'Uncontacted' Amazon Indians of Peru closely captured for first time

A campaign group has released the first ever ‘close up’ images of one of the world’s last uncontacted tribes - the Amazon Indians.

Clicked in Manu National Park, south-eastern Peru, the detailed images depict the daily life of a family from the Mashco-Piro tribe.

The Mashco-Piro are known to inhabit the park, but sightings of them have increased in recent months, the Daily Mail reported.

Illegal logging in the park and low flying helicopters from nearby oil and gas projects has been held responsible for driving the Indians from their forest homes.

The Mashco-Piro are one of around just 100 known uncontacted tribes who prefer not to have contact with the outside world. They lead a traditional life in the Peruvian forests and have little or no outside contact with the world.

Families within the tribes fashion tools from wood and other materials, including the teeth of animals.

The pictures show the adults and children wearing decorative loops around their wrists, knees and ankles - some of which can be used to carry tools.

The adult female is also seen sporting a form of skirt, which is thought to be made from pulped tree bark fibres.

The threat of attempting to establish contact with tribes who choose to remain isolated has recently been confirmed after the death of a native Matsigenka man.

Nicolas ‘Shaco’ Flores was shot in the heart by an arrow near the national park as he was leaving food and gifts for a small group of Mashco-Piro Indians, something that he had been doing for the past 20 years.