Why didn't they interact with the tribe?

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Umga-ooga-booga. Uhm, stupid native brownies see white people. Umga-ooga-booga, white people are gods.

Actually, white people could have ended up being lunch.

I think that Richard wanted to interact with the tribe at first but remembered Paddy telling him very seriously that he wanted them both to promise him that they would never go over to the other side of the island at all, then years later as an adult Richard hears the drums and chanting and goes and spies on the tribal gathering in secret, observes the dancing and human sacrifice and realizes what Paddy meant because these people are dangerous and bad to each other.

He tells Em that he remembered the look on the sailors faces when they fought with each other on the ship and that it was the same way with the drum people "I dont understand why people have to be so bad to each other." so he was afraid of them after he first found out about them and that explains why they wouldnt want anything to do with the tribe at all.

Now if he and Em had gone over to the other side of the island looking for fruit or to hunt and fish and stumbled across the village and tribe on accident they might have tried interacting with the tribe and that would have been a potential disaster, they would have been attacked and captured and probably killed as a human sacrifice or treated like Dr. Livingston and worshipped, but its not a good idea to fight out and those people appeared to be unfriendly and not very kind towards each other at all, so they would react negatively towards White people showing up in their village, unless Richard speared some fish or showed them his hut making talents.

Now if the tribe had traveled to Richard and Ems side of the island then that would have been bad too, they might try to kill them both or capture them, either way interaction would be a bad idea and a fatal mistake, and a young White woman would be a great prize too for the chief and shaman to have and Em would be in danger because of that.