe, who had never been exposed to the modern world, saw airplanes flying over their lands and decided that they were from the Gods. They even made some wooden models of the planes and one large model that faced the direction from which they saw the planes coming from.

Of course that was during World War II and airplanes were still rather new then, so that was the first time that any of these people saw a flying machine. That is probably not the case with this Amazon tribe, since airplanes are much more common in the skies now.

You may be right that the guys in red would not shoot their arrows at a messanger from God, but then again they may have "Good Gods" and "Bad Gods" in their tribal religion. Perhaps, the messangers from the Bad Gods are worthy targets for their arrows. After reading this thread, I think they probably know the planes are not messangers from God and probably just want to be left alone.

If airplanes had flown over their area before, then the people (who live in huts in clearings, not hidden under the trees) could easily have been seen before. So the fact that they weren't seen before indicates that it's quite likely that this was their first airplane. However, if they thought it was a god or came from the gods, that doesn't mean they wouldn't shoot at it. In most polytheisms, the difference in power between a god and a human isn't as great as it is between our (quasi-)monotheist god and us. Polytheistic gods didn't create this world from nothing; they're just inhabitants of it along with us and the animals, and subject to its working rules and its pleasures and pains.

Interesting story about the Pacific island tribe.

I´m personally inclined to think that they would flee from the devils, instead of affronting them. At this point I´d remark that Amazonian tribes, in general, are animists. They revere the spirit of the ancestors and, to a lesser extent, the [spirit of the] forces of nature.

Yeah, that´s my conclusion. As i said earlier, I don´t quite buy the 'total isolation' tale. They may live deep in the Brazilain jungle, but they´re not far from Amazonian indian and non-indian settlements in Peru and Bolivia. Furthermore, the Acre state [bought from Bolivia in 1903], where they were found, used to be a very busy place from the beginning of the 20th century to the WWII, during what is known down here as "The Cycle of Rubber". It is unlikely that they are unaware of the outside world.

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Yes, of course, horse-drawn vehicles and wood burning stoves ARE a form of technology.
Many of the mennonites around here are using HIGH-technology only in business as to compete with non-mennonite businesses. Although some seem to get around this by having an electric stove in their house and saying that they need to bake things that they sell.

This phenomenon is known as Cargo Cult.

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How ancient? As far as I know glasses were only invented in the Middle Ages.

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"A witty saying proves nothing." Voltaire

Yup, in the European Medieval period - about 1200 I think. The Roman Emperor Nero was supposed to have used an emerald as a kind of monacle on occasion, but I don't think that counts as Romans having glasses, really.

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Maybe the arrow was fired with no more malice than a space probe; an investigation of the properties of an unknown object with the tools to hand.

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plenty of woo, at the hotel hoagaland...

there are Mennonites about 100 miles from here that drive trucks- one family pays cash every 2 years for a brand new full size Chevy truck at a dealer a friend of mine used to work at. it is as basic as GM will sell- no radio, no power windows, no carpet, bench seat, no air conditioning, 5 speed manual trans, V6, steel wheels, short box regular cab 2 wheel drive truck. they use it to take their crops to the market and stuff like that.
since the Amish are about a century behind the rest of us, does that mean that they will start driving Model T's in the near future?

i wonder- what is the possibility that this "lost tribe" in the Amazon is a group that decided they wanted nothing to do with the invading outsiders so they just keep on retreating farther and farther into the forest and hope that the modern world never catches up with them? that might help to explain why they'd shoot arrows at a passing airplane..

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The.. Best.. Thread..Ever...

Thanks for the link. I remember reading an article about one of these groups of Pacific Islanders during World War II and the influence of Modern Civilization on them, but I didn't realize that the phenomenon was so widespread. I remember seeing pictures of a large replica airplane made from wood and straw, surrounded by flowers, and facing the ocean. Smaller model airplanes were kept in people's huts as religious symbols. I did a little searching and found a couple of good articles from "The Air Force Magazine" and "The BBC" on Cargo Cults.

http://www.afa.org/magazine/1991/0191cargo.asp

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A2267426

And thank you.

I learnt about Cargoism when I was looking into UFO cults.
The parallels are uncanny.
Even including building a UFO landing field.

I kid you not.

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Yes indeed; the parallels to many different religious types, from small cults, to large organized religions are there. It seems that waiting for a higher power to come down and make things better is a common thread.

Yeah. See the replicas of flying saucers people make. Down here there´s a complete space port, with everything people think Aliens will need.

Deserved a thread of its own.

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If you're careful enough, nothing bad or good will ever happen to you.