Who is The Man of the Hole?

mom and dad from the seventies. Yeah, and um, I captioned it, They're like looking at each other kind of lovingly. And I captioned it, um, the moment before I was conceived. You know what Jerry showed me that today. Oh yeah, she did. I look a lot like my parents mixed together. Huh. Well. The first thing I noticed was like, Wow, that's that's what Josh would have looked like as a grown man in the nineteen seventies. Because that profile of your dad, I was, I was, I don't know, I've never seen

your dad young. So I was like, man, that's really that's you. Yeah, yeah, I totally saw it. I saw both. Yeah. Yeah, Because you look at my dad, You're like, oh, that's Josh. But then you look at my mom You're like, oh, there's there's Josh too. Very bizarre. Yeah I don't. I guess I definitely favored my father. Um. Yeah, so a lot of people just favored favorite one or the other. But I'm fifty fifty. That's what we call you all fifty. Yeah.

I think that's a new one. There's a T shirt. Yeah, um so, oh, I know the point I was making. There's this how Stuff Works article that you sent called them and in the Whole, and it talks about this guy who is the last of his kind. He's as as this article put it, like the loneliest person on earth. And I was like, yeah, I mean, I'm sure there's a lot like being in solitary confinement or something like that,

but no, this is way beyond that. And this how Stuff Works article by j Lynn Shields like really drove at home. She wrote, like, what if you were the last person who could speak your language, the last person who remembered what Halloween was, or a Coca cola, or that a dog says Wolf, like, imagine that, and I'm like, yeah, that's way different from being in solitary. Solitary confinement would

be bad enough. You know, you're physically restrained, but at least you know out there that there are other people who know the same things you know, that speak the same language you speak, that your family is still out there, that kind of thing. This is utterly different. And this man, the last Tribesman he's called, or the man in the whole, is possibly not just the the last of his kind. He might be the only person on the entire planet in the situation that he's in. Maybe isn't that bizarre

to think? Yeah, I mean we did a uh we did another show on are Their Undiscovered People quite a few years back and a deaf. I don't know how he didn't get to this guy, but I saw this article and it it was striking, especially if you've seen the couple of videos, and I think there are only two pieces of video of this dude. One I saw where they were sort of shooting, you know, they were zoomed in on a hut and that's you know, where he lives. There's a series of thatched huts in the

uh Tanaru Indigenous Reserve in the Rondonia state of Brazil. Yeah, about acres big area of the forest in jungle. So he lives in these thatched huts that are scattered about in the middle of nowhere, and they were able to get him on film kind of zoomed in between the cracks and you see the guy kind of looking a little bit, but you can't make out much. So I saw that video and then I saw another one where it was a pretty good shot of him from a distance making good work trying to chop down a tree.

That was the most recent video, right, which, uh, well, let's just go ahead and get into this. He was found or discovered and I think nineteen when some loggers uh from the state of Rondonia, which from the impression I have, this is a very rough and tumble state populated by loggers and cattle ranchers and um there are very few laws from what I understand, and things are settled by the gun. Is the impression that I have of Rondonia. It's right smack dab in the middle of

South America, and it's extraordinarily densely jungle in the Amazon. Yeah, I mean that one new York Times article, like the guy was talking that they were talking to said, from a helicopter, you look down there and you think there's just no one down there. It's just all jungle, he said. About when you get down there, he said, there's a lot of people and drug runners and bad men everywhere. So this guy is definitely an anomaly because he is

not hanging out with anybody. No. And the reason why they think he's alone, Chuck, is because back when the rumors of like a wild man in the jungle started to circulate um, they think that he had he had just recently survived a slaughter that had killed off the rest of his trial, which was only like supposedly five or six people at that point, because they think the rest had been slaughtered, and that that's a common thing we're gonna come up on in a couple of these

as these ranchers and loggers, they're like, we want to go clear this land, and there's a tribe, a native tribe. They're an indigenous tribe, so let's just slaughter them, get them out of the way. It's really really awful, awful thing, and it's been a very common thing apparently since the seventies and eighties when ranchers and loggers moved into Rondonia. Um it just snatching up land. And this is again,

this is the Amazon. This is basically Christine Forest rainforest that people who have never been contacted by any anyone from the outside world live still to this day, and this guy is one of them. So at first they thought maybe he was just a member of a tribe um that we already know about. And then over time as they started to study this guy, it became quite clear that now he's he's a member of a tribe that we didn't know about before, and we're pretty sure

he is the last of his kind. Yeah. So there's this organization called uh fun I f u n AI, the National Indian Foundation of Brazil, and they have been tasked with for the past twenty years monitoring this dude, and before his companions were killed, monitoring his companions. And

you send a nice follow up on FUNAI. They have a few departments and one is called the General Coordination Unit of Uncontacted Indians the c g i I, and that was established in seven and they're the only department of government in the world which protects indigenous peoples who

don't have contact with the outside world or nearby tribes. Yeah, because before in the like nineteenth century and even through a lot of the twentieth century, there was it was just basically Christian missionaries who were making their way into the Amazon to contact vibes and bring them Jesus basically, and also health care and food and all that stuff tools the implements of modern culture, but also to proselytize too, and there was a lot of UM. It just wasn't

very well thought out. And as a result, even even from these these the best of intentions that a lot of these missionaries had a lot of tribes died. So in Brazil came up with their UM. I think it was like the Indian Protection Services was the name of the department that they first came up with, and UM the Indian Protection Service they took over from the missionaries, and it was a step up in that sense because

it was more coordinated. There was thought to it, There was some sort of study, but the point was to take um uncontacted Amazonian tribes and bring them into the modern world so that they could assimilate with the modern world.

The point was to basely reduced cultural diversity in Brazil. UM. And that kept going until the sixties when there was a huge expose a about the Indian Protection Service UM that they had just fallen down so terribly in their mission that there was basically massive extermination, slavery, rape, everything, every horrible thing that you can think of that could befall a human being happened to these tribes under the

watch of the Indian Services Protection over sixty years. Yeah. So, Uh, the department in the the gu c g I I was founded by a man named Sydneys Passuelo. I guess

sow you pronounced that. And this was a big sea change in policy, which was, like you were saying, the previous strategy established contact to try and get them integrated at some point, uh, to this new policy, which was don't even contact these people and us they are under serious threat because history has shown all manner of bad things can happen when you contact these people, UM, one of which is certainly introducing them to new diseases and

things that will kill them that they've never never seen or experienced. Uh. And and this is you know, there's a big debate still on like what the best policies

are here. Yeah, So these two Um American anthropologists, white American anthropologists, men who I guess, wrote an open letter in either Science or Nature I think Nature UM basically saying Brazil and Peru UM should reverse this this longstanding policy of of not contacting Indians UM in the Amazon and should actually plan peaceful, well organized contact so that

that they can be better protected. It's these anthropologist stance that if you don't protect them, they're going to dot one way or another, that there's no way that they're going to remain isolated. On the on the long term, maybe you've got another generation possibly of some of these tribes that could live like this. But beyond that, it's

just not gonna happen. There's too many powerful interests banging on the doors of their preserved areas who are more than willing to hire people who will accept money to go kill these people just to get this land. And by just leaving them alone, you're leaving them very vulnerable. Whereas if you if you plan out contact, then conceivably you can show them that there are things like medical treatment, there is the better ways that you can protect them.

You can kind of give them contact, and that even more so interviews with groups that have become have initiated contact or have had contact made with them, said, we would have made contact with you guys earlier, but we thought we were going to be enslaved or murdered or something. We had no idea that you wanted to actually help us. Had we known that, we would have contacted you guys

decades ago. So those two things put together, these American anthropologists have said we we endorsed this, and FU and I and a lot of other groups, including the U N and UH human rights group in the UK called Survivors International, have said, um no, that is totally disrespectful. That flies completely in the face of of agreed upon procedure and protocol. Just be quiet, you're being neo colonialists. Yeah.

I think it's interesting though, because what they're trying to do is, like you said, have very highly controlled contact. And the assumption that they don't want to be contacted UH, at least through their eyes, appears to be false because like you mentioned, they're they're afraid of being UH kidnapped

or something or overtaken. And if had they known, like oh, you just want to give us some nice tools and maybe inoculate us UH and we we'd actually be down with that as long as you leave afterward, right, And these two anthropologists said, like, you've got to do this smartly, Like you basically have to go in with cultural translators, usually um tribes who have made contact with outsiders before, already established contact that live in the same area, who

might be able to to translate between the outsiders and the actual uncontacted tribes. And you need healthcare providers who are going to stay there for at least a year, at least a year of sustained care or else. Yes, they're going to die from these diseases you're going to

bring in inevitable. Yeah, I mean they're they're good. They give good examples too in that article about how this is backfired with missionaries, like the your people they were there for six months and the missionary said, well, let's let's go on vacation, and then the Jora died a few weeks later. And then in nineteen missionaries provided care to a community on ok community. Uh, they took a

vacation and then they died as well. So they're saying, like, you gotta have a plan to go in and stay there. You can't just go in bring him some food and machetes and spring break and then then get out of there. But I get the idea that this is still a pretty hot topic of debate. Oh yeah, I know that those anthropologists, um, they they set off a huge debate, and I think it was sparked by the the video that was released by Survivor International of the man in

the whole um chopping down a tree. And the video was taken in two thousand eleven, but they only just released it in July of two eighteen. And this is, yeah, this is very much still going on, this big debate, and it's a huge it's a huge issue, and you can you can kind of see both sides. Like I had just read about food eyes um counter to it that like, look, dudes, this is our thing, we got this. You just mind your own business, we have our own policy,

stay out right, stay out of this. But then if you read the anthropologists letters, you're like, actually, they have a couple of good points here. So it's it's not a clear cut, um uh picture one way or the other. It's it's definitely there's a lot of of nuance to it on both sides. All right, let's take a risp it. Let's take a furlough or vacation and we'll come back and talk a little bit more about the Man in

the Whole. Alright, So the reason they call him the man of the Hole or the man in the hole is the odd thing of inside these statched huts of which he has, uh several around this area. Inside the huts are these and all over the place there are

these holes with like spikes for like trapping animals. But he has these six foot deep holes inside of his own huts and apparently no no other tribes around him have done this, and it's very unusual thing, and that the belief is that he is it's for his own protection. I guess if he's being fired upon or something by loggers, he can jump down on one of these holes. Yeah, that's the impression I have too, which is extraordinarily sad.

It is. So the reason why they think that Um that he has these holes is because he's had terrible run ins. I guess this This seems to be evidence that he is the survivor of a slaughter massacre, because this is not a normal technique that they've seen with other tribes UM, and they found it at every single one of the huts that they've come upon of his. Yeah. They do know though from tailing him or monitor tailing him, monitoring him for the past couple of decades though, that

he he hunts with a bow and arrow. He farms, uh, probably at night and stays out of the you know, as much as he can. Stays inside during the day out of fear, which is also awful. But he farms like papay in corn and other fruits and vegetables. He has all these traps, said everywhere, like I mentioned, um, they have found hand carved arrowheads, torches made from branches, and resin. And at one point they actually tried to

make contact, yes, several points. Well, at one point when they when they tried to make contact though, he he fired upon them with his bow and arrow and actually hit someone in the chest, one of the agents. Yeah, and they were like, all right, we're out of here. Yeah. At that point they stopped trying to initiate contact with this guy. And again this is like peaceful contact they're trying to initiate, not like hey man, get off of this land there, like saying do you need anything, do

you want some food? What do you what? Do you want? And the first few attempts to contact him resulted in him just basically slipping into the shadows in the jungle and just disappearing. Um. Then it progressed into standoffs. Then it progressed into a shooting, and so they stepped back. Survivor International and food I and some other groups step back and said, this guy is escalating in hostilities. He's showing us he doesn't want anything to do with us,

Like you. It would be something if like he'd shot the first time and then slipped away the second time, and and the hostilities were decreasing, but instead it's going the opposite way. The hostilities were increasing. So he's getting that he has the opportunity to contact the people who are coming with their hands up and like not trying to kill him. And he's still saying back off. So finally the government said we're just going to back off,

and they backed off. The fun I established his policy of not contacting this guy, not even attempting to contact this guy, but instead monitoring him, making sure that his preserve is um protected, and then leaving him things like the acts that he was seen using in that two thousand and eleven video. Or seeds for some of the um the plants that he grows, which a lot of times he doesn't even accept or take these gifts. Imagine

he's not real trusting. Uh And like you said, as far as protecting the area, in two thousand seven, uh Funai and the government UM eventually increase the area to thirty one square miles around where he was is off limits to any trespassing or development, later expanded to three thousand hectares. So I think they added another three thousand hecks okay to the already square mileage. And this is really ticked off the ranchers and the loggers because they're like,

our business is being held back back by this one guy. Yeah, and they want to kill him, to kill him. As a matter of fact, in in when the government announced that it was not only keeping up the practice of preserving this guy's land thirty one square miles, but adding an extra three thousand hectares, which brought the total to forty two and a half square miles or a hundred and ten square kilometers that this man has to himself the five ranches that surround this preserve, UM hired somebody

to go try to kill him. Fu and I went and checked on him after a couple of weeks after that announcement was made public, and they found that their outpost was ransacked and that um, they had found the shotgun shells, spent shotgun shells in the fourth floor. So there's clearly an attempt to mate on the made on the guy's life, And for a couple of years they had no idea if he'd survived until that video was made in two thousand eleven that showed this guy who

was now fifty. They've been tracking him since he was in his now, um chopping down a tree, Yeah, chopping down a tree like it's nothing. So they knew that he was alive and in good health as of two thousand and eleven, and they're assuming that he's still alive. Man, how good would a movie be about this guy? I just have a lot of it play out in silence, you know. Yeah, that would be amazing, It would be cool.

I mean, it's it's crazy to see a video of this guy from seven years ago, Like in the world we live in, to think about there's still places on earth where this guy. It's almost like the Japanese straggler who had no idea that the war had been over for whatever thirty years living in the jungle. Uh. It's just amazing to think about the fact that this is the loan, the lone guy out there by himself, and

what his life must be like. But not not only that, It's like like when I when when we did the paramedics episode, I think I said something like, there's there's

no greater symbol of humanity than paramedics, you know. I think this is another really great symbol of this guy that well, well, no the FUNI Brazilian government's response to this that this man has been has been part of a tribe, it's the last of his tribe, and the Brazilian government has said, this man deserves to live his life out in peace in the way that he wants to,

in his traditional way, to be left alone. And we're going to designate a d ten square kilometers that belong to no one but this man, despite the fact that all around him is it's the outside world trying to press in. We're gonna stand in the way of that so that this guy can live out his natural life. That just gets me, you know, right in the bread basket. Yeah. I think the Disney version of this movie is they would find a alone tribeswoman somewhere, drop her off and

have them have them meat cute by the papaya tree. Yeah, and the the ranchers want to tickle him. But if it were live action these days, it would be um. They would hire either John Wayne or Fisher Stevens to play the last. Fisher Stevens here, I remember he played the Indian programmer in Short Circuit. That's right, Yeah, geez, yeah, that was as recently as the eighties. Right, It's not like Mickey Rooney playing an Asian man in the nineteen sixties.

Not like that was any better. No, Bay Hollywood and getting it wrong for so long, they have at least Mongol got it right though, right, Uh maybe, yeah, we haven't seen any Should we take another break? Yeah, all right, We'll take another break and talk a little bit more about some of these um isolated tribes right after this. Okay, Chuck, So the last tribesman, the the um, the man in

the whole. He's being left alone. And that's policy in Brazil and Peru from what I understand now, Um, there are some tribes that have actually um accepted contact and it made peaceful contact and it become um, I guess a little more integrated. I think there's three degrees that fun I separates tribes into indigenous tribes into there's totally uncontacted, which is like they are living off on their own.

They outside world has nothing to do with them. There's um partially contacted or partially assimilated, right like they they're they're living in their hut in the jungle, but they still have an iPhone, right um. And then there's fully assimilated, where they like live in a city now or something like that, or they have like a job in the city or something like that. Um. So it's not just

in the Amazon. It's not just in Brazil where there are uncontacted tribes, although that is definitely the place where you're going to find the most. I think I saw somewhere between fifty eighty and a hundred and twenty uncontacted groups of indigenous people are presumed to be living in

the Amazon still today. Yeah, I mean just those that random swath of numbers shows you that they there's still so much they don't know for sure, but there's there are other parts of the world where there are uncontacted tribes um, and you found an article that ran down a few of them. One that surprised me was just um off the coast of India on Sentinel Island in India, North Sentinel cracked our iCal which may have been done under the watch of our now colleague, Mr Jack O'Brien.

Nice shout out to Jack and as Daily Zeitgey Zitgey's podcast, Yeah, which I was on. Have you been on John On? You gotta be on. It's great, great fun. It's a matter of fact, I'm gonna lap you. I'm gonna go on again. Well please do all right? Yeah, But the Sintinnales on North Sentinel Island, Indian they don't even know if that's their real name. They just call them that because I guess we have called it North Sentinel Island, not you and me, but other people who named it,

I think the British, but apparently yeah, probably, Uh. We don't know a lot about them. But in two thousand and six a couple of fishermen drifted there in their boat ah near the island and were killed and buried in shallow graves, and helicopters came and they were like, we gotta find this burial site and get these guys back at least, and they started firing arrows at the helicopter and it was just out of there, and the local cops were like, now, we're just gonna leave those

guys there. We're not We're not going near it. They have actually for this is a This has been going on for a very long time. Apparently Marco polo Um remarked on them, wrote about them that he was traveling and I think the twelve century. So they've been fierce for years now and apparently survived the two thousand four tsunami in Indonesia's tsunami. That's crazy because this is an island that the tsunami just swamped and they managed to hang on just fine. I think ancient people have survived

more than one tsunami, you know. I guess you're right. That was a pretty bad one though, Yeah, pretty amazing. Uh. This other one, the coral Y tribe of Papua, Indonesia. They were contacted in the seventies by of course missionaries an archaeologist and they were using stone tools and living in ree huts and stuff like that, and they're a big belief as a tribe was that the world would be destroyed by an earthquake if they assimilated and change

their customs. So missionary said, all right, you know what, We're just gonna leave you alone. What I think these people might have invented, um bungee jumping. Do you remember land diving episode? They sound really familiar. I think it might be maybe so, But they are in the middle of nowhere, so it's a it's a long way from even like other remote villages, which is a I mean, that's a that's a mark in your favor for now.

But as the Amazon Basin has been showing us since the seventies and eighties, so much of it has disappeared due to clear cutting, for ranching, logging. Um that that how you just have no idea how much longer that's going to hold up, no matter where you are in the world. I mean, we're at seven and a half billion people now, and then I think the next thirty

years we're expected to hit ten billion. That's a lot more people that not only need more land, but also are going to be using up those resources that that that are currently on that land right now, you know, I mean, like if they discover oil where the Cora white tribe lives in Indonesia. There goes that isolation, you know, and I think that's a that's a real danger for all tribes. I think that's probably what those two anthropologists were talking about. Um, they're saying, like, long term, we

need a plan here everybody. We can't just be like, well, we just won't contact them because it's just not viable, I think was their point. What about that? This one really was interesting to me. The Old Believers. Have you ever heard of them? Yeah, there's like some g Q article in the last couple of years about that. I think so in bur lap apparently, Yeah, these are Soviet Uh. Well, here's the deal in ight, there were these geologists in

the Soviet Union that we're looking for iron ore. Uh. They were in a helicopter and they saw a cabin way out in the remote areas of Siberia, and they found a family there that actually spoke a language I guess, I mean, what would that be old timey Russian? Old timey Russian? Uh huh uh. And they were were huddled in fear and they were yelling, this is for our sins.

They were dressed in burlap and living off the land and Apparently they were a group of people called the Old Believers, which left the Russian Church, the main Russian Church in the seventeenth century and had been I guess looked at you know, they kind of went everywhere. It was sort of a diaspora for the Old Believers. Some of them just went to other countries and seeking asylum or whatever. And apparently some of them just looked aside

area and we're like, no one's there, so we'll go there. Nice. It sounds creepy though, the Old Believers. Oh yeah, that's a terrible name for him. You know. It seems like they could scan you or something to make your head explode. Are they worship Cthulhu or something? So Um, I almost feel like if we should look into them a little more, because I think they could probably hold up their own up.

I think you might be right. I also remember hearing about families that lived in the Ozark Mountains in um the midwest of the United States. Um, I think around Arkansas that had been out of contact. I didn't even know the Civil War it happened. They were just that isolated. So yeah, you tend to think of it as just strictly indigenous peoples and that it's just in the Amazon, but like there's there's groups all over the world's fewer and further between outside of the Amazon because there's less

unpopulated areas, but it happens. And one of the sad things about all of this is, Uh, for one of these other tribes that you know, you can go read this cracked article. What's it called? I didn't see the title actually is just suddenly there were oh five isolated groups who had no idea that civilization existed. Correct correct lists were always so great, are always so great. They've

come in handy from time to time. But one of the sad things I point out for one of these other tribes is that in Peru and imagine in some other South American countries, there are these awful things called human safari's where and they will take tourists around to like look at uncontacted tribes from Afar and close up. They're like, here, drained some of this io husk it through your nose, and we're going to go check out some some tribes hanging out on a river bank somewhere. Man,

So weird. Uh, Why I want to add one more thing. I came across an article that wasn't really apropos of what we were talking about, called the Right to Kill on Foreign Policy Magazine, and it's about like this other tan gentile issue that governments like Brazil have to deal with, which is like, some of these isolated groups practice things that the outside world finds abhorrent or is illegal in the outside world. Um, specifically, in this article, infant aside.

If you're born with the disability and I think about twenty of of Brazil's isolated tribes, there's a chance that the community will decide that you need to die again. It's the practice of infantaside. And Brazil is like, we are not quite sure what to do about this, because our constitution guarantees everyone in Brazil the right to live, but it also guarantees the indigenous groups the right to live according to their customs. So they have no idea

what to do. And it's a big thing about, you know, moral relativism or moral absolutism and which one is correct. Uh. And it's really interesting that they're having to think about this right now. It's a really interesting article that's worth reading. Okay, I will check it out. Are you talking to me? Yeah, I'm talking to everybody, but specifically. Yeah. Um, well, if you want to know more about isolated tribes, you can look those words up anywhere on the internet and they're

going to deliver you some amazing stuff. And since I said that, it's time for listener mail. Since you said amazing stuff, mhm uh, well look at here, dude, I have a handwritten letter on construction paper. Beautiful. Yeah, I love it. Hey, guys, I hope this finds you. Well. My name is Claire and I'm twenty one. In fact, for my twenty first birthday, I came and saw you guys live in Cleveland. Awesome. That was a great it was.

I got to here in college and I'm studying mathematics with a license and education, so I'll be teaching high school math. It's been a fan since two thousand fifteen. Thank you for the many nights uh you have calmed me and all the information I've learned. And I've been wanting to for a while just to say thanks uh and sent appreciation, but also a request and a little something. Whenever you talk about math in any regard, please be more positive, Please stop getting it wrong, Please be more

positive and encouraging. Uh. We're well known for poopooing math and saying I hated math. Well, it's so intimidating, it's just so stupid, it is, But she says this math is hard and already has a stigma for people who hate it or to hate it. But as a future educator, since you two are sort of educators, require that reach a huge audience, your outlook and attitude about math is important. It's okay did not like math and think that it's hard,

but know that you and anyone can do math. I know it's a silly thing to ask and point out, but I think you could both as a have a positive impact on the math stigma. I wish you and your wives and Chuck your daughter all the best. Thank you for all of your hard work, and thank Jerry too. Jerry has to put up with you two all the time,

so she's definitely been working hard. And she writes sarcasm, smiley face the fabulous day, and that is from Claire and Claire, You're right, we just joke around, but we we should take more care with our words about the maths. You know what, Frankly, Chuck, I think Ms Claire makes a great point that we should just basically take all the jokes out of our podcast entirely, just so no one get takes it the wrong way. Just make it

nice and neutral. She is right, though, she is right, we should take it easy on math, she very nicely said, back off math. Yeah, like did she draw a little Yosemite sam at the bottom there? Yeah? Look at that and nice. Well, if you want to get in touch with this, like Claire did, you can go to your local post office. We love that place. And you can also instead go to the internet go to stuff you

Shao dot com. Find all of our social media links there, or you can send us a new fangled electronic mail by addressing it to Stuff podcast and how Stuff Works dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff works dot com