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Who is The Man of the Hole? · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know from how Stuff Works
0:04
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
0:13
Speaker 1: and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry Jerome Roland. Boy,
0:19
Speaker 1: I'm not in a good way today, Chuck, you off
0:22
Speaker 1: your game, as if you can't tell I think you're fine. Well, thanks, man,
0:28
Speaker 1: I feel a lot better. Uh yeah, no, I'm okay.
0:33
Speaker 1: I can tell you. I'm I'm surrounded by friends, family,
0:38
Speaker 1: like your dad's corner. It's I have the idea I
0:43
Speaker 1: have TV. Oh. Man. I instagrammed a photo of my
0:47
Speaker 1: mom and dad from the seventies. Yeah, and um, I
0:52
Speaker 1: captioned it, They're like looking at each other kind of lovingly.
0:56
Speaker 1: And I captioned it, um, the moment before I was conceived.
1:00
Speaker 1: You know what Jerry showed me that today. Oh yeah,
1:03
Speaker 1: she did. I look a lot like my parents mixed together. Huh. Well.
1:07
Speaker 1: The first thing I noticed was like, Wow, that's that's
1:11
Speaker 1: what Josh would have looked like as a grown man
1:13
Speaker 1: in the nineteen seventies. Because that profile of your dad,
1:16
Speaker 1: I was, I was, I don't know, I've never seen
1:19
Speaker 1: your dad young. So I was like, man, that's really
1:21
Speaker 1: that's you. Yeah, yeah, I totally saw it. I saw both. Yeah. Yeah,
1:26
Speaker 1: Because you look at my dad, You're like, oh, that's Josh.
1:28
Speaker 1: But then you look at my mom You're like, oh,
1:29
Speaker 1: there's there's Josh too. Very bizarre. Yeah I don't. I
1:33
Speaker 1: guess I definitely favored my father. Um. Yeah, so a
1:37
Speaker 1: lot of people just favored favorite one or the other.
1:39
Speaker 1: But I'm fifty fifty. That's what we call you all fifty. Yeah.
1:47
Speaker 1: I think that's a new one. There's a T shirt. Yeah,
1:52
Speaker 1: um so, oh, I know the point I was making.
1:56
Speaker 1: There's this how Stuff Works article that you sent called
1:59
Speaker 1: them and in the Whole, and it talks about this
2:02
Speaker 1: guy who is the last of his kind. He's as
2:06
Speaker 1: as this article put it, like the loneliest person on earth.
2:11
Speaker 1: And I was like, yeah, I mean, I'm sure there's
2:13
Speaker 1: a lot like being in solitary confinement or something like that,
2:16
Speaker 1: but no, this is way beyond that. And this how
2:18
Speaker 1: Stuff Works article by j Lynn Shields like really drove
2:23
Speaker 1: at home. She wrote, like, what if you were the
2:26
Speaker 1: last person who could speak your language, the last person
2:30
Speaker 1: who remembered what Halloween was, or a Coca cola, or
2:34
Speaker 1: that a dog says Wolf, like, imagine that, and I'm like, yeah,
2:38
Speaker 1: that's way different from being in solitary. Solitary confinement would
2:41
Speaker 1: be bad enough. You know, you're physically restrained, but at
2:45
Speaker 1: least you know out there that there are other people
2:49
Speaker 1: who know the same things you know, that speak the
2:53
Speaker 1: same language you speak, that your family is still out there,
2:56
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. This is utterly different. And this man,
3:00
Speaker 1: the last Tribesman he's called, or the man in the whole,
3:03
Speaker 1: is possibly not just the the last of his kind.
3:08
Speaker 1: He might be the only person on the entire planet
3:12
Speaker 1: in the situation that he's in. Maybe isn't that bizarre
3:17
Speaker 1: to think? Yeah, I mean we did a uh we
3:20
Speaker 1: did another show on are Their Undiscovered People quite a
3:22
Speaker 1: few years back and a deaf. I don't know how
3:25
Speaker 1: he didn't get to this guy, but I saw this
3:27
Speaker 1: article and it it was striking, especially if you've seen
3:31
Speaker 1: the couple of videos, and I think there are only
3:34
Speaker 1: two pieces of video of this dude. One I saw
3:37
Speaker 1: where they were sort of shooting, you know, they were
3:40
Speaker 1: zoomed in on a hut and that's you know, where
3:43
Speaker 1: he lives. There's a series of thatched huts in the
3:47
Speaker 1: uh Tanaru Indigenous Reserve in the Rondonia state of Brazil. Yeah,
3:54
Speaker 1: about acres big area of the forest in jungle. So
4:00
Speaker 1: he lives in these thatched huts that are scattered about
4:03
Speaker 1: in the middle of nowhere, and they were able to
4:06
Speaker 1: get him on film kind of zoomed in between the
4:08
Speaker 1: cracks and you see the guy kind of looking a
4:10
Speaker 1: little bit, but you can't make out much. So I
4:12
Speaker 1: saw that video and then I saw another one where
4:16
Speaker 1: it was a pretty good shot of him from a
4:18
Speaker 1: distance making good work trying to chop down a tree.
4:23
Speaker 1: That was the most recent video, right, which, uh, well,
4:27
Speaker 1: let's just go ahead and get into this. He was
4:29
Speaker 1: found or discovered and I think nineteen when some loggers
4:36
Speaker 1: uh from the state of Rondonia, which from the impression
4:41
Speaker 1: I have, this is a very rough and tumble state
4:44
Speaker 1: populated by loggers and cattle ranchers and um there are
4:49
Speaker 1: very few laws from what I understand, and things are
4:52
Speaker 1: settled by the gun. Is the impression that I have
4:55
Speaker 1: of Rondonia. It's right smack dab in the middle of
4:58
Speaker 1: South America, and it's extraordinarily densely jungle in the Amazon. Yeah,
5:03
Speaker 1: I mean that one new York Times article, like the
5:06
Speaker 1: guy was talking that they were talking to said, from
5:08
Speaker 1: a helicopter, you look down there and you think there's
5:11
Speaker 1: just no one down there. It's just all jungle, he said.
5:14
Speaker 1: About when you get down there, he said, there's a
5:15
Speaker 1: lot of people and drug runners and bad men everywhere.
5:20
Speaker 1: So this guy is definitely an anomaly because he is
5:25
Speaker 1: not hanging out with anybody. No. And the reason why
5:29
Speaker 1: they think he's alone, Chuck, is because back when the
5:36
Speaker 1: rumors of like a wild man in the jungle started
5:39
Speaker 1: to circulate um, they think that he had he had
5:43
Speaker 1: just recently survived a slaughter that had killed off the
5:46
Speaker 1: rest of his trial, which was only like supposedly five
5:49
Speaker 1: or six people at that point, because they think the
5:52
Speaker 1: rest had been slaughtered, and that that's a common thing
5:55
Speaker 1: we're gonna come up on in a couple of these
5:57
Speaker 1: as these ranchers and loggers, they're like, we want to
6:01
Speaker 1: go clear this land, and there's a tribe, a native tribe.
6:05
Speaker 1: They're an indigenous tribe, so let's just slaughter them, get
6:08
Speaker 1: them out of the way. It's really really awful, awful thing,
6:12
Speaker 1: and it's been a very common thing apparently since the
6:15
Speaker 1: seventies and eighties when ranchers and loggers moved into Rondonia.
6:20
Speaker 1: Um it just snatching up land. And this is again,
6:23
Speaker 1: this is the Amazon. This is basically Christine Forest rainforest
6:30
Speaker 1: that people who have never been contacted by any anyone
6:37
Speaker 1: from the outside world live still to this day, and
6:40
Speaker 1: this guy is one of them. So at first they
6:43
Speaker 1: thought maybe he was just a member of a tribe
6:47
Speaker 1: um that we already know about. And then over time
6:50
Speaker 1: as they started to study this guy, it became quite
6:53
Speaker 1: clear that now he's he's a member of a tribe
6:56
Speaker 1: that we didn't know about before, and we're pretty sure
6:59
Speaker 1: he is the last of his kind. Yeah. So there's
7:02
Speaker 1: this organization called uh fun I f u n AI,
7:07
Speaker 1: the National Indian Foundation of Brazil, and they have been
7:12
Speaker 1: tasked with for the past twenty years monitoring this dude,
7:17
Speaker 1: and before his companions were killed, monitoring his companions. And
7:22
Speaker 1: you send a nice follow up on FUNAI. They have
7:25
Speaker 1: a few departments and one is called the General Coordination
7:28
Speaker 1: Unit of Uncontacted Indians the c g i I, and
7:34
Speaker 1: that was established in seven and they're the only department
7:38
Speaker 1: of government in the world which protects indigenous peoples who
7:43
Speaker 1: don't have contact with the outside world or nearby tribes. Yeah,
7:48
Speaker 1: because before in the like nineteenth century and even through
7:51
Speaker 1: a lot of the twentieth century, there was it was
7:54
Speaker 1: just basically Christian missionaries who were making their way into
7:57
Speaker 1: the Amazon to contact vibes and bring them Jesus basically,
8:01
Speaker 1: and also health care and food and all that stuff
8:04
Speaker 1: tools the implements of modern culture, but also to proselytize too,
8:09
Speaker 1: and there was a lot of UM. It just wasn't
8:14
Speaker 1: very well thought out. And as a result, even even
8:17
Speaker 1: from these these the best of intentions that a lot
8:19
Speaker 1: of these missionaries had a lot of tribes died. So
8:23
Speaker 1: in Brazil came up with their UM. I think it
8:27
Speaker 1: was like the Indian Protection Services was the name of
8:30
Speaker 1: the department that they first came up with, and UM
8:34
Speaker 1: the Indian Protection Service they took over from the missionaries,
8:39
Speaker 1: and it was a step up in that sense because
8:41
Speaker 1: it was more coordinated. There was thought to it, There
8:43
Speaker 1: was some sort of study, but the point was to
8:46
Speaker 1: take um uncontacted Amazonian tribes and bring them into the
8:54
Speaker 1: modern world so that they could assimilate with the modern world.
8:58
Speaker 1: The point was to basely reduced cultural diversity in Brazil. UM.
9:04
Speaker 1: And that kept going until the sixties when there was
9:07
Speaker 1: a huge expose a about the Indian Protection Service UM
9:11
Speaker 1: that they had just fallen down so terribly in their
9:14
Speaker 1: mission that there was basically massive extermination, slavery, rape, everything,
9:20
Speaker 1: every horrible thing that you can think of that could
9:22
Speaker 1: befall a human being happened to these tribes under the
9:26
Speaker 1: watch of the Indian Services Protection over sixty years. Yeah. So, Uh,
9:32
Speaker 1: the department in the the gu c g I I
9:37
Speaker 1: was founded by a man named Sydneys Passuelo. I guess
9:41
Speaker 1: sow you pronounced that. And this was a big sea
9:45
Speaker 1: change in policy, which was, like you were saying, the
9:48
Speaker 1: previous strategy established contact to try and get them integrated
9:53
Speaker 1: at some point, uh, to this new policy, which was
9:57
Speaker 1: don't even contact these people and us they are under
10:00
Speaker 1: serious threat because history has shown all manner of bad
10:06
Speaker 1: things can happen when you contact these people, UM, one
10:13
Speaker 1: of which is certainly introducing them to new diseases and
10:17
Speaker 1: things that will kill them that they've never never seen
10:19
Speaker 1: or experienced. Uh. And and this is you know, there's
10:23
Speaker 1: a big debate still on like what the best policies
10:26
Speaker 1: are here. Yeah, So these two Um American anthropologists, white
10:32
Speaker 1: American anthropologists, men who I guess, wrote an open letter
10:38
Speaker 1: in either Science or Nature I think Nature UM basically
10:42
Speaker 1: saying Brazil and Peru UM should reverse this this longstanding
10:48
Speaker 1: policy of of not contacting Indians UM in the Amazon
10:54
Speaker 1: and should actually plan peaceful, well organized contact so that
11:02
Speaker 1: that they can be better protected. It's these anthropologist stance
11:06
Speaker 1: that if you don't protect them, they're going to dot
11:09
Speaker 1: one way or another, that there's no way that they're
11:12
Speaker 1: going to remain isolated. On the on the long term,
11:16
Speaker 1: maybe you've got another generation possibly of some of these
11:20
Speaker 1: tribes that could live like this. But beyond that, it's
11:23
Speaker 1: just not gonna happen. There's too many powerful interests banging
11:26
Speaker 1: on the doors of their preserved areas who are more
11:29
Speaker 1: than willing to hire people who will accept money to
11:33
Speaker 1: go kill these people just to get this land. And
11:36
Speaker 1: by just leaving them alone, you're leaving them very vulnerable.
11:39
Speaker 1: Whereas if you if you plan out contact, then conceivably
11:44
Speaker 1: you can show them that there are things like medical treatment,
11:47
Speaker 1: there is the better ways that you can protect them.
11:50
Speaker 1: You can kind of give them contact, and that even
11:52
Speaker 1: more so interviews with groups that have become have initiated
11:57
Speaker 1: contact or have had contact made with them, said, we
12:01
Speaker 1: would have made contact with you guys earlier, but we
12:04
Speaker 1: thought we were going to be enslaved or murdered or something.
12:07
Speaker 1: We had no idea that you wanted to actually help us.
12:09
Speaker 1: Had we known that, we would have contacted you guys
12:12
Speaker 1: decades ago. So those two things put together, these American
12:16
Speaker 1: anthropologists have said we we endorsed this, and FU and
12:20
Speaker 1: I and a lot of other groups, including the U
12:23
Speaker 1: N and UH human rights group in the UK called
12:27
Speaker 1: Survivors International, have said, um no, that is totally disrespectful.
12:32
Speaker 1: That flies completely in the face of of agreed upon
12:35
Speaker 1: procedure and protocol. Just be quiet, you're being neo colonialists. Yeah.
12:40
Speaker 1: I think it's interesting though, because what they're trying to
12:42
Speaker 1: do is, like you said, have very highly controlled contact.
12:46
Speaker 1: And the assumption that they don't want to be contacted UH,
12:51
Speaker 1: at least through their eyes, appears to be false because
12:54
Speaker 1: like you mentioned, they're they're afraid of being UH kidnapped
12:58
Speaker 1: or something or overtaken. And if had they known, like oh,
13:01
Speaker 1: you just want to give us some nice tools and
13:04
Speaker 1: maybe inoculate us UH and we we'd actually be down
13:08
Speaker 1: with that as long as you leave afterward, right, And
13:12
Speaker 1: these two anthropologists said, like, you've got to do this smartly,
13:15
Speaker 1: Like you basically have to go in with cultural translators,
13:18
Speaker 1: usually um tribes who have made contact with outsiders before,
13:24
Speaker 1: already established contact that live in the same area, who
13:27
Speaker 1: might be able to to translate between the outsiders and
13:33
Speaker 1: the actual uncontacted tribes. And you need healthcare providers who
13:36
Speaker 1: are going to stay there for at least a year,
13:39
Speaker 1: at least a year of sustained care or else. Yes,
13:42
Speaker 1: they're going to die from these diseases you're going to
13:45
Speaker 1: bring in inevitable. Yeah, I mean they're they're good. They
13:47
Speaker 1: give good examples too in that article about how this
13:51
Speaker 1: is backfired with missionaries, like the your people they were
13:55
Speaker 1: there for six months and the missionary said, well, let's
13:58
Speaker 1: let's go on vacation, and then the Jora died a
14:02
Speaker 1: few weeks later. And then in nineteen missionaries provided care
14:07
Speaker 1: to a community on ok community. Uh, they took a
14:12
Speaker 1: vacation and then they died as well. So they're saying, like,
14:16
Speaker 1: you gotta have a plan to go in and stay there.
14:19
Speaker 1: You can't just go in bring him some food and
14:21
Speaker 1: machetes and spring break and then then get out of there.
14:27
Speaker 1: But I get the idea that this is still a
14:29
Speaker 1: pretty hot topic of debate. Oh yeah, I know that
14:33
Speaker 1: those anthropologists, um, they they set off a huge debate,
14:39
Speaker 1: and I think it was sparked by the the video
14:42
Speaker 1: that was released by Survivor International of the man in
14:46
Speaker 1: the whole um chopping down a tree. And the video
14:49
Speaker 1: was taken in two thousand eleven, but they only just
14:51
Speaker 1: released it in July of two eighteen. And this is, yeah,
14:55
Speaker 1: this is very much still going on, this big debate,
14:57
Speaker 1: and it's a huge it's a huge issue, and you
15:00
Speaker 1: can you can kind of see both sides. Like I
15:02
Speaker 1: had just read about food eyes um counter to it
15:06
Speaker 1: that like, look, dudes, this is our thing, we got this.
15:09
Speaker 1: You just mind your own business, we have our own policy,
15:12
Speaker 1: stay out right, stay out of this. But then if
15:15
Speaker 1: you read the anthropologists letters, you're like, actually, they have
15:18
Speaker 1: a couple of good points here. So it's it's not
15:21
Speaker 1: a clear cut, um uh picture one way or the other.
15:26
Speaker 1: It's it's definitely there's a lot of of nuance to
15:30
Speaker 1: it on both sides. All right, let's take a risp it.
15:33
Speaker 1: Let's take a furlough or vacation and we'll come back
15:36
Speaker 1: and talk a little bit more about the Man in
15:37
Speaker 1: the Whole. Alright, So the reason they call him the
16:00
Speaker 1: man of the Hole or the man in the hole
16:02
Speaker 1: is the odd thing of inside these statched huts of
16:06
Speaker 1: which he has, uh several around this area. Inside the
16:12
Speaker 1: huts are these and all over the place there are
16:14
Speaker 1: these holes with like spikes for like trapping animals. But
16:17
Speaker 1: he has these six foot deep holes inside of his
16:21
Speaker 1: own huts and apparently no no other tribes around him
16:26
Speaker 1: have done this, and it's very unusual thing, and that
16:30
Speaker 1: the belief is that he is it's for his own protection.
16:33
Speaker 1: I guess if he's being fired upon or something by loggers,
16:37
Speaker 1: he can jump down on one of these holes. Yeah,
16:40
Speaker 1: that's the impression I have too, which is extraordinarily sad.
16:43
Speaker 1: It is. So the reason why they think that Um
16:49
Speaker 1: that he has these holes is because he's had terrible
16:51
Speaker 1: run ins. I guess this This seems to be evidence
16:55
Speaker 1: that he is the survivor of a slaughter massacre, because
16:59
Speaker 1: this is not a normal technique that they've seen with
17:02
Speaker 1: other tribes UM, and they found it at every single
17:05
Speaker 1: one of the huts that they've come upon of his. Yeah.
17:08
Speaker 1: They do know though from tailing him or monitor tailing him,
17:13
Speaker 1: monitoring him for the past couple of decades though, that
17:15
Speaker 1: he he hunts with a bow and arrow. He farms, uh,
17:20
Speaker 1: probably at night and stays out of the you know,
17:23
Speaker 1: as much as he can. Stays inside during the day
17:25
Speaker 1: out of fear, which is also awful. But he farms
17:29
Speaker 1: like papay in corn and other fruits and vegetables. He
17:33
Speaker 1: has all these traps, said everywhere, like I mentioned, um,
17:36
Speaker 1: they have found hand carved arrowheads, torches made from branches,
17:41
Speaker 1: and resin. And at one point they actually tried to
17:44
Speaker 1: make contact, yes, several points. Well, at one point when
17:48
Speaker 1: they when they tried to make contact though, he he
17:51
Speaker 1: fired upon them with his bow and arrow and actually
17:54
Speaker 1: hit someone in the chest, one of the agents. Yeah,
17:57
Speaker 1: and they were like, all right, we're out of here. Yeah.
18:00
Speaker 1: At that point they stopped trying to initiate contact with
18:03
Speaker 1: this guy. And again this is like peaceful contact they're
18:05
Speaker 1: trying to initiate, not like hey man, get off of
18:09
Speaker 1: this land there, like saying do you need anything, do
18:12
Speaker 1: you want some food? What do you what? Do you want?
18:15
Speaker 1: And the first few attempts to contact him resulted in
18:20
Speaker 1: him just basically slipping into the shadows in the jungle
18:23
Speaker 1: and just disappearing. Um. Then it progressed into standoffs. Then
18:28
Speaker 1: it progressed into a shooting, and so they stepped back.
18:31
Speaker 1: Survivor International and food I and some other groups step
18:35
Speaker 1: back and said, this guy is escalating in hostilities. He's
18:40
Speaker 1: showing us he doesn't want anything to do with us,
18:44
Speaker 1: Like you. It would be something if like he'd shot
18:47
Speaker 1: the first time and then slipped away the second time,
18:50
Speaker 1: and and the hostilities were decreasing, but instead it's going
18:54
Speaker 1: the opposite way. The hostilities were increasing. So he's getting
18:57
Speaker 1: that he has the opportunity to contact the people who
19:00
Speaker 1: are coming with their hands up and like not trying
19:03
Speaker 1: to kill him. And he's still saying back off. So
19:06
Speaker 1: finally the government said we're just going to back off,
19:09
Speaker 1: and they backed off. The fun I established his policy
19:12
Speaker 1: of not contacting this guy, not even attempting to contact
19:16
Speaker 1: this guy, but instead monitoring him, making sure that his
19:20
Speaker 1: preserve is um protected, and then leaving him things like
19:25
Speaker 1: the acts that he was seen using in that two
19:27
Speaker 1: thousand and eleven video. Or seeds for some of the
19:30
Speaker 1: um the plants that he grows, which a lot of
19:33
Speaker 1: times he doesn't even accept or take these gifts. Imagine
19:36
Speaker 1: he's not real trusting. Uh And like you said, as
19:39
Speaker 1: far as protecting the area, in two thousand seven, uh
19:42
Speaker 1: Funai and the government UM eventually increase the area to
19:45
Speaker 1: thirty one square miles around where he was is off
19:49
Speaker 1: limits to any trespassing or development, later expanded to three
19:53
Speaker 1: thousand hectares. So I think they added another three thousand
19:56
Speaker 1: hecks okay to the already square mileage. And this is
20:00
Speaker 1: really ticked off the ranchers and the loggers because they're like,
20:04
Speaker 1: our business is being held back back by this one guy. Yeah,
20:08
Speaker 1: and they want to kill him, to kill him. As
20:11
Speaker 1: a matter of fact, in in when the government announced
20:14
Speaker 1: that it was not only keeping up the practice of
20:18
Speaker 1: preserving this guy's land thirty one square miles, but adding
20:22
Speaker 1: an extra three thousand hectares, which brought the total to
20:26
Speaker 1: forty two and a half square miles or a hundred
20:28
Speaker 1: and ten square kilometers that this man has to himself
20:32
Speaker 1: the five ranches that surround this preserve, UM hired somebody
20:37
Speaker 1: to go try to kill him. Fu and I went
20:39
Speaker 1: and checked on him after a couple of weeks after
20:41
Speaker 1: that announcement was made public, and they found that their
20:45
Speaker 1: outpost was ransacked and that um, they had found the
20:49
Speaker 1: shotgun shells, spent shotgun shells in the fourth floor. So
20:52
Speaker 1: there's clearly an attempt to mate on the made on
20:54
Speaker 1: the guy's life, And for a couple of years they
20:56
Speaker 1: had no idea if he'd survived until that video was
21:00
Speaker 1: made in two thousand eleven that showed this guy who
21:03
Speaker 1: was now fifty. They've been tracking him since he was
21:05
Speaker 1: in his now, um chopping down a tree, Yeah, chopping
21:10
Speaker 1: down a tree like it's nothing. So they knew that
21:13
Speaker 1: he was alive and in good health as of two
21:14
Speaker 1: thousand and eleven, and they're assuming that he's still alive. Man,
21:18
Speaker 1: how good would a movie be about this guy? I
21:21
Speaker 1: just have a lot of it play out in silence,
21:23
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, that would be amazing, It would be cool.
21:26
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's crazy to see a video of
21:29
Speaker 1: this guy from seven years ago, Like in the world
21:32
Speaker 1: we live in, to think about there's still places on
21:35
Speaker 1: earth where this guy. It's almost like the Japanese straggler
21:40
Speaker 1: who had no idea that the war had been over
21:42
Speaker 1: for whatever thirty years living in the jungle. Uh. It's
21:46
Speaker 1: just amazing to think about the fact that this is
21:48
Speaker 1: the loan, the lone guy out there by himself, and
21:52
Speaker 1: what his life must be like. But not not only that,
21:56
Speaker 1: It's like like when I when when we did the
21:59
Speaker 1: paramedics episode, I think I said something like, there's there's
22:02
Speaker 1: no greater symbol of humanity than paramedics, you know. I
22:06
Speaker 1: think this is another really great symbol of this guy
22:10
Speaker 1: that well, well, no the FUNI Brazilian government's response to
22:14
Speaker 1: this that this man has been has been part of
22:17
Speaker 1: a tribe, it's the last of his tribe, and the
22:20
Speaker 1: Brazilian government has said, this man deserves to live his
22:23
Speaker 1: life out in peace in the way that he wants to,
22:26
Speaker 1: in his traditional way, to be left alone. And we're
22:29
Speaker 1: going to designate a d ten square kilometers that belong
22:32
Speaker 1: to no one but this man, despite the fact that
22:35
Speaker 1: all around him is it's the outside world trying to
22:39
Speaker 1: press in. We're gonna stand in the way of that
22:41
Speaker 1: so that this guy can live out his natural life.
22:44
Speaker 1: That just gets me, you know, right in the bread basket. Yeah.
22:47
Speaker 1: I think the Disney version of this movie is they
22:49
Speaker 1: would find a alone tribeswoman somewhere, drop her off and
22:55
Speaker 1: have them have them meat cute by the papaya tree. Yeah,
22:59
Speaker 1: and the the ranchers want to tickle him. But if
23:04
Speaker 1: it were live action these days, it would be um.
23:08
Speaker 1: They would hire either John Wayne or Fisher Stevens to
23:11
Speaker 1: play the last. Fisher Stevens here, I remember he played
23:15
Speaker 1: the Indian programmer in Short Circuit. That's right, Yeah, geez, yeah,
23:22
Speaker 1: that was as recently as the eighties. Right, It's not
23:24
Speaker 1: like Mickey Rooney playing an Asian man in the nineteen sixties.
23:29
Speaker 1: Not like that was any better. No, Bay Hollywood and
23:32
Speaker 1: getting it wrong for so long, they have at least
23:35
Speaker 1: Mongol got it right though, right, Uh maybe, yeah, we
23:39
Speaker 1: haven't seen any Should we take another break? Yeah, all right,
23:44
Speaker 1: We'll take another break and talk a little bit more
23:47
Speaker 1: about some of these um isolated tribes right after this. Okay, Chuck,
24:11
Speaker 1: So the last tribesman, the the um, the man in
24:15
Speaker 1: the whole. He's being left alone. And that's policy in
24:19
Speaker 1: Brazil and Peru from what I understand now, Um, there
24:23
Speaker 1: are some tribes that have actually um accepted contact and
24:29
Speaker 1: it made peaceful contact and it become um, I guess
24:34
Speaker 1: a little more integrated. I think there's three degrees that
24:38
Speaker 1: fun I separates tribes into indigenous tribes into there's totally uncontacted,
24:45
Speaker 1: which is like they are living off on their own.
24:48
Speaker 1: They outside world has nothing to do with them. There's
24:51
Speaker 1: um partially contacted or partially assimilated, right like they they're
24:58
Speaker 1: they're living in their hut in the jungle, but they
25:00
Speaker 1: still have an iPhone, right um. And then there's fully assimilated,
25:05
Speaker 1: where they like live in a city now or something
25:08
Speaker 1: like that, or they have like a job in the
25:10
Speaker 1: city or something like that. Um. So it's not just
25:15
Speaker 1: in the Amazon. It's not just in Brazil where there
25:17
Speaker 1: are uncontacted tribes, although that is definitely the place where
25:22
Speaker 1: you're going to find the most. I think I saw
25:24
Speaker 1: somewhere between fifty eighty and a hundred and twenty uncontacted
25:31
Speaker 1: groups of indigenous people are presumed to be living in
25:34
Speaker 1: the Amazon still today. Yeah, I mean just those that
25:37
Speaker 1: random swath of numbers shows you that they there's still
25:40
Speaker 1: so much they don't know for sure, but there's there
25:44
Speaker 1: are other parts of the world where there are uncontacted
25:47
Speaker 1: tribes um, and you found an article that ran down
25:51
Speaker 1: a few of them. One that surprised me was just
25:53
Speaker 1: um off the coast of India on Sentinel Island in India,
25:58
Speaker 1: North Sentinel cracked our iCal which may have been done
26:02
Speaker 1: under the watch of our now colleague, Mr Jack O'Brien.
26:07
Speaker 1: Nice shout out to Jack and as Daily Zeitgey Zitgey's podcast, Yeah,
26:11
Speaker 1: which I was on. Have you been on John On?
26:13
Speaker 1: You gotta be on. It's great, great fun. It's a
26:16
Speaker 1: matter of fact, I'm gonna lap you. I'm gonna go
26:18
Speaker 1: on again. Well please do all right? Yeah, But the
26:22
Speaker 1: Sintinnales on North Sentinel Island, Indian they don't even know
26:27
Speaker 1: if that's their real name. They just call them that
26:30
Speaker 1: because I guess we have called it North Sentinel Island,
26:35
Speaker 1: not you and me, but other people who named it,
26:37
Speaker 1: I think the British, but apparently yeah, probably, Uh. We
26:40
Speaker 1: don't know a lot about them. But in two thousand
26:42
Speaker 1: and six a couple of fishermen drifted there in their
26:45
Speaker 1: boat ah near the island and were killed and buried
26:50
Speaker 1: in shallow graves, and helicopters came and they were like,
26:54
Speaker 1: we gotta find this burial site and get these guys
26:57
Speaker 1: back at least, and they started firing arrows at the
27:00
Speaker 1: helicopter and it was just out of there, and the
27:03
Speaker 1: local cops were like, now, we're just gonna leave those
27:06
Speaker 1: guys there. We're not We're not going near it. They
27:09
Speaker 1: have actually for this is a This has been going
27:12
Speaker 1: on for a very long time. Apparently Marco polo Um
27:16
Speaker 1: remarked on them, wrote about them that he was traveling
27:19
Speaker 1: and I think the twelve century. So they've been fierce
27:24
Speaker 1: for years now and apparently survived the two thousand four
27:28
Speaker 1: tsunami in Indonesia's tsunami. That's crazy because this is an
27:34
Speaker 1: island that the tsunami just swamped and they managed to
27:37
Speaker 1: hang on just fine. I think ancient people have survived
27:40
Speaker 1: more than one tsunami, you know. I guess you're right.
27:43
Speaker 1: That was a pretty bad one though, Yeah, pretty amazing. Uh.
27:47
Speaker 1: This other one, the coral Y tribe of Papua, Indonesia.
27:52
Speaker 1: They were contacted in the seventies by of course missionaries
27:56
Speaker 1: an archaeologist and they were using stone tools and living
27:59
Speaker 1: in ree huts and stuff like that, and they're a
28:02
Speaker 1: big belief as a tribe was that the world would
28:05
Speaker 1: be destroyed by an earthquake if they assimilated and change
28:09
Speaker 1: their customs. So missionary said, all right, you know what,
28:13
Speaker 1: We're just gonna leave you alone. What I think these
28:16
Speaker 1: people might have invented, um bungee jumping. Do you remember
28:22
Speaker 1: land diving episode? They sound really familiar. I think it
28:26
Speaker 1: might be maybe so, But they are in the middle
28:29
Speaker 1: of nowhere, so it's a it's a long way from
28:32
Speaker 1: even like other remote villages, which is a I mean,
28:35
Speaker 1: that's a that's a mark in your favor for now.
28:37
Speaker 1: But as the Amazon Basin has been showing us since
28:42
Speaker 1: the seventies and eighties, so much of it has disappeared
28:45
Speaker 1: due to clear cutting, for ranching, logging. Um that that
28:52
Speaker 1: how you just have no idea how much longer that's
28:55
Speaker 1: going to hold up, no matter where you are in
28:57
Speaker 1: the world. I mean, we're at seven and a half
29:00
Speaker 1: billion people now, and then I think the next thirty
29:03
Speaker 1: years we're expected to hit ten billion. That's a lot
29:06
Speaker 1: more people that not only need more land, but also
29:09
Speaker 1: are going to be using up those resources that that
29:12
Speaker 1: that are currently on that land right now, you know,
29:16
Speaker 1: I mean, like if they discover oil where the Cora
29:19
Speaker 1: white tribe lives in Indonesia. There goes that isolation, you know,
29:26
Speaker 1: and I think that's a that's a real danger for
29:28
Speaker 1: all tribes. I think that's probably what those two anthropologists
29:31
Speaker 1: were talking about. Um, they're saying, like, long term, we
29:35
Speaker 1: need a plan here everybody. We can't just be like, well,
29:38
Speaker 1: we just won't contact them because it's just not viable,
29:40
Speaker 1: I think was their point. What about that? This one
29:43
Speaker 1: really was interesting to me. The Old Believers. Have you
29:47
Speaker 1: ever heard of them? Yeah, there's like some g Q
29:50
Speaker 1: article in the last couple of years about that. I
29:55
Speaker 1: think so in bur lap apparently, Yeah, these are Soviet Uh. Well,
30:00
Speaker 1: here's the deal in ight, there were these geologists in
30:03
Speaker 1: the Soviet Union that we're looking for iron ore. Uh.
30:07
Speaker 1: They were in a helicopter and they saw a cabin
30:10
Speaker 1: way out in the remote areas of Siberia, and they
30:14
Speaker 1: found a family there that actually spoke a language I guess,
30:19
Speaker 1: I mean, what would that be old timey Russian? Old
30:24
Speaker 1: timey Russian? Uh huh uh. And they were were huddled
30:29
Speaker 1: in fear and they were yelling, this is for our sins.
30:32
Speaker 1: They were dressed in burlap and living off the land
30:36
Speaker 1: and Apparently they were a group of people called the
30:40
Speaker 1: Old Believers, which left the Russian Church, the main Russian
30:44
Speaker 1: Church in the seventeenth century and had been I guess
30:48
Speaker 1: looked at you know, they kind of went everywhere. It
30:51
Speaker 1: was sort of a diaspora for the Old Believers. Some
30:54
Speaker 1: of them just went to other countries and seeking asylum
30:57
Speaker 1: or whatever. And apparently some of them just looked aside
31:00
Speaker 1: area and we're like, no one's there, so we'll go there. Nice.
31:05
Speaker 1: It sounds creepy though, the Old Believers. Oh yeah, that's
31:08
Speaker 1: a terrible name for him. You know. It seems like
31:11
Speaker 1: they could scan you or something to make your head explode.
31:14
Speaker 1: Are they worship Cthulhu or something? So Um, I almost
31:19
Speaker 1: feel like if we should look into them a little more,
31:21
Speaker 1: because I think they could probably hold up their own up.
31:24
Speaker 1: I think you might be right. I also remember hearing
31:26
Speaker 1: about families that lived in the Ozark Mountains in um
31:30
Speaker 1: the midwest of the United States. Um, I think around
31:34
Speaker 1: Arkansas that had been out of contact. I didn't even
31:38
Speaker 1: know the Civil War it happened. They were just that isolated.
31:41
Speaker 1: So yeah, you tend to think of it as just
31:43
Speaker 1: strictly indigenous peoples and that it's just in the Amazon,
31:46
Speaker 1: but like there's there's groups all over the world's fewer
31:49
Speaker 1: and further between outside of the Amazon because there's less
31:53
Speaker 1: unpopulated areas, but it happens. And one of the sad
31:57
Speaker 1: things about all of this is, Uh, for one of
31:59
Speaker 1: these other tribes that you know, you can go read
32:01
Speaker 1: this cracked article. What's it called? I didn't see the
32:06
Speaker 1: title actually is just suddenly there were oh five isolated
32:09
Speaker 1: groups who had no idea that civilization existed. Correct correct
32:13
Speaker 1: lists were always so great, are always so great. They've
32:16
Speaker 1: come in handy from time to time. But one of
32:18
Speaker 1: the sad things I point out for one of these
32:20
Speaker 1: other tribes is that in Peru and imagine in some
32:22
Speaker 1: other South American countries, there are these awful things called
32:26
Speaker 1: human safari's where and they will take tourists around to
32:30
Speaker 1: like look at uncontacted tribes from Afar and close up.
32:37
Speaker 1: They're like, here, drained some of this io husk it
32:39
Speaker 1: through your nose, and we're going to go check out
32:41
Speaker 1: some some tribes hanging out on a river bank somewhere. Man,
32:44
Speaker 1: So weird. Uh, Why I want to add one more thing.
32:48
Speaker 1: I came across an article that wasn't really apropos of
32:51
Speaker 1: what we were talking about, called the Right to Kill
32:55
Speaker 1: on Foreign Policy Magazine, and it's about like this other
32:59
Speaker 1: tan gentile issue that governments like Brazil have to deal with,
33:04
Speaker 1: which is like, some of these isolated groups practice things
33:10
Speaker 1: that the outside world finds abhorrent or is illegal in
33:14
Speaker 1: the outside world. Um, specifically, in this article, infant aside.
33:18
Speaker 1: If you're born with the disability and I think about
33:21
Speaker 1: twenty of of Brazil's isolated tribes, there's a chance that
33:27
Speaker 1: the community will decide that you need to die again.
33:30
Speaker 1: It's the practice of infantaside. And Brazil is like, we
33:34
Speaker 1: are not quite sure what to do about this, because
33:35
Speaker 1: our constitution guarantees everyone in Brazil the right to live,
33:40
Speaker 1: but it also guarantees the indigenous groups the right to
33:44
Speaker 1: live according to their customs. So they have no idea
33:46
Speaker 1: what to do. And it's a big thing about, you know,
33:49
Speaker 1: moral relativism or moral absolutism and which one is correct. Uh.
33:53
Speaker 1: And it's really interesting that they're having to think about
33:56
Speaker 1: this right now. It's a really interesting article that's worth reading. Okay,
34:02
Speaker 1: I will check it out. Are you talking to me? Yeah,
34:04
Speaker 1: I'm talking to everybody, but specifically. Yeah. Um, well, if
34:08
Speaker 1: you want to know more about isolated tribes, you can
34:12
Speaker 1: look those words up anywhere on the internet and they're
34:15
Speaker 1: going to deliver you some amazing stuff. And since I
34:18
Speaker 1: said that, it's time for listener mail. Since you said
34:23
Speaker 1: amazing stuff, mhm uh, well look at here, dude, I
34:27
Speaker 1: have a handwritten letter on construction paper. Beautiful. Yeah, I
34:34
Speaker 1: love it. Hey, guys, I hope this finds you. Well.
34:37
Speaker 1: My name is Claire and I'm twenty one. In fact,
34:39
Speaker 1: for my twenty first birthday, I came and saw you
34:41
Speaker 1: guys live in Cleveland. Awesome. That was a great it was.
34:44
Speaker 1: I got to here in college and I'm studying mathematics
34:47
Speaker 1: with a license and education, so I'll be teaching high
34:51
Speaker 1: school math. It's been a fan since two thousand fifteen.
34:53
Speaker 1: Thank you for the many nights uh you have calmed
34:56
Speaker 1: me and all the information I've learned. And I've been
34:59
Speaker 1: wanting to for a while just to say thanks uh
35:02
Speaker 1: and sent appreciation, but also a request and a little something.
35:06
Speaker 1: Whenever you talk about math in any regard, please be
35:10
Speaker 1: more positive, Please stop getting it wrong, Please be more
35:14
Speaker 1: positive and encouraging. Uh. We're well known for poopooing math
35:17
Speaker 1: and saying I hated math. Well, it's so intimidating, it's
35:20
Speaker 1: just so stupid, it is, But she says this math
35:24
Speaker 1: is hard and already has a stigma for people who
35:27
Speaker 1: hate it or to hate it. But as a future educator,
35:31
Speaker 1: since you two are sort of educators, require that reach
35:34
Speaker 1: a huge audience, your outlook and attitude about math is important.
35:38
Speaker 1: It's okay did not like math and think that it's hard,
35:40
Speaker 1: but know that you and anyone can do math. I
35:45
Speaker 1: know it's a silly thing to ask and point out,
35:46
Speaker 1: but I think you could both as a have a
35:48
Speaker 1: positive impact on the math stigma. I wish you and
35:52
Speaker 1: your wives and Chuck your daughter all the best. Thank
35:55
Speaker 1: you for all of your hard work, and thank Jerry too.
35:58
Speaker 1: Jerry has to put up with you two all the time,
36:00
Speaker 1: so she's definitely been working hard. And she writes sarcasm,
36:03
Speaker 1: smiley face the fabulous day, and that is from Claire
36:07
Speaker 1: and Claire, You're right, we just joke around, but we
36:11
Speaker 1: we should take more care with our words about the maths.
36:14
Speaker 1: You know what, Frankly, Chuck, I think Ms Claire makes
36:17
Speaker 1: a great point that we should just basically take all
36:20
Speaker 1: the jokes out of our podcast entirely, just so no
36:25
Speaker 1: one get takes it the wrong way. Just make it
36:28
Speaker 1: nice and neutral. She is right, though, she is right,
36:32
Speaker 1: we should take it easy on math, she very nicely said,
36:35
Speaker 1: back off math. Yeah, like did she draw a little
36:39
Speaker 1: Yosemite sam at the bottom there? Yeah? Look at that
36:42
Speaker 1: and nice. Well, if you want to get in touch
36:44
Speaker 1: with this, like Claire did, you can go to your
36:47
Speaker 1: local post office. We love that place. And you can
36:50
Speaker 1: also instead go to the internet go to stuff you
36:53
Speaker 1: Shao dot com. Find all of our social media links there,
36:57
Speaker 1: or you can send us a new fangled electronic mail
37:00
Speaker 1: by addressing it to Stuff podcast and how Stuff Works
37:04
Speaker 1: dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
37:11
Speaker 1: Does it how stuff works dot com