Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh, and
Speaker 1: there's Chuck and Jerry's here and this is short, short,
Speaker 1: short stuff. This hello stuff so short. I said short
Speaker 1: three times. Did we do a full episode on this guy? Yeah?
Speaker 1: We did the who was the Man of the Whole?
Speaker 1: And I think it was within the last three years,
Speaker 1: maybe maybe four years. I would guess it was probably
Speaker 1: around two thousand eighteen because that's when they released that
Speaker 1: video of him and everybody became aware that this man
Speaker 1: even existed. Right, So this is a bit of a
Speaker 1: recap and for sure a lot of tribute, uh to
Speaker 1: a gentleman named the Man of the Whole is what
Speaker 1: he was called. He was He lived by himself, um,
Speaker 1: in total isolation for twenty six years on his indigenous
Speaker 1: land in the Amazon rain Forest, the Tanaru indigenous land.
Speaker 1: And very sad to say, the Man of the Whole
Speaker 1: has passed away. Yeah, and they think roughly in mid fifties,
Speaker 1: maybe age sixty tops. Um. He was discovered by a
Speaker 1: FUNAI agent. Funis Brazil's Indigenous protection agency and fun I
Speaker 1: had been basically tracking him quietly for the last twenty
Speaker 1: six years. Um. And the reason that they call him
Speaker 1: the Man of the Whole is because that's what fun
Speaker 1: I calls him. He digs holes or he used to
Speaker 1: dig holes. Um. Certainly some were for animal traps, but
Speaker 1: they think some sadly were for protection from attack from
Speaker 1: other people. I should say, Um, but the reason they
Speaker 1: called them the man of the whole is because no one,
Speaker 1: literally no human being on earth aside from that man,
Speaker 1: knew what that man's name was. That's right. Uh. He
Speaker 1: lived on about twenty thousand acres of for us that
Speaker 1: eventually became protected, and thus he was protected. Uh. He
Speaker 1: at one point had his people. Um, we don't know
Speaker 1: what tribe he was from. We don't know what language
Speaker 1: he spoke. Uh. We do know that his people were
Speaker 1: likely killed uh by invaders. I think the last people
Speaker 1: that they think he had was about six people with him.
Speaker 1: They were all killed, leaving him alone. And finally that land,
Speaker 1: in his lifestyle was protected. And as much as I
Speaker 1: don't even we'll get to sort of the ins and
Speaker 1: outs of even peeking in on somebody like this, uh,
Speaker 1: and whether or not that's the right thing to do,
Speaker 1: because that is sort of a thorny issue. But he
Speaker 1: passed away on August UM no signs of struggle. Uh,
Speaker 1: they believe he died of natural causes. Um, this is
Speaker 1: another sort of thorny thing. They're going to do a
Speaker 1: forensic examination of his body, which I get. I think
Speaker 1: there could be some value there to see what someone
Speaker 1: who lived in isolation might die of. Obviously, their genetic
Speaker 1: things that can still happen, but in any sort of
Speaker 1: man influenced death is probably not the likely cause. But
Speaker 1: my favorite part about the story is that he died
Speaker 1: in his hammock and he had covered himself with bird feathers,
Speaker 1: with McCaw feathers, because he knew he was dying, and
Speaker 1: that just sounds like a really peaceful, lovely way to go. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is. But again, like if he was sixty and
Speaker 1: this guy was living like about as healthy a life
Speaker 1: as a human being can live, you would think it
Speaker 1: seems really young. But yeah, the fact that he was
Speaker 1: covered in McCaw feathers and there wasn't any sign that
Speaker 1: anyone else had been around him definitely certainly does point
Speaker 1: to the idea that he was awaiting death and a
Speaker 1: new death was coming, So should we take a quick break.
Speaker 1: Let's do that, and won't come back and dig some
Speaker 1: more into this. All right. So you mentioned video which
Speaker 1: was probably around the time we did our first episode
Speaker 1: on the Man of the Whole. This was in July
Speaker 1: of that year on Facebook. Uh, Survival International posted a
Speaker 1: video of him from a distance chopping down a tree.
Speaker 1: But this is from two thousand eleven. Uh. They sat
Speaker 1: on this footage for seven years and um, you know,
Speaker 1: they found out some things about him over his life,
Speaker 1: which is that uh and some of it since he
Speaker 1: has has left us um abandoned camp sites. This was
Speaker 1: the fifty third thatch hut that he had built at
Speaker 1: least over the past twenty six years. Holes everywhere, holes
Speaker 1: inside these huts. Uh. So they're getting little clues on
Speaker 1: how he lived his life a little bit now that
Speaker 1: he's passed. Yeah, he was not just a hunter gather.
Speaker 1: He was also a farmer too. He farmed corn, manioc root, papaya, bananas, um.
Speaker 1: And he also is a great hunter, apparently with his
Speaker 1: bow and arrow. And also those holes that he put
Speaker 1: stakes in what they called like tiger tiger traps. No no no, no,
Speaker 1: that sounds that sounds good. But he used those to
Speaker 1: like catch wild bore. Um. So this is how this
Speaker 1: guy was living um again by himself for twenty six years.
Speaker 1: He did not, as far as we know, have any
Speaker 1: contact with anybody, despite um Fu and I trying to
Speaker 1: make contact with him after he became the last surviving
Speaker 1: member of his tribe um because when they tried to
Speaker 1: initiate contact, they brought him some gifts and they basically
Speaker 1: went and visited him at his home and he apparently
Speaker 1: flipped out. They said he was terrified and very aggressive
Speaker 1: and was clearly not at all happy that they were there.
Speaker 1: So from that moment, on Fu and I said, we're
Speaker 1: never contacting this man again. We're gonna track him, we're
Speaker 1: going to make sure that he's okay, but we're going
Speaker 1: to keep our distance, both for um his own comfort,
Speaker 1: but also for his safety too, because one of the
Speaker 1: problems is people from outside of the Amazon coming into
Speaker 1: contact with an uncontacted tribe bring a lot of germs
Speaker 1: that the uncontacted tribe has no defenses against whatsoever. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that sort of brings up a little bit of
Speaker 1: what I mentioned before, which is what what do you
Speaker 1: do in a situation like this? Do you go in
Speaker 1: and try and um vaccinate people to try and keep
Speaker 1: them safe? Do you try and completely leave them alone.
Speaker 1: Do you give them these gifts like they would? They
Speaker 1: would give them seeds apparently, and small tools occasionally, which
Speaker 1: apparently he rejected. He never or at least rarely took
Speaker 1: the gifts. Um. You know, it is sort of a
Speaker 1: moral question that I don't think it's super easily answered. Um.
Speaker 1: I think leaving someone alone like that is for sure
Speaker 1: probably the best route. But what does leave someone alone
Speaker 1: really mean? Like does is even spying in and tracking
Speaker 1: them too much? Well? So, yeah, you could definitely argue that,
Speaker 1: like his his privacy was being invaded, whether he was
Speaker 1: aware of it or not, in that in and of
Speaker 1: itself like robs him of some of his dignity. But
Speaker 1: the reason Fu and I was doing this wasn't just
Speaker 1: for their you know, own jollies or anything like that.
Speaker 1: The way that Brazil's government set up protection of indigenous
Speaker 1: lands was you had to verify through a sighting, uh
Speaker 1: that an uncontacted tribe existed, And I guess they through
Speaker 1: And I think there's about a hundred undred and fourteen
Speaker 1: uncontacted tribes living in the Amazon still, but they're only
Speaker 1: aware of something like twenty three They've only confirmed twenty three,
Speaker 1: so only twenty three are protected, and that protection is
Speaker 1: only continued. Uh when there's a sighting within a certain
Speaker 1: amount of time, every like say three years, they have
Speaker 1: to be cited. So that's why they were tracking him
Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, and you know, the idea of protection
Speaker 1: is not just here, take this vaccine to help protect
Speaker 1: you from sickness. UM. One of the articles I read
Speaker 1: was talking about the fact that these parts of the
Speaker 1: jungle are not just free of people. They're bad people
Speaker 1: in there. Their drug dealers and poachers and people use
Speaker 1: this place for cover. So it's not like they're completely alone.
Speaker 1: They're just living, uh, you know, their indigenous lifestyle, ideally
Speaker 1: away from the bad people. Yeah. So those bad people
Speaker 1: apparently are the reason why he was living alone for
Speaker 1: twenty six years. UM and fun I pieced together probably
Speaker 1: what happened to his tribe from um local residents in
Speaker 1: the area around where he lived, and they said that
Speaker 1: in the seventies they believed that most of the tribe
Speaker 1: was killed because they were given poison sugar, probably by
Speaker 1: ranching interests that were invading the area. UM, which would
Speaker 1: explain why he would accept zero gifts from anybody. UM.
Speaker 1: When they tried to give him to him in the nineties,
Speaker 1: and then in the other six I think he was
Speaker 1: um one of seven survivors, and in or six the
Speaker 1: six others were gunned down, and from that moment on
Speaker 1: for the next any six years, he lived by himself. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it kind of cracks me up when I think of
Speaker 1: I love all the survival shows alone and all the
Speaker 1: shows where they're like, we made it a hundred days,
Speaker 1: What an experience, even with our modern duels, and this
Speaker 1: guy's like, what a hundred days I've been That's what
Speaker 1: he said. He went, but I've been out here for
Speaker 1: twenty six years. Right, you cracked the code. His language
Speaker 1: was not lost after all. Um. So the thing is,
Speaker 1: Chuck is, in addition to those tools, not just making
Speaker 1: it being alone, having no one to talk to, no
Speaker 1: one to interact with, Like, how would you not crack
Speaker 1: up in that sense? Even though you have an area
Speaker 1: that's almost as big as the entire Disney World resort,
Speaker 1: bigger than the entire island of Manhattan to wander around,
Speaker 1: you're still wandering around it by yourself, on your own.
Speaker 1: That would be the hardest thing of all, I think. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And you know, as far as leaving people alone, like
Speaker 1: as a curious individual, part of my brain says, oh,
Speaker 1: I would love to have seen a documentary on this
Speaker 1: guy's day to day life because it's so fascinating to me.
Speaker 1: But the other part of my brain says, no, chuck,
Speaker 1: that's the wrong instinct, like leave him alone. So Brazil
Speaker 1: officially did say we will leave these people alone. When
Speaker 1: we discover an unkind contacted tribe, we will cordon off
Speaker 1: their um indigenous lands and just leave them alone. Um.
Speaker 1: The problem is they have a president right now called Bolsonaro,
Speaker 1: President Bolsonaro UM, and he has done everything he can
Speaker 1: to roll back every protection that he can find that
Speaker 1: protect indigenous lands and indigenous people and instead open the
Speaker 1: Amazon up to ranchers and loggers and miners and just
Speaker 1: basically chew through the Amazon and an even even faster
Speaker 1: rate that it was being chewed through before. So they
Speaker 1: think that I should say fu, and I believes that, Um,
Speaker 1: probably more and more uncontacted tribes are going to go extinct,
Speaker 1: include some that we will have never confirmed and never
Speaker 1: even knew about. And by extinct, we're saying like they're
Speaker 1: being massacred. Their genocides that are being carried out day
Speaker 1: to day, um year to year in the Amazon, so
Speaker 1: that people can grow plants or um graze their cattle
Speaker 1: there instead for progress. That's what makes this whole thing
Speaker 1: so heartbreaking to me. Yeah. Absolutely, Um, hats off to you, sir,
Speaker 1: man of the whole not you, Josh I. My hats
Speaker 1: always off to you. But R I P and just
Speaker 1: very interesting story. I want Does that mean this twenty
Speaker 1: acres is now a progress so the protection runs out.
Speaker 1: It's not clear whether they'll try to roll it back
Speaker 1: before then, but fu and I was trying to say, no,
Speaker 1: let's just make this particular preserve permanently protected. And who
Speaker 1: knows what will happen depends on whose president I think. Alright, well, good,
Speaker 1: good yet sad follow up to this story Creed Chuck
Speaker 1: good idea, uh and I guess that ain't short. Stuff
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