Isolated Amazon tribe attempts to make contact with outsiders - Video

Members of an Indian tribe that has long lived in voluntary isolation in Peru's south-eastern Amazon have attempted to make contact with outsiders in a tense encounter that almost ended in violence.

 More than 100 members of Mashco-Piro clan appeared across the Las Piedras river from the remote community of Monte Salvado in the Tambopata region of Madre de Dios state in June.

They asked for bananas, rope and machetes from the local Yine people but were stopped from crossing the river by rangers posted at the settlement who directed them to a banana patch on their side of the river. The incident was caught on a video shot by one of the rangers.

"You can see in the images there was a lot of threatening – the intention of crossing. They practically reached mid-river," said Klaus Quicque, president of the regional FENAMAD indigenous federation.

The footage shows Mashco-Piro of all ages and sexes, including men with lances, bows and arrows. In one image shot during a moment of tension, a man flexes his bow, ready to shoot.

Mr Quicque said the estimated 110-150 people living in Monte Salvado "feared for their lives." The isolated clan has since left and has not returned. The Mashco-Piro live by their own social code, which includes kidnapping other tribes' women and children.

Authorities are unsure what provoked the three-day confrontation but said the Mashco-Piro tribe may be upset by illegal logging in their territory as well as drug smugglers who pass through. Oil and gas exploration also affects the region.

Peruvian law prohibits physical contact with the estimated 15 "uncontacted" tribes in Peru that together are estimated to number between 12,000 and 15,000 people living in jungles east of the Andes. The main reason is their safety: Their immune systems are highly vulnerable to germs other humans carry.

Naturalists in the area and national park officials say the tribe's traditional hunting grounds have been affected by a rise in low-flying air traffic related to natural gas and oil exploration in the region.

Mr Quicque said the Mashco-Piro were victimised by "genocide" in the mid-1980s from the incursion of loggers, and subsequently engaged in battles with mahogany-seekers.

Members of the group reappeared in May 2011 on the banks of a different river after more than two decades in voluntary isolation.

After those sightings, and after tourists left clothing for the Mashco-Piro, authorities barred all boats from going ashore in the area.

Mashco-Piro were blamed later in 2011 for the wounding of one forest ranger and the killing of a Matsiguenka Indian who had long maintained a relationship with them and provided them with machetes and cooking pots.