THE man behind photos of warriors from an "undiscovered" Amazon tribe that were beamed around the world has admitted it was a publicity stunt aimed at raising awareness of logging.
Indigenous tribes expert, José Carlos Meirelles, said the tribe had been known of since 1910, and had been photographed to prove that they still existed in an area endangered by logging, The Guardian reported.
Mr Meirelles, who was working for Funai, the Brazilian Indian Protection Agency dedicated to finding remote tribes and protecting them, said he spent three years gatheiring "evidence" about the tribe, and then planned the publicity to protect them from losing their habitat.
"You could warn them," Mr Meirelles cautioned, "if only you spoke Hovitos."
Okay, I added that last little bit.