‘A computer, a radio, a drone and a shotgun’: how missionaries are reaching out to Brazil’s isolated peoples

Exclusive: Despite laws protecting uncontacted communities, evangelical Christian missions employ many methods to spread their message, including on secret audio devices left in the forest

M

ayá is about 60 years old, has three children and more grandchildren than she can count. As the matriarch of the Korubo community in the Javari valley, Brazil, she led her people’s first contact with the outside world in 1996, when they connected with the federal National Foundation for Indigenous Peoples (Funai).

Although she still lives in the Amazon, on 12 June she needed medical assistance in Tabatinga, a nearby municipality in Amazonas state, where members of her community who visit face “white” diseases that still kill children almost 30 years after contact.

Uncertain whether she would return, she left behind a mysterious electronic device, whose messages in Portuguese or Spanish she listens to while braiding handicrafts.