In the rainforests of the Brazilian Amazon lived a man whose name no one knows. Authorities announced his death.

26 years alone

The body was discovered on August 23 by Altair José Allgaier, a member of the Brazilian agency for the protection of indigenous peoples (Funai). A man was lying in a hammock by his thatched house, and shiny cockatoo feathers were spread around him. This could mean that he decorated the space in anticipation of his own death.

No outsider knew this man’s name or even much about his tribe – and with his death the genocide of his people ended. Because it was truly a holocaust – the deliberate destruction of an entire nation by shepherds thirsting for land and wealth,
– said Fiona Watson of Survival International.

A full forensic investigation into the death has yet to be completed, but there were no signs of intruders or violence at the scene. Therefore, authorities currently believe that the man died of natural causes at the age of about 60.

You can see the “man from the hole” cutting down trees in this video from 2018: video

The story “Man from the hole”

He got the nickname “the man from the hole” for a reason. The fact is that in various places of residence of this mysterious man, pits up to three meters deep were found. Some were laden with spearheads, and those inside his home had scratches on the walls—perhaps a hint that they had some spiritual significance.

One of the pits dug by the “Man from the Hole” / Photograph by J Pessoa

• Problems with the invaders began in the 1970s. the farmers seized the land belonging to the tribe.
• In the 1980s, illegal farmers mixed sugar with rat poison and brought these people as “gifts.” Most of the tribe members died.
• At least one other attack is known to have occurred in the early 1990s. Then several survivors of poisoning – about six, according to some reports – were shot.
• Only one survived – the “man from the hole”. Over the next two decades, armed groups carried out one or more attacks on the man and his home.

In the mid-1990s, Funai officials found evidence of indigenous lands being destroyed by farmers and the remains of destroyed indigenous homes destroyed by tractors. The organization tried to help and left the man with food and tools, but the man refused them. He set traps and fired arrows at anyone who dared to get too close.

A still from Vincent Carelli’s documentary film shot in 2009 / Photograph: Vincent Carelli

Hope for a peaceful life arose in 1997, when Brazilian authorities declared 8,000 hectares of land in Tanaru a reserve and banned economic activities in the region. Authorities cordoned off the area where the man could live unhindered, but illegal logging and attacks continued.

He died without ever revealing his ethnicity or the reasons behind the potholes he had dug in his home, as he resolutely resisted any attempt at contact. He openly expressed the option of distancing himself without saying a single word that would allow him to identify with any known indigenous language,
– Says the statement of representatives of the Isolated Indigenous Peoples’ Observatory for Human Rights.