‘The man from the hole’ dies in Brazil, and with him, a tribe

First modification: 09/01/2022 – 15:32

Little or nothing was known about him. They called him “Indian Tanaru” or “The Man from the Hole”, because he dug deep wells in the huts he lived in the Brazilian Amazon, in the state of Rondonia, bordering Bolivia.

His feather-covered body was found lifeless on August 23 in the hammock of his hut, reported the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI). He was presumably in his 60s and died a natural death, after living the last three decades completely isolated. It is believed that he was the last of his tribe, decimated in a dangerous region, affected by mining, deforestation and the invasion of land by ranchers.

community wiped out

“According to all the indications and evidence compiled over the years, their community was annihilated as a result of at least two massacres and two attacks by invaders who entered their territory,” explains Laura de Luis, spokeswoman for the NGO Survival International, which monitors respect for indigenous rights.

The case of “The Man from the Hole” recalls that a hundred uncontacted tribes still exist in this part of the world: “The largest concentration of uncontacted indigenous peoples is in the Amazon, especially in Brazil where, according to the Department of Indigenous Affairs , in the area there are, I seem to remember that the last figure was about 114 towns. The only thing that is very difficult to verify is their existence, because obviously you cannot go and contact them. They are very vulnerable indigenous peoples”, continues the specialist.

Do not force contact

What to do then to preserve these populations from contact, in an age marked by omnipresent communication? According to Laura de Luis, “what the uncontacted indigenous peoples mainly need is for their territorial rights to be respected, because from there they can continue to choose how they want to live their lives and they can have that possibility of having a future.”

“In any case,” he stresses, “if at any given moment a contact were to be established, it would have to come from him, because we know that forced contact is the main cause of the disappearance of these peoples. In many cases they are violent contacts, but even what was a peaceful contact could end with the disappearance of almost an entire town, if not an entire town, because they are very vulnerable peoples and do not have immunity against diseases that are very common to us, such as It could be the flu or a cold, or now, Covid-19.”

In Brazil, more than half of the 800,000 people who claim to be indigenous live in the Amazon, and many of them are threatened by large-scale, illegal exploitation of the natural resources they depend on for survival.