This is unexplained, Season four, Episode four, Always Already Part two. It had been two days since McEntire had so carelessly followed the Maya Runa into the depths of the Amazon rainforest. That night, having strung up a hammock on the edge of the camp, he lay awake, replaying those words over and over in his mind, some of us are friends. How could the chief have communicated this without uttering a word,
let alone not speaking English? Did he have access to an ancient form of communication, he thought, abilities that had long died out in more contemporary societies. Or had McEntyre merely picked up on a general sensibility and conjured the thoughts on his own? What, then, did it mean that only some of them were friends? McEntire awoke the next morning with an acrid smell of burning rubber assaulting his nostrils. He lifted his arm to check the time, but there
was no watch on his wrist. His camera and shoes were gone too. Stumbling into the middle of the camp, he found Red Cheeks and some fellow warriors of the tribe standing around a fire, with a suspiciously dark plume of smoke rising up from it, and on top of it were his sneakers. McIntyre grabbed them, putting them, still scolding, onto his feet As Red Cheeks and the others crowed
with laughter. McEntyre breathed deeply, doing his best to control the anger now swelling up inside of him, as he looked desperately for his camera, the one thing that justified his stupidity at getting lost out there. Just then, the chief appeared and approached him. I need to know what happened, came the voice in McEntire's head. Many others had appeared by now, crowding round the fire. The chief looked first at Red Cheeks and then to Macentyre, before turning his
back and walking away. As the rest of the village moved in behind him, Macentyre shouted out to them, but nobody responded. It was not uncommon for tribes to ostracize individuals to the point of invisibility. If they no longer observed them, they no longer existed. Macentyre couldn't afford to let that happen to him, so he began to jog. He started slowly at first, on a steady line circling
the entire camp. By the fourth lap, he was running at pace stamping and flailing his arms every time he went past the chief, determined for him not to ignore him. Slowly the villagers began to take notice. Red Cheeks had noticed too, stepping forward from the others with his hand tightly gripped on a club. For a moment, Macentyre thought he might attack him, but something was holding him back, and then he saw the chief watching him. Hoping he
had done enough, Macentyre finally came to a stop. The chief regarded the stranger for a moment, then, as Macentyre watched in complete amusement, he started to jog, also taking the exact same line as McEntyre, but in the opposite direction. He continued until he had completed the same amount of laps. Then a thought came into Mcentyre's mind, the face of time, and then he realized they thought he had been putting a spell on the village and the chief was trying
to reverse it. Having finished the last lap, the chief stared again at McEntyre for a moment, then went back to his hut. Now witnessed again by the tribe, McEntyre returned to the fire and pulled the remains of his watch from under the ash. His last connection to time, as he knew it had now gone. Just then he caught sight of something odd dangling from a branch. It was a roll of film. Then saw the monkey in the tree above it, holding his precious camera in its hands.
McEntire watched helplessly as it tore off the back and threw what was left of it somewhere deep into the undergrowth. Though he was relieved not to have been cut off from the group, losing the camera was a tough blow. He slumped to the floor, exhausted. At the very least, he still had two rolls of shot film in his pockets. If he should ever make it out of there alive, he thought. Just then, a girl he had decided to call Monia, walked past. He had seen her lying with
red cheeks before, and assumed they were a couple. In her hair, she wore a blue piece of the wall he had left out by his camp when he first arrived. He noticed her nails were now painted the same color too. It was as if Macentyre's presence was already staining and corrupting these people, a reminder perhaps of how quickly an
isolated culture could become tainted by others. Later, after bathing in the river, newly replenished, he was greeted by the chief, who offered him one of his beautifully crafted arrows with bristles made of bore hair. A peace offering, perhaps, thought Macentyre, who gave him the belt he had weaved in return at the chief's invitation. Macentyre then followed a small group of children into the forest and watched as a shaman gave them a lesson on the many plants and insects
of their habitat. Then the chief approached him again, and thought appeared in his head. You must run away, it said Macentyre looked confused as they stood silently together. More words appeared in McEntire's mind. The tribe had been attacked before by white men who came from the sky. They were now on a journey to escape it all. But how thought McEntyre. In response, by returning to the beginning, came the reply, Yes, thought McEntyre, This was why they
seemed so restless, and why they were starving themselves. The chief called it a journey to the beginning, but as McEntyre understood it, it was a journey to death. The chief was offering him the chance to leave and save himself. McEntyre looked out into the jungle and weighed up his options, but there was no question that his best chance was to stay with the tribe as long as he could, looked back at the chief and shook his head. Over the next few days, McEntyre began finally to adjust to
the rhythms of the jungle. He survived about of diarrhea and spent most of his time listening for sounds of a plane, waiting in vain for the Maya Runa to up sticks and move on to the next destination. On the sixth night, McIntyre woke in the dark. Then he heard it the unmistakable roar of a jaguar. Moments later, and excited red cheeks appeared carrying a flaming torch, beckoning
for the photojournalist to follow him. Sensing a chance to finally prove his worth and win him over, Mcenttyre cautiously headed out to him as more hunters appeared from out of their huts, and soon they were charging through the forest in pursuit of the wild animal. Hearing more jaguar cries in the distance, macntyre did his best to keep up with the balls of flame, bobbing and weaving through the trees ahead of him, until suddenly they came to
a stop by a large thorny bush. Rushing toward it, Macntyre was just about to stop when one of the hunters pushed him hard from behind and sent him tumbling into the thorns. He cried out in agony as the barbs stuck into him, many breaking off while still under the skin. Stumbling to his feet, Macntyre found himself alone in complete darkness, with no sign of the flaming torches and no sign of the hunters. Of course, he thought there had been no jaguar. Either he just wanted him gone,
or Red Cheeks had tried to kill him. Macentyre realized with alarm that those thorns could also be poisonous. As quickly as possible, he did what he could to pull them from his skin in the dark, but many, especially those on his back, he could not reach. He waited for a moment, expecting some effect from the poison, but nothing came. Scratched and bloodied, he listened out for any sound of the camp, but heard only crickets in the occasional cry of a macaw somewhere in the canopy above.
Unable to see anything more than a foot in front of him, he decided to stay put until first light. Moments later came the gnats, assaulting him from all over, nipping and biting at its body. Each time he swatted them away, they seemed just to come back in greater numbers. Needing to find any kind of shelter, he eventually settled under some roots, taking care to scare off any poisonous creatures that might have been lurking there. And there he
remained waiting out the rest of the night. Maclntyre woke at daybreak, his body shivering with cold and itching all over. Finding the bush of thorns again, he soon located a path near by. After following it for a few minutes, however, the path split in two. Exasperated, he took one and headed down it. Hours later, maclntyre broke through into a clearing with a flush of excitement. He spotted chainsaw marks on the trees and wandered if the loggers were still close.
Though he found the practice objectionable, he realized too, with a touch of irony, that these people might also be his best chance of survival. Moments later he found the bodies, four of them in various states of decay, being steadily devoured by an endless line of army ants and other small creatures. MacIntyre did his best to cover his nose from the smell and swatted the flies away. Then he
noticed the arrows sticking out of their chests. The flights made of bare bristles, just as the chief had handed him the day before. The men Amazonians, too in their way with families of their own to support, had likely been dropped in by helicopter to prepare a formal landing spot for developers. They were unlikely to be found. MacIntyre made a note of the chainsaw serial number, hoping it
might help identify them. Later, continuing on, feeling more and more itchy all over his body, he noticed a puncture wound on his arm beginning to swell unusually. Taking his knife, he dug into it and pulled out a small, wriggling maggot. Many hours later, with the heat and humidity intensifying, Macntire stumbled on in a state of near delirium, having lost all comprehension of distance as he felt his entire self
being absorbed into the buzzing vibrancy of the forest. Then, hearing the sound of water, he staggered toward it, breaking through into a scene of unparalleled beauty. Before him, under dappled sunlight lay a small river beach of untied white sand, at the foot of two high and narrow waterfalls cascading off the face of a vast green mountain. Macntire flopped
onto the beach and threw his head into the water. Then, after taking a short rest to pick more maggots from under his skin, he carried on, hoping to follow the stream back to the river. Seconds later, he collapsed. Are you always taking care of your family? Do you often take care of others and not yourself? Now it's time to take care of yourself, to make time for you you deserve it. Teledoc gives you access to a licensed therapist to help you get back to feeling your best
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if needed. For free teledoc therapy is available through most insurance or employers. Download the app or visit teledoc dot com Forward slash Unexplained podcast. To day to Get Started. That's t e l a d oc dot com slash Unexplained podcast. McEntire slowly opened his eyes and found himself back in the Maya Runa camp as shaman busied themselves about him, sucking out the worms and tending to his wounds.
He had been rescued hours later. After drifting in and out of consciousness, he was finally strong enough to stand. Walking round the village cautiously. He saw no sign of red cheeks anywhere, while all about women, men and children were making a huge pile out of all their possessions. Everything, it seemed, from axes and bows to calabashes and spears, was being thrown away. Then he saw it, the body lying inside a funeral basket propped up inside one of
the huts. It was only when he drew near enough for the flies to scatter away from the face that mac Intyre recognized the red painted cheeks underneath. Recoiling in horror, he stepped back outside in a daze. There was no sign of Red Cheeks its friends either. Some of us our friends, he thought to himself. Looking up, he saw the Chief standing by the pile of tools, ordering a fire to be lit next to it. All of it was broken up and flung into the flames. Spotting MacIntyre,
the Chief came over to join him. They were holding us still in time. When it is burned, we will move away, came the voice in McIntyre's head. Where two, he thought in reply to the beginning. In bewilderment, McIntyre took a seat on the edge of the camp and watched as one by one the huts were torn down and flung into the fire. Then, finally, the basket containing the body of Red Cheeks was also placed into its
hungry flames. Once it had all been destroyed, just like before, the group promptly filed into a single column and marched headlong into the jungle. On their journey toward the beginning, McIntyre, feeling the two rolls of film still safe in his pocket, rose to his feet and set off after them. For two days and nights they walked, stopping only for short rests and the occasional drink of water. No food was consumed. This was finally, it, thought Macentyre, They would walk until death.
On the second morning, he made up his mind, at the first sight of a serious body of water, he would leave the tribe and take his chances alone. In the meantime, with the pace now barely more than a crawl,
with many limping painfully, they continued forward. But then from out of the trees came a stream of new but familiar faces with tattooed lines around their mouths and noses pierced with whisker like spines, And soon they were surrounded by them, greeting them with wide smiles and warm embraces. They hadn't been walking to their death, realized McIntyre. They had been walking home. Perhaps that was what they meant
by the beginning, he thought. Before long they were arriving into another village, much bigger than the previous camps, with over twenty huts dotted about. The mood was jubilant as the new arrival settled in with the others, and the chief was given an especially warm welcome. Then McIntyre spotted incredibly that one of the new tribespeople was wearing shorts. Could it be, he thought, as he approached him, cautiously, trying hard not to get his hopes up. Hello, he
said in Portuguese, my name is Lauren. Lauren. Yes, welcome, replied the man, also in Portuguese. McIntyre could barely stand as the relief washed over him. The man named Cambio had learned the language after being forced to flee from his village when it was attacked by developers. Having managed to escape to Peru, he had sought refuge in a Baptist mission, where he stayed for three years before finally rejoining his people. That night, the ravenous MacIntyre stuffed his
face on plates of turtle meat and bade you. As Cambio explained more about the life of the Maya Runa. Later, Macentyre asked him if he ever spoke to the others without words, Was it possible that he had been doing this with the chief. Cambio's face lit up with a look of great surprise. No, he had not, he replied. Only the elders knew how to do that, but there
was nothing more he could tell him about it. After dinner, McEntyre noticed some women spitting into bowls and mixing it with chopped vines from the forest, preparing for a ceremony. He asked Cambio, Yes, he replied, we are returning to the beginning. It seemed the mysterious journey was still happening after all. McEntyre woke up in the middle of the night to find Cambio standing over his hammock, gesturing for
him to stay quiet. He led the photojournalist toward a large hut from which a soft yellow light was emanating. McEntyre stepped inside and froze there. On the ground. Before him sat the chief, now more regal than ever, in a grand McCaw feathered crown, surrounded by other elders and shaman, their faces just visible under the flickering of torch light. The chief gestured for MacIntyre to sit down. Why did you come to us, he asked out loud, as Cambio translated.
Then Macentyre explained that he had heard of their tribe and had come there to photograph them. The men looked to each other with concern, and why hadn't he left already? He had wanted to before, he replied, But now, if he was allowed, he would like to witness them reaching the beginning. He needed to know what it was. After a moment's pause, the men smiled and nodded in approval. You staying here will be good for the ritual, said
the chief. Macentyre, suddenly unsure again about what he was getting into, asked when it will happen, to which the chief replied in two days. But how do you know what you were looking for? What if the beginning isn't there anymore, asked Macentyre. As Cambio translated, the chief broke into a laugh. The beginning is always there, he replied, it is never over, and with that Macenttyre was dismissed.
The following day, Macentyre watched with interest as the village continued to prepare for the ceremony to the beginning, as more ingredients were brought from the jungle and mixed into pots by the women. That night, he was unexpectedly woken by Cambio. Come, Lauren, he says, it is happening now. At this McIntyre is led through the dark toward a long line of tribesmen. Cambio explains to him that they must join the line to choose their new name, the
name they will take to the beginning. Before he has time to think, the entire line takes a big step to the left. Cambio nods for McIntyre to join in. Quickly, they take another three steps forward, followed by two more to the right, then back and to the left, ending the movements with a clap. McIntyre does his best to dance with them as they go round again, and soon the men are beginning to chant as well. But so on and on it goes until daylight, when finally they stop.
McIntyre then spots the chief making his way down the line, asking each of them to give their new name, placing a thumb print of red uruco paint on their foreheads as he goes. Another elder following behind smears their chest with crushed jinnipap and gives them a bowl to drink from. Finally,
it is McIntyre's turn. Unsure what to say, he gives his surname, to which the chief nods, then presses a red thumbprint onto his forehead, and then comes the bowl of fiscous liquid, the concoction of fermented vine juice and spit. Unable to back out now, he takes a deep breath and drinks heavily from the bowl. MacIntyre had hoped at the very least the drink wasn't a hallucinogenic drug. He realized very quickly that it was. The men stagger out
at the line in a daze. McIntyre finds Cambio and gestures for him to sit with him as he waits for the drug to hit. Before long, he feels the warmth of it coursing through his body, feels time and space contracting at will. Heading back into the throng, he sees the lid of a bamboo container lifted up to reveal hundreds of frogs flopping about inside it. Cambio holds one up and shows McIntyre the secretions on its back,
and then drips some onto his tongue. To the side, a shaman pierces his arm with a knife, while others peel back the wound and drip the frogs cretion straight into it all about him. The men are pacing around, with some having dropped to all fours, barking and roaring as they mimic the sacred jaguar. Through the chaos, McIntyre also becomes aware of other men blowing powder into each other's noses. After receiving it, the men clutch at their faces for a moment, then opened their eyes in a
distant and vacant stare. McIntyre, who had refused all of it, stumbled back to where it started through puddles of vomit brought up by some of the more adventurous drinkers of the liquid. Finding a quiet spot on the edge of the village, McIntyre dropped back onto the floor and stared up at a distant, unknown point above. By the afternoon, with the ritual over and the effects of the drink
wearing off, McIntyre finds the chief. Knowing he will be leaving soon, he wonders if he might stay in contact with them to trade ideas or help them acquire medicines perhaps, But the Chief looks confused. Just then Cambio appears. You are at the beginning now, McIntyre, you cannot return to your people. They are no longer there. And then it hits him, when are we going to die? He asks? Now it is Cambio's turn to look confused. We are not dying, he said with a smile. The Chief gestured
for McIntyre to follow him. Moments later, they are standing by the banks of a muddy stream. The Chief points to a narrow section of it up ahead, then looks back to McIntyre. The Beginning comes the voice in his head, and finally McIntyre understands it is not home or death that they have journeyed to, but simply to a time before, a time that always was and always is, a time before the objects of the world were smothered by the
language of humans. The journey to the Beginning was a shedding of all that baggage, the burning of those material possessions that were holding them still in time, a chance to reset and begin again. Now having reached the Beginning, perhaps they could find a better path forward. Perhaps now they might be safe. And with that also, MacIntyre understood something else. If they were to let him leave, it would destroy the spell and take them right back to
the future they had left behind. They would sooner kill him than risk that. Over the next few weeks, maclntyre tried to accept his fate with no hope of Returning home on his own, he focused on learning more of their language and helping out with whatever he could, until one night when maclntyre woke up to find himself being completely drenched as a guttural thunder roared above him. Jumping from his hammock, he landed in a streaming torrent of knee high water. Only then did he become aware of
the frantic screaming at the villages. Stumbling about in the dark with the flood waters at his legs, he is suddenly clattered by a makeshift raft of two locks tied loosely together. Falling onto it in seconds, his whisk through the trees and spewed out beyond into what is now a raging river. Hearing the cries again of the villagers, he tried furiously to paddle back to the bank, but then he realized this was his chance. Clinging tighter to the raft, he let the river take him away from
the camp and out into the dark. Over the next day and night, McIntyre was knocked about ceaselessly by turbulent waters, only stopping occasionally to rest and shelter from the unforgiving sun. On the second day, raising his head wearily from the raft, he spotted three rubberized bags strung out across a fallen tree. After almost three weeks, he had finally made it back to his former camp, finding tinned food in one of the bags and later a battered canoe. McEntyre was eventually
spotted and rescued by the Peruvian Navy. He would eventually make his way back to Aquito's, from where he had first set out on his epic journey in search of the Maya Runa. It was only after he was rescued that McEntyre realized a roll of film had fallen from his pocket. With only one roll of shot film left to develop, McEntyre will later be devastated to discover that it had been completely damaged by water. A few weeks later, after being given a clean bill of health from the
Navy doctors, McEntyre returned home. I'm sure of just what exactly he had experienced in the jungle. McIntyre wrestled over it for years before telling his story to Petru Popescu and Jean Michel Cousto while drifting down the Amazon River.
All those years later, in nineteen seventy one, MacIntyre returned to Peru, where along with three others, he is credited with locating a lake that many take to be the further most source of the Amazon, What is now known as Laguna McIntyre was found just over seventeen thousand feet up about Mismi in the Andes. He remained one of national geographics most celebrated and respected photojournalists until his death at the age of eighty six in two thousand and three.
In twenty sixteen, writer Petru Popescu published The Encounter Amazon Beaming, giving the full and previously unheard account of McIntyre's extraordinary adventure. It would also be remiss of me not to mention the one man show The Encounter, adapted from the book and performed by the genius that is Simon McBurney. The show, produced by his company Complicitate, was simply one of the most incredible theater shows I have ever seen, and I can only hope it returns one day for anyone who
didn't get the chance to experience it. As for the Maya Runa, also known as the Matsies, if Mcentyre's story is to be believed, their journey to the beginning did little to correct their path from the ever encroaching modern world. Despite being a nomadic tribe by nature, With developers moving further and further into their usual territory, they were forced
to agree a land settlement in nineteen ninety eight. Home to three thousand, two hundred tribespeople, the area, covering roughly eighteen hundred square miles is known as the Matsies Indigenous Reserve. To continue to survive, they are now having to sell it off to developers. If you enjoy listening to Unexplained and would like to help support us, you can now go to Unexplained podcast dot com Forward Slash Support. All donations,
no matter how large or small, are massively appreciated. All elements have Unexplained are produced by me Richard McClain smith. Please subscribe and rate the show on iTunes, and feel free to get in touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps you have an explanation of your own'd like to share. You can reach us online at Unexplained podcast dot com, or Twitter at Unexplained Pod and Facebook at Facebook dot com,
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