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Amazement. Photograph of an Ashaninka (Campa) Indian watching in amazement as a missionary plane from SIL (Summer Institute of Linguistics) lands at the earthen airstrip in the village of Quempiri, Peru in the year 1966.  The Jungle Aviation and Radio Service (JAARS) was founded by American missionaries in Peru during the 1940s.  JAARS was very active during the 1960s flying Christian missionaries and linguists from SIL into isolated indigenous villages located in the Amazon Rainforest.  Incredibly, the first outsiders that many previously uncontacted tribes such as the Ashaninkas met were not Peruvians or Brazilians, but rather Americans.  American explorer Chuck Clark worked as a photographer for SIL in the 1960s and was one of the first people to meet these native Amazonians who until that time lived in voluntary isolation from Western society.

Photograph © Copyright Chuck Clark, all rights reserved. Jungle Aviation and Radio Service - JAARS