INDIGENOUS TERRITORY OF THE JAVARÍ VALLEY — As the speeches dragged on, eyes turned to the screens. Teenagers were scrolling through Instagram. A man sent a text message to his girlfriend. And the men crowded around a telephone that was broadcasting a soccer game while the group’s first female leader spoke.
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Almost anywhere, a scene like this would be commonplace. But this was happening in a remote indigenous village in one of the most isolated areas of the planet.
The Marubo people have long lived in communal huts scattered for hundreds of kilometers along the Ituí River deep in the Amazon rainforest. They speak their own language, drink ayahuasca to connect with the spirits of the forest, and trap spider monkeys to make broth or keep as pets.
They have preserved this way of life for hundreds of years through isolation — it can take weeks to reach some villages. But since September, the marubo have had high-speed Internet thanks to Elon Musk.
The 2,000-member tribe is one of hundreds across Brazil suddenly connecting via starlinkservice Space X satellite internet, Musk’s space company. Since entering Brazil in 2022, Starlink has invaded the world’s largest rainforest, bringing the web to one of the last offline places on Earth.
The New York Times traveled deep into the Amazon to visit marubo villages and understand what happens when a small, closed civilization suddenly opens up to the world.
“When it arrived, everyone was happy,” said Tsainama Marubo, 73, sitting on the dirt floor of her village maloca, a 15-meter-high hut where marubos sleep, cook and eat together. The Internet brought benefits, such as video conferences with loved ones who are far away and calls for help in emergencies. “But now things have gotten worse,” she said.
She was kneading jenipapo berries to make black body paint and was sporting jewelry strings made from snail shells. Lately, young people have become less interested in making those dyes and jewelry, she said. “Young people have become lazy because of the Internet,” she said.
Marubos are wrestling with the fundamental dilemma of the Internet: It has become essential—but it comes with a price. After just nine months with Starlink, marubos are already dealing with the same challenges that have plagued American households for years: teenagers glued to phones; addictive social networks; strangers online; violent video games; scams; disinformation; and minors watching pornography.
Modern society has grappled with these problems for decades as the Internet continues its march. The Marubos and other indigenous tribes, who have resisted modernity for generations, now face the potential and dangers of the Internet at the same time, while debating what it will mean for their culture.
That debate has now arrived thanks to Starlink, which has quickly dominated the satellite Internet market by providing a service that was previously unthinkable in such remote areas. SpaceX has done so by launching 6,000 satellites to offer high-speed Internet to places like the Sahara, the Mongolian grasslands, and small islands in the Pacific.
The business is booming. Musk recently announced that Starlink had surpassed 3 million customers in 99 countries. Analysts estimate that annual sales are up about 80 percent from last year, to about $6.6 billion.
Today there are 66 thousand active contracts in the Brazilian Amazon, in 93 percent of the legal municipalities in the region. That has opened up new job and educational opportunities. It has also given illegal loggers and miners in the Amazon a new tool to communicate and evade authorities.
A Marubo leader, Enoque Marubo (all Marubo use the same surname), 40, said he saw the potential of Starlink. After spending years outside the forest, he said he believed the Internet could give new autonomy to his people.
Last year, he and a Brazilian activist recorded a 50-second video asking for help getting Starlink from potential benefactors and sent it out. Days later, they received word from a woman in Oklahoma.
The Indigenous Territory of the Javarí Valley It is one of the most isolated places on Earth, a dense expanse of rainforest the size of Portugal with no roads and a labyrinth of waterways. dNineteen of the 26 tribes of the Javarí Valley live in complete isolation, the highest concentration in the world.
The Marubo also lived in isolation, until the rubber tappers arrived in the late 19th century. That led to decades of violence and disease—and the arrival of new customs. The marubo began to wear clothes. Some learned Portuguese. They traded bows for firearms to hunt wild boars and machetes for chainsaws to clear plots to plant cassava.
One family in particular drove this change. In the 1960s, Sebastião Marubo was one of the first Marubo to live outside the forest. When he returned, he brought another technology: the outboard motor. He reduced travel from weeks to days.
His son Enoch emerged as the leader of the next generation, eager to propel his tribe into the future. He has divided his life between the forest and the city, at one point working as a graphic designer. So when Marubo leaders became interested in getting Internet connections, they asked him how. Enoque got the answer from him when Musk went to Brazil in 2022 and announced the arrival of Starlink.
Enoque and Flora Dutra, a Brazilian activist who works with indigenous tribes, sent letters to more than 100 members of Congress asking for Starlink. No one responded.
Then last year, Dutra saw an American woman speak at a space conference. Dutra checked the woman’s Facebook page and saw her posing outside the SpaceX headquarters. “I knew she was the one,” he said.
Allyson Reneau’s LinkedIn page describes her as a space consultant, keynote speaker, author, pilot, equestrian, humanitarian, CEO, board director, and mother of 11 biological children.
Reneau said he wasn’t trying to help people for fame. “It’s the look on the face, it’s the hope in the eyes,” she said. “That’s the trophy.”
He said he got that perspective when he received a video from a stranger last year asking for help connecting a remote tribe in the Amazon. He had never been to Brazil, but he believed the return on investment was high.
Enoque asked for 20 Starlink antennas, which would cost approximately 15 thousand dollars, to transform the lives of his tribe. “One tool would change everything in their lives: health care, education, communication and forest protection,” Reneau said.
The Internet came on the back of men. They walked for miles through the forest, carrying two antennas each.
Right behind were Enoque, Dutra and Reneau.
In the villages, they nailed the antennas to poles and plugged them into solar panels. Antennas then began connecting Starlink satellites to villagers’ phones.
The Internet was a sensation. “It changed the routine so much that it was detrimental,” Enoque admitted. “In the village, if you don’t hunt, fish and plant, you don’t eat.”
Leaders realized they needed limits. The Internet would be on for two hours in the morning, five hours in the afternoon and all day Sunday. During these periods, many Marubos are crouched or reclining in hammocks with their phones. They spend a lot of time on WhatsApp. There, leaders coordinate between villages and alert authorities about health problems and environmental destruction. Marubo teachers share lessons with students in other villages. And everyone is in closer contact with family and friends.
In April, more than 200 marubos gathered in a village for meetings. Enoque showed a video on how to bring Starlink to villages. Some leaders said the Internet should be cut off during meetings. “I don’t want people posting in groups, taking my words out of context,” said another.
During the meetings, the teenagers browsed Kwai, a Chinese-owned social network. Children watched videos of Brazilian soccer star Neymar Jr. and two 15-year-old girls said they chatted with strangers on Instagram. One said that she now dreamed of traveling the world, while the other wants to be a dentist in São Paulo.
This new window to the outside world had left many members of the tribe conflicted. “Some young people maintain our traditions,” said TamaSay Marubo, 42, the tribe’s first female leader. “Others just want to spend the entire afternoon on their phones.”
Dutra intends to bring Starlink to hundreds more indigenous groups in the Amazon, including Brazil’s largest remote tribe, the Yanomami. Some Brazilian officials and non-governmental agencies said they were concerned that the Internet was spreading to tribes too quickly, often without training about the dangers.
Dutra said indigenous groups wanted and deserved connections. The criticisms, he said, were part of a long tradition of outsiders telling indigenous people how to live. “This is called ethnocentrism — the white man believing he knows what is best,” he said.
She and Enoque said they planned to offer training on the Internet. No marubo said they had received it yet.
In April, Reneau returned to the woods. At Enoque’s request, she purchased four more antennas. Two of them went to the Korubos, a tribe of less than 150 people.
Reneau said he recognized the Internet was “a double-edged sword” but hoped the Marubos could “preserve the purity of this incredible culture.”
Sebastião, Enoque’s father, said the tribe’s journey with the Internet had been predicted.
Decades ago, the most respected marubo shaman had visions of a portable device that could connect to the entire world. “It would be for the good of the people,” he said. “But in the end, it wouldn’t be.”
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