A tribe of indigenous Indians who have had no contact with civilization has been revealed by the Brazilian government.

A drone recorded a small group of the tribe in a clearing in the Amazon rainforest, where at least 107 "lost" tribes have been discovered.

Fox News:

In the 51-second clip released by FUNAI, the Brazilian government's Indian Affairs department, tribespeople are shown moving through a deforested area in the jungle and one tribe member appears to be carrying a bow and arrow.

The agency said it captured the drone shots during an expedition last year to monitor isolated communities, but only released them on Tuesday to protect their study.  FUNAI also released still images showing the tribespeople's existence in the remote region.

Researchers monitored the tribe in Vale do Javari, an indigenous territory in the southwestern part of the state of Amazonas. There are 11 confirmed isolated groups in the area, more than anywhere else in Brazil.

The footage has racked up more than 129,000 views since it was posted on YouTube.

The agency has been studying the community in the images for years, but this was the first time it was able to catch it on camera.

Unlike some past sightings of isolated tribes in the Amazon, this one appears to be real.  Such has not always been the case.  In 2008, a photographer published pictures of what he claimed was a tribe that had never had contact with civilization before.  The pictures turned out to be a hoax, with the photographer wanting to draw attention to logging in the region.

One hoax was perpetrated by the tribe itself in order to get tourist money.  Members posed as primitives but on closer inspection were found with aluminum cooking pots and Chicago Bulls T-shirts.

The debate about whether to leave these primitive people alone or to "help" them by bringing them into the modern world is a tricky one.  On the one hand, the encroachment of the modern world makes their contact with civilization inevitable.  As we've seen from history, that never goes well.  Whatever gains made by the tribe due to technology and knowledge are offset by the loss of culture.

Even something as necessary as modern medical treatments would contaminate the tribe's belief system.  The Brazilian government believes that these tribes should be left alone, although studied from a distance.  But it seems certain that their isolation won't last forever, at which point the question of contact with the modern world will be irrelevant.