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Ending of circle dance going into bringing the sticks into the dance

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We changed the ending when we lost the last stick to make it look as if it was being taken from us

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Chamberlain, G. (2018). 'They're killing us': world's most endangered tribe cries for help. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/apr/22/brazil-rainforest-awa-endangered-tribe [Accessed 27 Nov. 2018].

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Trundling along the dirt roads of the Amazon, the giant logging lorry dwarfed the vehicle of the investigators following it. The trunks of nine huge trees were piled high on the back - incontrovertible proof of the continuing destruction of the world's greatest rainforest and its most endangered tribe, the Awá.

Trundling along the dirt roads of the Amazon, the giant logging lorry dwarfed the vehicle of the investigators following it. The trunks of nine huge trees were piled high on the back - incontrovertible proof of the continuing destruction of the world's greatest rainforest and its most endangered tribe, the Awá.

Yet as they travelled through the jungle early this year, the small team from Funai - Brazil's National Indian Foundation - did not dare try to stop the loggers; the vehicle was too large and the loggers were almost certainly armed. All they could do was video the lorry and add the film to the growing mountain of evidence showing how the Awá - with only 355 surviving members, more than 100 of whom have had no contact with the outside world - are teetering on the edge of extinction.

It is a scene played out throughout the Amazon as the authorities struggle to tackle the powerful illegal logging industry. But it is not just the loss of the trees that has created a situation so serious that it led a Brazilian judge, José Carlos do Vale Madeira, to describe it as "a real genocide". People are pouring on to the Awá's land, building illegal settlements, running cattle ranches. Hired gunmen - known as pistoleros - are reported to be hunting Awá who have stood in the way of land-grabbers. Members of the tribe describe seeing their families wiped out. Human rights campaigners say the tribe has reached a tipping point and only immediate action by the Brazilian government to prevent logging can save the tribe.

This week Survival International will launch a new campaign to highlight the plight of the Awá, backed by Oscar-winning actor Colin Firth. In a video to be launched on Wednesday, Firth will ask the Brazilian government to take urgent action to protect the tribe. The 51-year-old, who starred in last year's hit movie The King's Speech, and came to prominence playing Mr Darcy in the 1995 BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, delivers an appeal to camera calling on Brazil's minister of justice to send in police to drive out the loggers.

The Awá are one of only two nomadic hunter-gathering tribes left in the Amazon. According to Survival, they are now the world's most threatened tribe, assailed by gunmen, loggers and hostile settler farmers.

Their troubles began in earnest in 1982 with the inauguration of a European Economic Community (EEC) and World Bank-funded programme to extract massive iron ore deposits found in the Carajás mountains. The EEC gave Brazil $600m to build a railway from the mines to the coast, on condition that Europe received a third of the output, a minimum of 13.6m tons a year for 15 years. The railway cut directly through the Awá's land and with the railway came settlers. A road-building programme quickly followed, opening up the Awá's jungle home to loggers, who moved in from the east.

It was, according to Survival's research director, Fiona Watson, a recipe for disaster. A third of the rainforest in the Awá territory in Maranhão state in north-east Brazil has since been destroyed and outsiders have exposed the Awá to diseases against which they have no natural immunity.

"The Awá and the uncontacted Awá are really on the brink," she said. "It is an extremely small population and the forces against them are massive. They are being invaded by loggers, settlers and cattle ranchers. They rely entirely on the forest. They have said to me: 'If we have no forest, we can't feed our children and we will die'."

But it appears that the Awá also face a more direct threat. Earlier this year an investigation into reports that an Awá child had been killed by loggers found that their tractors had destroyed the Awá camp.

"It is not just the destruction of the land; it is the violence," said Watson. "I have talked to Awá people who have survived massacres. I have interviewed Awá who have seen their families shot in front of them. There are immensely powerful people against them. The land-grabbers use pistoleros to clear the land. If this is not stopped now, these people could be wiped out. This is extinction taking place before our eyes."

What is most striking about the Funai undercover video of the loggers - apart from the sheer size of the trunks - is the absence of jungle in the surrounding landscape. Once the landscape would have been lush rainforest. Now it has been clear-felled, leaving behind just grass and scrub and only a few scattered clumps of trees.

Such is the Awá's affinity with the jungle and its inhabitants that if they find a baby animal during their hunts they take it back and raise it almost like a child, to the extent that the women will sometimes breastfeed the creature. The loss of their jungle has left them in a state of despair. "They are chopping down wood and they are going to destroy everything," said Pire'i Ma'a, a member of the tribe. "Monkeys, peccaries, tapir, they are all running away. I don't know how we are going to eat - everything is being destroyed, the whole area.

"This land is mine, it is ours. They can go away to the city, but we Indians live in the forest. They are going to kill everything. Everything is dying. We are all going to go hungry, the children will be hungry, my daughter will be hungry, and I'll be hungry too."

In an earlier interview with Survival, another member of the tribe, Karapiru, described how most of his family were killed by ranchers. "I hid in the forest and escaped from the white people. They killed my mother, my brothers and sisters and my wife," he said. "When I was shot during the massacre, I suffered a great deal because I couldn't put any medicine on my back. I couldn't see the wound: it was amazing that I escaped - it was through the Tupã [spirit]. I spent a long time in the forest, hungry and being chased by ranchers. I was always running away, on my own. I had no family to help me, to talk to. So I went deeper and deeper into the forest.

"I hope when my daughter grows up she won't face any of the difficulties I've had. I hope everything will be better for her. I hope the same things that happened to me won't happen to her."

The Survival campaign reflects growing international concern over the plight of the world's remaining indigenous tribes. Earlier this year the Observer revealed how police were colluding with tour operators in India's Andaman Islands to run human safaris into the jungle heartland of the protected Jarawa tribe. A video showing half-naked Jarawa women and girls dancing in return for food caused outrage in India and around the world. Further revelations followed, exposing human safaris in Orissa, in India, and in Peru, where tour operators are profiting from the exploitation of Amazon jungle tribes.

Meanwhile, drug traffickers are posing a threat to other Amazon tribes. Last year a previously uncontacted tribe was photographed from the air close to the Peru-Brazil border only to go missing a few months later after a gang of drug traffickers overpowered guards protecting their land.

The Brazilian embassy in London referred requests for a response to the president's Human Rights Secretariat, which did not respond. However, Brazil has recently been able to point to research that shows it has been making progress in tackling illegal logging. The country's National Institute for Space Research estimates that 6,238 sq km of rainforest was lost between 2010 and 2011, down dramatically from the 2004 peak of 27,700 sq km. The same year, Brazil pledged to cut deforestation by 80% by 2020.

The year-on-year fall last year was 11% and in March Brazil's forestry department raided and closed down 14 illegal sawmills on the borders of the Awá's land. Even so, the figures also show that two states recorded sharp rises in deforestation, and illegal logging is destroying the Awá's jungle at a faster rate than that of any other Amazon tribe.

In a statement, Survival urged the Brazilian government to give more support to Funai and to increase its efforts to shut down illegal activities in the Awá's territories. "Timing is crucial, and the timing of this is now, because while all hope is not lost an entire people are on the verge of being lost, most critically the uncontacted Awá. And we have a moral responsibility to act. EU and World Bank money has helped fund huge projects in Brazil that have exploited the Awá's land resources and made infrastructure ripe for developers."
The Survival International campaign will launch later this week at survivalinternational.org Topics

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'They're killing us': world's most endangered tribe cries for help

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Logging companies keen to exploit Brazil's rainforest have been accused by human rights organisations of using gunmen to wipe out the Awá, a tribe of just 355. Survival International, with backing from Colin Firth, is campaigning to stop what a judge referred to as 'genocide'

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En.wikipedia.org. (2018). Circle dance. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circle_dance [Accessed 25 Nov. 2018].

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Modern circle dancing is found in many cultures, including Arabic ( Levantian and Iraqi), Israeli (see Jewish dance and Israeli folk dancing), Assyrian, Kurdish, Turkish, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Maltese, and South Eastern European (i.e. Albanian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Greek and Serbian, to name a few).

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First practice of the makeup

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Fourth song we use from 20mins onwards

YouTube. (2018). 1 Hour of Dark & Powerful Viking Music. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1208&v=VhkfnPVQyaY [Accessed 25 Nov. 2018].

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Second song we use
YouTube. (2018). A Tribe Called Red - Bread & Cheese feat. Black Bear. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=9&v=jqECTR82Ua0 [Accessed 25 Nov. 2018].

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A Tribe Called Red - Bread & Cheese feat. Black Bear

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Third song we use

YouTube. (2018). A Tribe Called Red - Red Riddom feat. Eastern Eagle. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXQTBKyO03U [Accessed 25 Nov. 2018].

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A Tribe Called Red - Red Riddom feat. Eastern Eagle

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First song we use

YouTube. (2018). Oldest Native American drumming video ever. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igmpvrRQIkI [Accessed 25 Nov. 2018].

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Oldest Native American drumming video ever

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Cutting the sticks to the size we want

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beginning of the piece
- Highlight
-Accumulation
- Levels

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Mail Online. (2018). Photographs of endangered Amazonian tribe that BREASTFEEDS squirrels. [online] Available at: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3342357/Pushed-brink-extinction-extraordinary-photos-Awa-Amazon-tribe-one-nature-breastfeed-SQUIRRELS.html [Accessed 25 Nov. 2018].

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The Awa tribe living in Amazonian forests in east Brazil has been all but wiped out by colonists and illegal ranchers

Tens of thousands of them lived in settlements in Brazil's Maranhao state 500 years ago, only around 300 remain

The Awa love animals so much the women breastfeed them to become 'hanima' and treated as part of the family

In return, the animals help them with everyday tasks such as cracking open nuts and getting fruit from high trees

Deep in the Amazon lives the world's most endangered tribe, an ancient group who trudge through the forests of eastern Brazil carrying everything they own - their children, their weapons and their pets.

They have been pushed to the brink of extinction by European colonists who enslaved them and ranchers who stole the land they need to survive.

And yet, they live in complete harmony with their jungle home. Most Awa families adopt several wild animals as pets and remarkably, the women breastfeed them until they are fully grown.

These people are so close to being wiped out forever, that they are kept safe, away from the modern world.

As a result, very few people have ever met the Awa. Photographer Domenico Pugliese is one of those lucky enough to spend time with this remarkable tribe - and even became a source of amusement for them.

Scroll down for video

Pugliese first met the Awa in 2009, after a journalist friend suggested he accompany him and an anthropologist on the two-day journey down the river to then unprotected piece of rainforest the tribe called home.

'They heard the sound of the speedboat's engine and they came down to the river bank,' he recalled. 'The impact was like being in another world. The sensation could not be explained.'

But, in amongst this feeling of awe, it was the social niceties which started to concern Pugliese.

'You extend your hand to shake it [in greeting] and then think, I do not know what I need to do,' he told MailOnline.

What the Awa thought of this stranger arriving in their world was not immediately clear - but they soon found something to laugh at.

'They do not understand what a grown man is doing being single, without a family. They look at me and they try to give me advice. They do not know where I am coming from. They do not have a concept of the world.

'I cannot explain to them where I'm coming from, I can't explain the lifestyle to them. For them, it is unbelievable to be a man who does not have a family.'

Family is all important to the Awa, and it is not confined to humans. Their pets, who help them with everyday tasks such as cracking nuts, gathering fruit from high trees and even watching over them while they sleep, are as much a part of the family as their children.

They keep wild pigs, squirrels, parakeets, and large rodents known as agoutis but their favourite pets are monkeys, according to charity Survival International who have campaigned for the Awa's protection.

The primates are an important source of food to the Awa but once a baby has been brought into the family and breast fed, they will never eat it. Even if it returns to the forest, they will recognise it as 'hanima' - or part of the family.

Pugliese said: 'They feed the squirrels and monkeys like they feed their kids, breast feeding.

'It highlights how far we have come from where we were. They are so close to nature. In fact, it is not even close - they are part of nature.'

But that harmony is being eroded, and risks being lost forever.

Of the tens of thousands of Awa people who lived in sprawling settlements across Maranhao state when Portuguese settlers landed 500 years ago, only 400 or so remain today. Around 60 of them have never had any contact with the outside world.

Almost all of them were wiped out by diseases including smallpox, measles and flu imported by the colonists. Those who survived were enslaved and put to work on rubber and sugar cane plantations.

In 1835, after centuries of oppression, the tribes of Maranhao rose up against their European rulers in a five year revolt that ended in the mass extermination of around 100,000 indigenous people throughout the state.

The Awa were forced to adopt a nomadic lifestyle to escape the genocide. Over the next 200 years, they became skilled hunters and learned to build shelters in a few hours, only to abandon them days later.

With their new, nomadic lifestyle, they lost the knowledge of farming or even how to light a fire.

In 1982, the World Bank and EU gave Brazil a loan of around £600million to protect the lands of its indigenous people but illegal loggers continued to threaten their existence for another 30 years.

Around 450 tribespeople were murdered between 2003 and 2010, according to the Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI).

Three years ago, an eight year old Awa girl was said to have been burned alive by 'ranchers' when she strayed outside her protected land. The leader of another tribe, Luis Carlos Guajajaras, said she was killed as a warning to other native people.

The government announced that all 'invaders' had been removed from Awa land last year but today they face an even greater danger - the wildfires raging through the Amazon.

The blazes which have wiped out vast areas of forest on the eastern fringe of the Amazon known as 'earth's lungs' are said to have been started by the ranchers who want to turn their land into plantations.

Tatuxa'a, an Awa spokesman, said: 'Today I went to the forest and I was surrounded by smoke and dust. There is fire everywhere and it is very close to our communities.

'We need the government to help us. We alone cannot put out the fires, as there are many. The forest is rich with fruit and game... and it is all being destroyed! Our stream is drying up too. Where will we hunt? Where will we collect honey? I am very sad and worried today.'

The jungle, that is slowly being eradicated by fire and farmland, is vital to the Awa's survival.

But even those who come to help the Awa could unintentionally destroy the delicate balance - something Pugliese was acutely aware of.

In the beginning, he worried gifts like t-shirts were destroying their way of life even further - but the Awa are particularly fond of t-shirts.

'They love to have t-shirts,' he said. 'I don't know where they think the t-shirts come from - they can't imagine a factory.

'Maybe they think it is coming from the trees. After all, every day, they get their shopping from the jungles.'

Photographer Domenico Pugliese is holding a London exhibition called 'The Last Hunters' to raise public awareness of illegal logging and farming that threaten the Amazon rainforest.

The exhibition will be at the Brazilian Ambassy 14-16 Cockspur St, London SW1Y 5BL from May 20 to June 14.

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Photographs of endangered Amazonian tribe that BREASTFEEDS squirrels

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The Awa tribe living in Amazonian forests in east Brazil has been all but wiped out by colonists and illegal ranchers Tens of thousands of them lived in settlements in Brazil's Maranhao state 500 years ago, only around 300 remain The Awa love animals so much the women breastfeed them

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International, S. (2018). Earth's most threatened tribe. [online] Survivalinternational.org. Available at: https://www.survivalinternational.org/awa [Accessed 25 Nov. 2018].

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You might imagine that a ritual held in the forest on the night of a full moon would feel sinister. Not the Awá's journey to the realm of the forest spirits: this is a family affair. As wives decorate husbands with feathers from the king vulture, using tree resin as glue, young children look on.

Later, as the grown-ups' chanting grows louder, and the men make their way to the place of the spirits, babies fall asleep in the moonlight. No drugs or alcohol are involved: chanting alone sends the men into state of trance.

Doorway to another world

During the ritual, the men leave the Earth behind as they travel to the iwa, the domain of the forest spirits. They reach this place through a doorway that takes the form of a hunting shelter, a portal between worlds. The men take turns to enter, and as they reach the iwa they encounter the souls of their ancestors and the spirits of the forest.

The hunting is always good in the iwa, for it is also home to the animals of the forest. Absent, however, are settlers-and the horses, cattle and chickens they have introduced.

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How to save Earth's most threatened tribe

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You might imagine that a ritual held in the forest on the night of a full moon would feel sinister. Not the Awá's journey to the realm of the forest spirits: this is a family affair. As wives decorate husbands with feathers from the king vulture, using tree resin as glue, young children look on.

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Circle dance
- unison
- canon

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The confined space we have by the end of the dance shown by our sticks.

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using props to show musicality - symbolising deforestation and the trees being knocked down one my one
- canon

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Makeup we have decided on

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Deforestation in the Amazonian rainforest

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The Awa Tribe

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the position we use to show the shelter we have with the resources we have at the time
-tableau

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Shopping for the sticks - deciding where we should cut them to be the right length