For more than twenty years he lived alone in a corner of the virgin forest, feeding on nuts, fruit and game. The “Indian of the Hole” found dead in a hammock symbolized the resistance of the isolated indigenous people in the Brazilian Amazon.

The death of this unknown man traveled the world this week. His existence was marked by massacres, the only survivor of his small tribe perpetrated by gunmen allegedly hired by farmers who wanted to exploit the pristine tropical forest.

On August 23, she was found dead in a hammock in a cottage in the Tanaru Indigenous Lands. Authorities have found no signs of violence and assume he died of “natural causes”.

According to local media, the macaw was covered in feathers.

The Tanaru Indigenous Lands occupies 8,000 hectares of protected forest in the state of Rondonia (on the border with Bolivia) and is surrounded by extensive cattle ranches.

It is one of the most dangerous areas in Brazil, under constant pressure from illegal miners and loggers, according to the NGO Survival International.

“The Amazon is like a green oasis in a sea where the rainforest has been destroyed,” Survival director Fiona Watson told AFP.

fired arrow

“Indian in the Hole” was first seen in 1996 by a documentary team that accompanied officials from the Brazilian government agency, the National Indian Foundation (Funai), investigating the massacre of their tribe.

Demonstrating the presence of indigenous people in the Tanaru forest was necessary to give the place legal protection.

On set, immortalized in documentary Corumbiara (2009) by director Vicen Carelli, there are suspicious eyes peeking through a hole in a wicker hut; A spear appears menacingly in his hand, but nothing is spoken.

Over the years, Funai missions have come with representatives of neighboring tribes to try to discover what language they speak and learn more about their people.

But the man made it clear his intention to remain isolated: feeling threatened, he once fired an arrow that seriously injured the mission member.

“You can imagine what this man was thinking, living on his own, unable to speak to anyone, and very scared, because any outsider was a threat because of the ordeal he went through,” Watson said. Said.

Since then, authorities have devoted themselves solely to patrolling the area and looking for signs that he is still alive.

In the final image, taken in 2011 but released seven years later, he was seen chopping down a half-naked tree with an axe.

In addition to bows and arrows indicating hunting, orchards were found where fruits and vegetables such as papaya and yucca were grown. “Beautifully manicured,” according to Watson, who visited the site in 2005.

But what fascinated the experts the most were the two-metre-long holes he had dug during his 26 years in the forest, some with pointed spears at the bottom.

According to Funai, a total of 53 houses belonging to the “Hole Indian” were found on Tanaru, all in the same style: small wicker huts with a single entrance and exit door and always a hole in them.

They were clearly used to trap animals, but experts believe they could be a shelter from intruders and even have a spiritual function.

Watson concluded that the holes were “a mystery that died with it.” The history of the town.

Funai counts 114 isolated indigenous groups in the Amazon.