"Índio do Buraco" resisted all human attempts to make contact with him, setting traps and shooting arrows at anyone who approached him. He put wings around his body when he realized he was dying.
An unknown and charismatic indigenous man believed to be the last of his tribe has died in the Brazilian Amazon, with activists in the region mourning the loss of yet another language and culture.
The solitary and mysterious man was known only as Índio do Buraco, or "the native man of the hole," because he spent much of his existence hidden or protected in pits he dug in the ground.
An unknown and charismatic indigenous man believed to be the last of his tribe has died in the Brazilian Amazon, with activists in the region mourning the loss of yet another language and culture.
The solitary and mysterious man was known only as Índio do Buraco, or "the native man of the hole," because he spent much of his existence hidden or protected in pits he dug in the ground.
Authorities know little about the man, but his determined independence and apparent comfort have helped create a mystique around him that has drawn the attention of activists and media across Brazil and around the world. .
"He didn't trust anyone because he had a lot of traumatic experiences with non-indigenous people," said Marcelo dos Santos, a retired explorer who monitored his welfare for Funai, Brazil's national indigenous foundation.
Dos Santos said he and other Funai officials left gifts of tools, seeds and food, strategically placed but he always rejected them.
They believe that sometime in the 1980s, illegal ranchers, while initially offering them sugar, then gave the breed rat poison that killed all but the "man in the hole."
He prepared for his death by putting feathers around him
A Funai member watching the man from a distance found his decomposing body in a hammock.
Because he had placed brightly colored feathers around his body, the official believes the man had prepared himself for death. He estimated the man to be about 60 years old.
Indigenous organizations estimate the number of remaining tribes at between 235 and 300, but the exact number is difficult to determine because some tribes had very little contact with settler society.
At least 30 groups are believed to live deep in the jungle, and almost nothing is known about their numbers, language or culture.
"Because he resolutely resisted all attempts at contact, he died without revealing his ethnicity or the motivations for the holes he dug into his home," wrote the Human Rights Watch of Isolated and Recently Contacted Indigenous Peoples (OPI) when it learned of the man's death.
"[He] clearly expressed his choice to distance himself, never uttering a single word that would allow him to be identified with any known native language."
OPI said Funai employees first noticed the man in the mid-1990s. Indigenous activists found small plots of cultivated land that had been destroyed by invading ranchers and the remains of homes they believe had been swept away by tractors. There were also large, hand-dug pits.
The threat from ranchers, gold hunters, loggers and the role of Bolsonaro
The region, along Brazil's border with Bolivia, has been and remains a hotbed of cattle ranchers, gold diggers and loggers eyeing its precious natural resources.
The discovery led Funai to fence off an area where man could live unhindered, and in 1997 the Tanaru Reserve was officially established.
OPI has called for the sanctuary to be preserved in its current state and asked officials to carry out archaeological and anthropological studies that could shed light on the past and the way of life of man.
The number of tribes whose land is under threat has soared since far-right President Jair Bolsonaro took power in 2018. The number of recorded incursions into indigenous land rose from 109 in 2018 to 305 last year, according to the rights group. Cimi.
Bolsonaro has long made clear his disdain for indigenous peoples, once saying Brazil was wrong not to decimate natives like the US cavalry did. Before assuming the presidency, he vowed not to give the natives even one square centimeter of land, and he kept that promise.
