He was eaten alive in the comments.
An Irish travel influencer and cloutseeker is being blasted online after using an alleged “cannibal tribe” for a tone-deaf TikTok stunt.
“Just tried to make contact with a cannibal tribe,” Dara Tah captioned the clip, which boasts over 17.7 million views on the platform.
The thrillseeker frequently shares footage of himself performing dangerous stunts for his 750,000 followers on the platform. Past challenges have included staying awake for 48 hours and enduring 12 hours of Chinese water torture.
For his latest foolhardy feat, the Irishman decided to visit an unknown tribe in Papua, the Indonesian half of the island of New Guinea.
In the clip, Tah, a team of tourists and a local guide named Demi are seen cruising along a river in a wooden boat as indigenous locals whoop and holler by the banks. As the crew approaches, one of the tribesmen points his bow and arrow at the vessel.
“I think they’re pointing bows and arrows at us, bro,” said one tourist anxiously.
“Seriously, this is terrifying…they’re huge bows” seconds Tah, who tries to wave at the locals in an apparent attempt to signal that he means them no harm.
When that fails, the influencer tries to offer them a bag of salt as a peace offering.
“I’ve got salt,” Tah declares while emptying the bag into his hands and presenting it to one of the tribal leaders, who is seen sporting a leaf loincloth and holding a bow and arrows.
Unfortunately, this gesture only succeeded in pouring salt in the wounds, so to speak.
After tasting some of the granules, the indigenous big-wig spits it out in disgust and appears to clutch his bow defensively.
“He doesn’t look like he likes that,” exclaims Tah. “Alright guys, let’s move back maybe.”
“We have to move,” the guide chimes in. “We’re not welcome. It’s really dangerous.”
As the boat retreats from the bank, Tah says: “Not gonna lie, that is absolutely terrifying.”
“I’m sorry I take you here,” said Demi as the video concludes.
Despite their frosty reception, the dogged TikTokker vowed not to give up on his request to befriend the natives. “Will try again tomorrow,” he declared in the caption. “Wish us luck.”
Viewers accused Demi of exploiting the locals for TikTok clicks.
“Leave them alone, they are not bothering you” said one critic, while another wrote, “Did you just intrude [on] their land for content and called them scary?”
One even accused the video of being “staged.”
“Remote Papua New Guineans who live in isolated rural communities don’t dress like this anymore,” they declared. “Please refrain from exaggerating the lifestyle of our remote people. You can film better community-based content and not misleading ones such as this.”
Some took umbrage over the assumption that the indigenous people were man-eaters with one writing, “They are not cannibal[s], they are just people living a peaceful life.”
It’s yet unclear which tribe the modern-day explorers were visiting, but Papua is reportedly home to around 300 tribes, while the neighboring Papua New Guinea boasts approximately twice that many.
While certain tribes, including Papua’s Korowai tribe, historically practiced ritual cannibalism, the grisly tradition had largely vanished from the remote island by the mid-20th century after being banned over concerns that it spread degenerative brain disease.
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