Paul Rosolie: Uncontacted Tribes in the Amazon Jungle | Lex Fridman Podcast #489

We're standing there.

Everyone is waiting cuz at any moment an arrow could just fly through your neck.

And there's people holding shotguns.

And the anthropologist, this little guy is standing there in the front and he's going, "No mole." He's going, "Brothers."

And then then it happened.

Then you start hearing people screaming, "Mos, Mosko."

And people are screaming

and women are lifting

children and running into the huts and the dogs and chickens are going nuts.

And I mean, >> fear, fear, >> fear.

He's going, "Look there.

He has a bow.

He has a bow."

And we're looking up the beach

and there's just this clan

walking down the beach with these seven foot bows and they're hunched over and

they're pointing at us.

They're going, "Look at that one."

They're going, "Look, there's a gun there."

And you can see them communicating to each other.

And the butterflies are swirling off the beach and

they can hit a spider monkey out of the treetops at 40 m.

They can sneak up and you will never know they're there.

And so when that arrow passes through your body,

you'll only have a moment to realize it before you fall over.

In order for any of this to make sense, I have to show you this footage.

And this has not been shown ever before.

This is a world first.

The following is a conversation

with Paul Rosley, his third time on the podcast.

Paul is a naturalist,

explorer, writer, and is someone who has dedicated his life to protecting the Amazon

rainforest and celebrating the beauty of the natural world.

He has a new book coming out in a few days

titled Jungle Keeper that you should definitely go pre-order now.

It tells some intense stories about his time in the jungle over the past

several years, building up

to a few epic

recent events, including a new

full-on extended encounter with an unconted

tribe that we discuss in this podcast.

Both the book and audio book are great.

I highly recommend it.

If you would like to support Paul

and his incredible team in their mission to protect the jungle,

go to You can help with donations

or by spreading the word or

checking out the gala that Paul is hosting in New York on January

22nd in a few days.

They are doing all they can to help raise funds for the mission of

safeguarding as much of the rainforest

as possible and I think it's a mission worth fighting for.

The Amazon jungle is one of the most special

and beautiful places on Earth.

As an aside, allow me to look back briefly

and mention something that I've been struggling with a bit.

For context, I traveled to the Amazon rainforest

with Paul a while back.

It was an adventure of a lifetime

with lots of crazy twists and turns.

We did record a podcast out there,

literally in the jungle,

episode 429, if you want to go check it out. It was awesome.

And we also recorded a bunch of disperate footage of the journey just for fun.

And I would still love to somehow put all that together into

a cohesive video in case it's interesting to someone,

but I've learned just how difficult it is to organize and edit a pile

of chaotically recorded footage like that.

So, let's see if I can pull it off.

But in any case,

this kind of raw

vlog style video is something that I would love to be able to do

more of as a way to celebrate amazing human beings like Paul

and others, including everyday people

who I meet on my travels.

So, I'll keep trying,

tinkering, learning, and I ask for your patience and support along the way.

Now, back to our

regular scheduled This is the Lex Freedman podcast.

To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description

where you can also find links to contact me,

ask questions, give feedback, and so on.

And now, dear friends, here's Paul Rosley.

We've survived a challenging time out in the jungle about a year and a half ago.

And since then, your life has increasingly gotten more intense.

So, you've achieved the incredible feat of saving now more than

130,000 acres of rainforest.

And the goal is

that you're working towards is protecting 200,000 acres more.

>> And doing so while facing extreme danger from narcos,

narcot traffickers, so-called cocaine mafia

in an escalating drug war. This is insane.

These are new developments.

illegal loggers, as we've talked about before, gold miners,

and the incredible recent encounter with uh a non-conted

tribe, and we'll talk about all of this.

So, your new book,

Jungle Keeper, opens with the killing of two loggers

by the warriors of a non-conted

tribe, the Mashkapiro, in August 2024. Mhm.

And then you reveal that you had your own dramatic encounter with the tribe

2 months later in October 2024.

So uh if I may, let me read

uh the opening of the book.

Far out on the western edge of the Amazon rainforest,

deep in the Peruvian

jungle, a pair of loggers

plunged their chainsaws into the buttressed

roots of an ancient ironwood.

An ironwood or shiua

wako of this size is a giant among giants,

an emergence sentinel that reaches heights of 160

ft towering over the rest of the canopy.

Uh I've read that many are over a thousand years old by the way as an aside.

And you've found ones that are 1200 years >> Incredibly old. >> Anyway, you continue.

This particular tree has started its life as a tiny sapling in the great jungle.

A story that began before the Spanish reached Peru,

long before the United States was even a dream.

At a time when

uh Leonardo da Vinci was still honing his talents

in a far away part of the world

through the Renaissance, the First and Second World Wars,

and the birth of our grandparents,

this tree was out there slowly charging upward,

anonymous, just one pillar among the billions of others.

But on this day

in August 2024, when the two loggers worked,

this witness of the centuries

came crashing down through the canopy

with such cataclysmic power that it shook the earth.

And then you go on to talk about how the shaking of the earth

was was felt and heard by the unconted tribe.

So uh you go on to describe how these particular

loggers were murdered by the unconted

uh tribe of Mshapiro.

What do we know about these warriors of the unconted tribe?

>> We know that across

the Amazon basin, there's still

perhaps thousands of clans

of quote unquote uncontacted

peoples, people that are living in nomadic

isolation in what remains of the intact Amazon basin

and want to remain that way.

And so what happened with these loggers was that local people told them, don't

don't go out there.

don't don't go into these territories.

And what happens is that people that aren't from there's this thing with the jungle.

People don't that it's as wild as as the legends say.

And so when they say there's there's kalattos

out there, there's there's there's wild people out there,

these loggers from another region go, "Yeah, that's you know, some some story. We're we're fine. We'll go. We have shotguns."

They don't realize you're dealing with

a civilization of people

that is still nomadic,

still uses bamboo tipped arrows,

still lives naked in the Amazon rainforest,

has knowledge of medicines that we've

we have yet to to encounter or may never discover,

and that they can hit a spider monkey out of the treetops at 40 m.

And so, while you're using a chainsaw,

they can sneak up and you will never know they're there.

And so when that arrow passes through your body,

you'll only have a moment to realize it before you fall over.

>> And we're looking at uh something you posted on your Instagram,

>> which are the arrows that they use, which are bigger than you.

So they're like six, seven feet.

>> Six, seven feet, more like 7 ft.

>> And that's incredibly sharp.

They cure it over the fire and they have a way of sharpening it.

That edge of bamboo becomes incredibly like knife sharp.

You can cut meat with it easily. I've done it.

These arrows, look, look at that.

I mean, I'm 5'9.

That that that's easily a 7 foot arrow. >> Yeah.

So, for people who are just listening, this quotequote arrow is really a spear.

Some people would think it was a spear, but they're shooting this thing with a gigantic bow. That's Yeah.

And so to be holding that, look at that.

They even they even twist the fletching so the arrow spins in the air.

They have incredible craftsmanship.

And then you see all the all the little string on there is plant

fibers that they've woven.

And then this is them. Yeah.

The warriors of the tribe.

The warriors of the tribe.

And And so the fact that we're sitting here talking on microphones and that

we have airplanes and cell phones and all the things that we have in

the modern world and there's still we still live in this age where there's

right now at this moment people living out in the jungle who

have been there since

before history is an incredible thing.

Let me look this up on perplexity.

What are the technologies

we modern humans have

that the Mashkapira do not?

It's just interesting to think about

the kind of technologies

we take for granted. energy and power.

Obviously, all the electricity

generation and grids and batteries and solar panels and electric motors,

metals and materials, mass-produced

steel, aluminum, >> advanced alloys,

plastics, composits, glass, concrete, all of those things, tools,

of course, and the machinery,

the infrastructure of roads and bridges and

buildings and the weapons of war,

everything but the spears and the arrows that they have and the medicine and biology.

Of course, they probably have

complicated medicines that they've developed for their own

>> uh that are available within the jungle.

>> That entire list is no.

>> No, I mean metal

think you have to be able to excavate

into the earth and and forge metal.

These people don't even

as a one of the anth local anthropologist

said to me, a Peruvian anthropologist,

he said, you know, people think

of them as stone age tribes and he was like, they don't have stones.

He's like, they don't So, they don't know that water,

they see water that they drink.

They don't know that water freezes cuz they've never seen it.

They don't know what that water boils cuz they don't have they don't even make clay pots.

They just have their bamboo and their string.

And so, they're living an incredibly simple life.

So, all all of that, I mean, even, you know, a camera is a miracle to them.

Like, it's like, yeah, it's it you have to bend your mind to even

understand how how far back they are.

It's like looking into thousands of years ago, like stone age.

Well, they hear the sounds of the chainsaws,

the sounds of machinery in the distance.

I wonder how they can possibly comprehend what that is.

I think they view it as

like a demonic destructive force.

And um when I show you

the encounter that we had, the

we got a few takeaways.

We we left with more questions than answers, but one of the things that

they were able to communicate across the language barrier was,

"Why are you cutting down the trees?

They don't like >> Yeah.

That represents to them

the danger that the outside world brings, the destruction that the outside world brings.

They see us as the destroyers of

>> So tell me about this encounter

in October of uh 2024.

>> So in order to tell you about that encounter,

I think we need to orient people into where we're talking about.

We're talking about this river that runs through the western edge of the Amazon

rainforest that you know you know well now

after spending time there with me.

It's a high tributary

of the Amazon rainforest

where you know you have the main river channel and then smaller and smaller

and smaller and smaller

And the smaller you get, the less trafficked they are.

And so this river has remained

wild through the centuries.

And even during the '9s when there was a mahogany

boom where people went out for mahogany

trees, there was very few people

going up this river.

And so 20 years ago when I first got to the region and people

were telling me that there's uncontacted tribes out there.

It was it was always in the realm of something

um you know it's like people say there's there's there's Bigfoot or don't go

there, it's haunted or something.

You know, it's like it was like a a tall tale almost.

And even the Peruvian government at the time that I went to Peru

first, which was 2006,

their official position was that the tribes are a myth.

There's no such thing as the tribes.

That that was the official position.

And you just you would hear these stories of people that got shot.

You'd meet someone high up a river 4 days up river deep in the

Amazon that had an arrow

and you'd look at this thing and it had this, you know, mega

And so as we've created Jungle Keepers and now we're protecting

130,000 acres of this river,

we're protecting the plants and the animals and the ancient trees and trying to

preserve the ecosystem and counting the butterflies and conducting ecological surveys.

And what we've inadvertently

found ourselves the caretakers

of is the fact that these people in order to continue

living have to remain isolated,

want to remain isolated.

That's their one mandate as a as a civilization.

the tribes of the of these of the of the Mashkapiro.

And so in October,

we were, you know, as jungle keepers now, we're working with the indigenous people.

What we do is we take loggers and gold miners and make them into

rangers and give them better jobs and we try to protect the forest.

And those people who live up in the remote indigenous

community, they called us on a satellite phone and they said,

you've been working with us and telling us you want to help us

The tribes are coming out.

What do we do?

>> So, even they don't really know

when the tribes emerge from the deep jungle what to do. >> They were terrified.

>> What was your thinking when you got the phone call?

>> When we got the phone call, it was a mix of, you know, we

should keep cuz we're over here like trying to get land concessions and doing

all this important work.

And part of me was like, that's

that can't be real.

So, we're going to keep keep our heads down.

>> Bigfoot is emerging from the forest. >> Yeah. Sure. Sure.

And then cuz we got the call, we hung up and we said, "Okay,

maybe tomorrow if they're like still there or something."

And then it was crazy cuz it was it it was probably about noon

and we had an important day of meetings.

We had a meeting with the police.

We had a meeting with the land owner.

We were trying to do all this stuff for the conservation work.

And then I got together with the core team of directors,

JJ, Mos, and Stefan.

And we and we said, "Wait, if this is real,

we have to get there like now, like now now."

And so we dropped what we were doing,

canceled the meetings, we put other people on the meetings,

we got a boat, we called Ignasio,

we called our most hardcore

ranger who has been

shot who in 2019

was shot in the head by an arrow

um and still bears the scar

and he barely survived.

And we said, "Look, this is going down."

He said, "I already know cuz the whole river already knows."

And he said, we said, "Can you get us there by tomorrow morning?"

And he said, "Look, it's a two-day journey by boat, so no."

And we said, "Is there any way you can get us there?"

And he went, "I'll get you there."

And so we got a couple sacks of rice, a couple cans of tuna,

our dry bags, our tents.

We got on a boat by 6:00 p.m.

And we started riding up the river >> through the night through the night.

And so two-day boat journey that we're trying to flex in one night.

And so I was at the front with the with the headlamp with the torch.

>> And so the first few hours it was clear.

And that comet, remember that comet that was going?

There was that comet in the sky.

I remember looking at the comet and going somehow I was like, "This is it."

>> I knew this was it.

And the first few hours was clear and the stars was out and it was beautiful.

And then it clouded over and the lightning started and then it just apocalypse downpoured.

And from midnight until

8 am, it was just the front of the boat with the light.

And it was just

Star Wars vision of just, you know,

um, raindrops and galaxies and and and moths flying in my eye.

And and you people don't realize you can get hypothermia in the tropics.

But it's like as you're going at night, even if it's 80°

outside in the rain, in the wind at night in a lightning storm, you're freezing.

And so by, you know,

2:00 a.m., I'm convulsively shivering.

And we're using the crocodile

eyes, the Cayman eyes on the side of the river as cuz we it

was so dark we couldn't see where we were going.

So those shine back at you.

So I'm I was finding the Cayman eyes and then motioning with the light

to Ignasio where to go and he knew how to find the channel.

We had to jump the

We did the two-day boat ride in one >> Nice.

And we got there and we arrive at this community where and it's morning

now and the howler monkeys are calling over the jungle and

you know the little naked children are all by the side and everyone's scared

and we get a hug from this guy Bacho who we know

and they're like come in come in come in and they're like the tribe

came out yesterday that we saw a few of them on the beach

and they're gone now.

And so we collapsed. We fell asleep.

Rained the whole day.

That night we went out and we looked for them and there was this

crazy moment where we're standing

on this beach and there were their footprints were there

and the the local indigenous

anthropologists was standing there and we're standing at the edge of this beach looking

out into the into the Amazon

beyond and there's just all this wreckage.

It looked like something very Cor McCarthy,

just dark sky, iron clouds, and

and we're standing there,

everyone is waiting cuz at any moment an arrow could just fly through your neck.

And there's people holding shotguns.

And the anthropologist, this little guy is standing there in the front and he's going, "No mole."

He's going, "Brothers, there's only a few words that inter intersect

between the the languages."

And he's going, "Brothers, we're here.

We don't want to hurt you."

He's speaking in in the Yin language

and he's saying, "Come out."

And you can tell by their footprints.

The trackers explained this to us.

You could see it was just the balls of their feet.

So right as we pulled up to the beach, they had run.

So they were there listening to us.

And he's going, "No mole, come out. It's okay.

Lay down your arms.

We'll lay down ours. No mole."

Just keep kept saying, "No mole." And nothing happened.

And we went back to the village.

We went to sleep.

We wake up the next morning

and it's 5:00 a.m.

again, we're trying to save the jungle.

We're in a race against time to get these land concessions.

And so my team like Mosen and Stfan,

uh JJ couldn't come cuz he was in town actually signing paperwork and interviewing

loggers and land owners.

And also he didn't think that there was any chance this was going to

be real cuz in his entire

50s something years in the Amazon, he's never seen them.

And so we're getting ready to leave in the morning.

We had tents on the boat and Agnosio

comes up to me and he goes,

"You're my director, right? You're my boss."

And I went, "Yeah."

He goes, "I need to talk to you like a friend."

I said, "Yeah, shoot, shoot, go."

And he goes, "You'd be an idiot to leave right now."

He goes, "They're coming."

And so he convinced us to stay.

We pull our tents off the boat.

Stefan and Mosen go off with their cameras.

They start shooting, you know, people.

These are these are monkey eaters and fishermen, the the the the

community that we're in. And everything's quiet.

And I opened my laptop and I was working

just writing writing my book.

And then then it happened.

Then you start hearing people screaming

mash go mash go and people are screaming

and women are lifting

children and running into the huts and the dogs and chickens are going nuts

and >> so fear fear >> fear

because we should say

kind of the obvious thing is

as far as anyone remembers any encounters

any minimal small encounters with these tribes have been violent

>> extremely violent these tribes have remained

alive because of their violence almost like the Spartans or the Comanches

they've seem to have adopted violence as a first response to contact.

>> Uh maybe you can correct me on this, but I read

that uh in the late 19th century,

early 20th century, there was

documentation of encounters with these tribes

by the private armies

of the rubber barons.

>> And those encounters were from the rubber barons army's perspective violent. Yeah.

>> And so maybe the lesson they learned

the unconted tribes is that

any interaction with the outside world is going to have to be violent because

they have to defend themselves. >> Yeah.

You had colonial missionaries in the 16 1700s.

Then you had the rubber barons

late 1800s into the 1900s

just periods of extraction and domination and cruelty.

And these tribes their grandparents

must have told them when the outside world comes you shoot first.

That's the only thing that's going to keep you alive.

Do you think the memory of that those violent encounters

is defining to how they think about the world?

Yeah, because even in my lifetime there in the 20 years I've spent in

the Amazon, Ignasio was shot in the head.

My friend Victor survived

a violent encounter where they murdered somebody on a beach.

I mean, they've shot numerous people.

They've even shot people who were trying to help them.

People who are trying to give them clothing and bananas.

they've just where they they call it porcupining

them where they find a body on the beach with so many arrows that

when they fall over all the arrows are sticking up

and so they think and they'll do it out of curiosity

too where it's like hey you're wearing a suit that's weird we've never seen

anybody in a black and white suit

and then get a you know the way Teddy Roosevelt would shoot a bird

for science they're like

they'll just what they just want to look at you and so they they're

operating on a different

they don't have a moral system that we have or understand

they're just they're truly

>> How does Ignasio think about them?

Because they almost killed him.

>> Yes, it depends on the mood you get him in because if you ask

him, one day I asked him, I said, "If you could see the people

that shot you in the head,

what would you say to them?"

And he looked at me with that Agnosio look.

And he said, "I wouldn't say anything.

I would kill as many of them as I could." I said, "Okay."

He also had a time where he was in a really remote guard station

working for the Ministry of Culture

and they showed up and he knew that they were going to kill him.

And so he climbed up into the the peak of the of the little

structure there and just like, you know, like a dog in a car, that

greenhouse effect in the top at midday with the sun beating down, he was

huddled over a mattress while they were walking on the deck,

moving pots and pans and looking at our items and artifacts.

And he knew that if he was found, they'd kill him.

But if he stayed up there, he was literally frying to death.

He said he was soaking the mattress.

He was he could feel himself dying for 2 hours.

He had to stay there.

And he is constantly making this decision of if I come out, I die.

If I stay here, I probably die.

He's like, "Probably die is better than definitely die."

So he was terrified.

And so as they're screaming, "Mosh, go!"

And everybody's running and women are lifting children.

Ignasio comes and finds me.

And you can see in his eyes, you can see when somebody has that

PTSD response where he's breathing heavy.

He's he's he's moving behind trees.

He's not He's keeping me close to him and he's going, "Look there.

He has a bow.

He has a bow."

And we're looking up the beach

and there's just this clan

of naked men walking down the beach with these 7ft

bows and they're hunched over and they're pointing at us.

They're going, "Look at that one."

They're going, "Look, there's a gun there."

And you can see them communicating to each other.

And the butterflies are swirling off the beach.

And you know, in these moments, you go, am I

am I entering a moment that I is this is this a one-way door?

Is this is this not something that

is this an irreversible situation?

Because there's an unfolding

situation where they're coming at towards us.

Are they going to attack?

What do they want?

Is there going to be I mean, I'm I'm I am

soaked in chills right now just talking about it because I remember standing there

and going, there's no way this is real life.

I I it's burned into my memory them walking down the beach and seeing

them with the bows

and of course you know Stefan is up there just firing off pictures and

and and Mosen is down getting video and

the the community that we're with

people had you know you hear shotgun shells loading home and them and them

loading it but they're also

they're getting ready and there's this one guy this anthropologist

named Raml who has

been the only person who has communicated

with them peacefully he did it in 2013 where He stood on the beach

and he spoke to them.

He knows enough of

the local dialect that overlaps with theirs that he

can speak to them.

And so as they're coming down the beach, the butterflies are flying up and we're all waiting.

And again, shotgun, you're talking, you know, how many meters?

30, 40 m, I don't know, accurate for an arrow.

You loose a 7ft arrow that weighs nothing.

You're talking about 300 m easy.

They can shoot you from across the river.

So Ignasio was like

pulling me and he was like down.

He's like, you go down.

And he was like, "You stay behind this tree."

And he's like, "You watch them from there." He's like, "Watch out.

That guy has an arrow."

He's like, "He's watching everyone cuz you could see."

He's like, "This is how it happens."

>> Did you think you might

This might be the last

day you have on this earth. Were you afraid? >> I was. Yeah. Yeah.

Of course I was afraid.

Um, it's you're with you're with I'm with my two best friends and a

bunch of people that I work very closely with

and you're in the middle of nowhere and there's no help coming and you're

with like, you know, 26

people and there's 50 of the tribe that you can see and you know

that they're surrounding us.

There's all men on the other side of the river and then we had

we had guns looking back towards the jungle cuz we knew we were being surrounded.

And so again, this is always this is always the story of of of

someone's uncle, brother, cousin

tells a story that happened and now it's happening.

And it's not happening in the shadows.

It's not happening in the middle of the night.

It's happening in broad daylight.

They're they're walking out

onto the beach, you know?

It's like it's like the first time they saw the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park.

You're going, "Uh-uh, there's no way."

And you're you are kind of walking on the knife edge of

uh and it's funny you say Stefan was taking pictures because there's two ways

to think of the situation.

This is fascinating or this is extremely

dangerous and it's both.

It is a nice edge.

So you could approach it one of the two ways like if I die I die.

I'm going to take some good pictures.

But also we're there that was also our mission.

You know as as the directors of Jungle Keepers we're working with this community

to ensure that their lifestyle can continue.

and they're saying, "Hey, that's great,

but as an indigenous

community, we're dealing with these people that come out and raid our stuff, try

and steal our women, that kill our hunters,

and now they're coming out.

We want you to see it."

And so documenting it is part of our job.

We have to show what happened that day.

And so those guys were

shooting um and then yes, very seriously.

It's actually so Mosen's

wife and I, we we always joked about like, "Oh, if the tribe ever

comes out, like you stand in front of him, like you take the arrow. He has kids.

And it was, you know, that day it was like we were strategically

positioning ourselves being like, you know, you down.

You cannot get killed.

And it was, you start in those moments to go,

okay, where can where will I be safe from arrows?

Where can I run to the river if they if they come over?

And you start planning, okay, if I jump into the river, I was going,

okay, I got my bag.

I have a can of tuna. I have a flashlight.

I was like, if I jump into the river and float down and I

live, I'm still days up river.

And so you you start going through all these things.

But >> and of course the the Moska

Piro people are thinking exactly the same thing

>> Well well the the interesting thing is that they're initiating the contact, right?

They're they are the ones coming out of the jungle and confronting us.

And fundamentally that contact is

they're at least giving peace a chance.

Is this they're trying the peaceful contact first? Correct.

Or was there a violent element?

Like what did you sense

in the caution of them emerging to the beach? Fear.

>> As they came out, you could see fear on them because the way they

were hunched over, the way they had their bows ready, they were worried.

And so they came and

you know, Raml is standing there

as closer than any of us at the edge of on one side of the river.

And it was like, you know, shirts versus skins.

It was two tribes looking at each other

with a thousand years of civilization between them.

And Raml's going, "Put down your bows.

Put down your bows and we can talk." And he's nom.

He kept saying no.

He kept saying, "Brothers,

brothers, please put down your >> So Noly means brother

in a language that they might be able to understand."

>> Nomole means brother in a language that they do understand.

And it's and it seems like they refer to themselves as the Nomalies. the brothers.

>> So potentially that's what they call themselves as the tribes in the moles. >> Exactly.

And actually the anthropologists

that we've been speaking to

post this event have been explaining to us that mashkopro,

you know, piro is the is the the the group that they're from these

these various nomadic tribes and mashko basically means like wild piro.

And so the one thing we know they call themselves is nom.

>> So at the end of this we might converge towards the name of this

tribe being Namo versus Mashkapi. the Namo. Yeah.

Seems like the most current

or at least their self-appointed

identity is the brothers Namo.

>> Anyway, there's these shredded

warriors on the beach. >> Yeah.

>> With 7 foot arrows.

>> And we're all standing there.

And so the the the

first thing again, you just think of like, you know, the peace pipe in

the the old stories.

>> And the first thing is let's make them an offering of peace.

And so they got a canoe with no motor

and we piled it with plantains,

like just full of plantains,

16 ft of of endless green bananas.

And then I mean the balls on this guy, the the anthropologist.

He gets into the river,

takes the canoe, and it's the dry season, so the river is only about

3 4 feet deep at it at the channel.

And so he walks this thing out.

There's one man walking in the face of all these warriors

and he takes the boat and he pushes it towards them

and they rush out

and they start grabbing the bananas and they're not going, "Okay, we will unload

these bananas and use them later."

They're my bananas and you're grabbing your bananas and they're fighting and they're yelling

and they're all grabbing and they're they're grabbing them

and then they push the boat back

and he talks to them a little bit and again it's not a perfect translation.

So he's you know he's saying where have you come from?

What do you want? Who's your leader?

He's trying to establish these things

and they're saying things and they all sort of talk at the same time

like a flock of birds.

They're not they don't have it wasn't like one man speaks

and there was no women.

The women were the women were nowhere to be seen.

And actually at one point as we were preparing I think it was while

we were preparing the second canoe of bananas

there was a moment of absolute

panic and and it happened when there was a noise behind us and you

just hear a bunch of shotguns swing behind us

and you know Mosen goes down.

I go running away from the river now cuz again I want to see

it coming if there's an attack coming.

And I'm standing, me and this guy were sharing a tree as cover and

he's got a shotgun and he's looking back into the forest and peering through.

And what was happening was

the women of the tribe had come

silent foot and they were just pulling the yuca out of the ground and

taking the banana plants and ruining the farm completely.

But they were raiding the farm behind us

while the men were talking up here.

So again, were they were they peacefully contacting us or were they like, "Hey,

we need some food, so go make a diversion and and and take the

take the food out back."

>> I mean, you really were surrounded.

>> We were completely surrounded.

>> So they they could

have murdered all of you probably >> easily.

We were we were out outnumbered

five to one at the least. >> Yeah.

And it's probably fair to say that

part of the reason they did maybe they wanted peace,

but part of the reason is they didn't know how deep this goes.

They didn't know if you have backup.

They don't know if we have backup.

They also they had questions.

They were the some of their questions were incredible.

How do we tell the difference between

how do we know who the good guys and the bad guys are?

Cuz to them, all you outsiders are the same.

So why who are the ones cutting down the trees?

>> And those are the ones they

know are the bad guys.

>> Well, the big trees seem to have incredible significance to them.

They're they're significant to us in a different way, but to them it's

it's it's a it's

offensive on a on an almost religious level to cut a big tree as

if you're as if you're killing their gods.

>> So there's a spirituality

to the trees >> it seems like that.

>> And so the whoever's cutting them down is a source of destruction on spiritual >> Yeah.

Well, how why would you destroy our home?

I think they're right. >> Yeah.

In in a deep sense, the unconted

tribes represent the deep jungle.

And so if they're threatened,

that means the jungle.

The deep jungle is threatened. Yeah.

I mean, they are the

human voice of the jungle.

And they they're asking questions.

They're also demanding, you know, they're clapping at us and they're waving and they're saying, "Send more.

Send send more bananas."

And so they loaded up another boat

and they pushed another boat out and this time they gave them some rope.

They all had rope tied around their waists,

penises tied up, but they love rope.

And some of them were wearing rope that they had made, which is brown or or reddish.

And then some of them were wearing rope that they had clearly pillaged from

logging camps or the communities cuz it was modern nylon paracord.

And they had this wound around their waists like a thick belt.

And they took the second boat and that they had some some rope and

they had some plantains on there.

So, some of these guys might have been the ones

that murdered the loggers.

Could be >> from a couple months before that. Absolutely. Could be.

But what Raml said as he was talking to them, he turned to us

and he said, you know, this group,

he said, the other groups call me the grandfather.

He said, this group, he said, I don't know any of these.

He said, this is first contact.

He said, this is the first time this group is talking to us.

And you saw people

from maybe 12 years old to

what looks like 40 something

like a like a banged up 40

>> and and no really old people and no

>> So this is a particular clanic

tribe and never contacted. >> Yeah.

Is there just from your

memory interesting aspects about the way they were trying to communicate like you said clapping?

I I think it's a

from an anthropology perspective from a human perspective. Fascinating.

How do you talk to people from an unconted tribe like this? So clapping, yelling.

>> It's interesting to know that there's not a hierarchy where there's a leader that

represents or is that we know for sure.

Before even coming to talk to you about this, we passed this through

anthropologists and ethicists and people and we, you know, we said, "Look, is it

even can we talk about this?"

Because if you talk about this and you tell people there's these unconted

tribes, people have misconceptions.

They go, "They're the last free people on Earth.

They're living the real life.

We need to go join them.

We want to see them.

We want to photograph.

There's all this bad stuff that happens.

And all these people want us to be left alone.

So, the last thing we want to do is is

kill the thing we're trying to protect

and tell the world.

But at the same time, they're speaking out.

They're saying, "Stop cutting our trees. Leave us alone."

And so, if we're not successful

in in the greater jungle keepers mission of protecting this river,

they cease to exist.

And so advocating for these people

requires us to have this conversation.

It requires us to have this footage and to show the world

and then leave them alone.

In order for any of this to make sense, I have to show you this footage.

And this has not been shown ever before.

This is a world first.

I mean, up until now, that's the other thing.

You know, we're sitting there this day and and you know, the only thing

you've ever seen are these

blurry images of from someone's cell phone from 100 meters away of the unconted

tribes and we're sitting there with,

you know, 800 mm with a 2x

teleconverter and, you know,

And so this is as we're looking through the farms

anticipating the tribe coming.

I'll put a little bit of volume so you can hear

And then you can see this is the moment.

This is us running when they're like they're out.

They're coming down the

>> we're just Oh, wow. Oh, wow.

>> You see how many thousands of

But look at the way they move.

Look at the way they point.

Look at him with his bow. Wow. There it is.

They're trying to figure out

>> what they're looking at.

>> And they didn't know what the cameras are.

They So, this was the guy is looking out the back.

So, he's he's going there's something back here.

He could hear the women in the farm.

And I'm looking in every direction cuz I'm going which way is the arrow coming from?

But see, he has his shotgun.

This is just like a farm shotgun.

Even if he shot it, you have to use a stick to bang out the shell.

But see, as they come closer, they start laying down their See, he's laying

down his bow and arrow. >> They understand. No, no more.

>> So, these are these are warriors.

And the way they were at first moving, it really look

like they're ready for violence.

And now they're all standing in a relaxed >> And smiling. Are they smiling?

>> Smiles come at some point.

>> I would say that one of these guys

seemed like uh in a leadership position.

and he did most of the talking.

>> What What's with the different hand gestures?

This the holding your hand up to the face.

All of this means

>> All of this means something.

Some had red smeared on their faces, some had

>> Did you have a sense of hierarchy at all? Like the boss?

>> Again, there was just these two dominant guys and like this guy and one

other guy who looked almost like him, like his >> Wow.

Wow, >> this is incredible, Paul.

>> you see the rope.

>> some of that rope is

>> Yeah, I can kind of tell who the who the bosses are,

>> All right, so a few of the

But see, even that as he's pointing, we're going.

What are you What are you What are you pointing at?

You guys are nuts.

You guys are nuts.

>> you see as though they're rushing in, there's this desperation.

They're >> They also >> Is that in the water?

Is that Raml in the water?

>> The in this particular video, it's a guy named Liner.

>> But like, see these guys, they're fighting over.

It's not that we're all going to share it later.

It's >> I get mine, you get yours.

And so, what does that what does that mean?

>> But here, they're in peaceful mode.

Now, after we'd given them

after we'd given them several boatloads of bananas,

things did calm down.

Raml said to them, you know, look, we've given you what we can give you.

We gave you sugarcane.

We gave you boatloads of

And so then there came a time where things were a little more relaxed.

They were walking around.

We were at one point we we we had a we had a great

moment where we we'd given them the the the plantains.

We' given them the bananas.

and and he said, "Look, this is that's it."

He said, "We we've given you what what you asked for.

You asked for bananas.

We we don't cut the trees here.

All of us here are not tree cutters. We're indigenous people."

And and he he couldn't explain who the hell we were, but they were

like, "We don't cut the trees.

We're not the loggers."

And they're like, "Okay."

So then at some point, you know, Agnasio

went out and like sort of like

started, you know, he'd go like this and they'd go like this and, you

know, he like danced a little bit, they dance a little bit, and then

there was this very human moment of just sort of joking.

>> So even Agnosio warmed up.

>> Even Agnosio warmed up once he realized it didn't seem like anyone was going

to die that day.

Uh things did calm down.

It was a false sense of security.

Um here, I'll show you.

There's a couple more things that are relevant here,

Yeah, this is just them interacting with the boat.

>> This is truly incredible, man.

>> But then they don't have boats.

They don't have stone tools.

They don't >> Imagine if you showed them ice, >> you know? They wouldn't. This is historic.

>> I mean, it's the

I mean, you hear

Percy Faucet encountering the tribes.

We've heard of anecdotal

accounts of the tribes.

This is the first time that

the tribes have been filmed.

that we can hear their voices that there's a documented interaction happening.

>> I mean this now look how comfortable he's getting. He's so close.

They asked him for his shirt.

He gave his shirt.

>> They asked him for his pants.

He gave his pants.

He was in his underwear.

>> You see this the shirt that's over his shoulder?

Ignasio took off his jungle keeper shirt and threw it to the anthropologist.

And then the anthropologist

walked it off and threw it to them.

So over the shoulder of that

uncontacted naked warrior is a jungle keeper shirt with the logo showing.

So they're like their second shirt.

He just upgraded that guy's status in the tribe.

He's going to be the new boss with that shirt.

He's got a he's got a dope ass polo.

He didn't even have to order it.

But yeah, this is in like the aftermath

when things were calm.

And then my sort of

moment with this that really stuck with me was when

Raml said to me, he said, you know, they

he said, "They're asking about you."

And I said, "What are they asking?"

I said, "You know, me."

He goes, "Yeah, they're asking about you."

And you know, again, I'm not tall, but I'm I compared to the people

in the village, I was a little bit taller and big shoulders.

And he said, "They said, you look like a warrior."

He said, "Could you come forward?"

He said, "Show them that you don't mean any harm."

He said, "Show them your palms."

And so he pulled me up onto the beach.

And this was right before they left.

But see, I hold up my hands. Listen.

And they sang back. >> They're singing.

>> They raise their hands.

I raise my hands. Wow.

And then and then we were left with watching them walk off the beach

into the jungle with everything that we'd given them

and they were gone.

And so we went down river

the next day and the community said to us, "Okay, now you understand this is real. This is terrifying.

and you felt that fear.

You have a duty if you're going to protect this river to protect us

from them and to help us

figure out what future they want.

If they want to come to us, if they want to learn farming, if

they whatever it is,

um you know, that's that's fine, but they were like, "We need protection from you guys."

And then in this video in the beginning,

I'm sort of narrating to the camera and walking around

right as they're coming up the beach,

but you see this guy

right there in the blue shirt. >> That's George.

And he was very friendly, very confident with this.

He said, "Don't be scared.

They're not going to hurt us."

And the next day, we went back to town.

You know, long journey back to town. Go to sleep.

We wake up in the morning and we find out that the following

early morning our friends in the community had said, "Okay, the tribe is gone."

We gave them all the things they wanted.

We gave them sugarcane, bananas.

We said, "Please come back.

You're welcome here anytime."

And George was driving a boat

and there was people on the boat.

And as they were going up river,

the tribe, 200 of the tribe ran out, surrounded the boat, and they started

firing arrows, and everybody else could hit the deck and get under the under

the the benches and hide behind bags of rice.

George was driving and he was leaning back as he's driving and he's driving

as fast as he can and one arrow came in just above his scapula

and came out by his belly button

and so he had that 7ft

arrow tip through him

and so they pulled him out and I saw the boat afterward and there

was just you know horrific

amounts of blood all over the boat

and he had to be medevaced

out and somehow he lived

and we were able to help

getting him a helicopter

getting him evaced all this but again

You just you know, these these these people came out of the jungle and

they asked for bananas.

We gave them bananas and we

in every way possible said, "We mean peace.

We we want friendship with you."

And and then the next day uh they attacked.

What do you think happened?

Why do you think their mind turned?

Or maybe this has to do with the role of violence in their society.

Maybe they it's so

uh integrated into how they interact with the world

that they don't even see that as a

fundamental shift in the I don't know.

I don't know what to make of it.

And the only thing I can think is that

the way they hid the women from us, you don't know.

for them maybe were not allowed to see their women,

you know, or or cuz the one thing that we got was that as

George's boat and southern boat were going up river

the which is how they live these it's not like they were doing anything wrong.

These people live in a community

days into the Amazon.

They were going fishing

and so they came around a bend and I think they spooked the tribe.

The tribe might have just acted defensively

and said, "I we don't know who this is."

The motors could have set them off. We don't know.

Um they but they they shot him.

And then the other thing is the the thing with the necklace.

I've asked anthropologists about this and their answer was

that at this point they said you know more than we do but that Yeah.

Cuz two of them had the exact same

item around their necks

and it seems to be

uh a Brazil nut

and then some sort of casing around the side and it looked like animal teeth. Mhm. >> positioned in there.

It's like what are you carry?

Are you carrying medicine?

Are you carrying some sort of a totem?

Are you >> But both of them and it's not a comfortable thing to wear around your neck.

You know, a grapefruit

sized >> Do you have a sense that that's a container

or is it just like a totem?

>> It seems like a container.

They didn't let it get wet.

They cared for it.

The guy in this picture.

So he's got this this is a piece of

tree fiber that he has it on and then and then he's gotten his hands

on Brazil nut sacks,

plastic sacks from one of the farms across the river.

And so they just they just take they take and one of them got

a machete and he was walking as they were leaving

again during that period where it got friendly.

He was leaving and he had the machete and he was playing with the

machete and like swinging it at butterflies and

one of my friends this guy Bacho, he goes, "Oh," he goes machete.

He was like, you know, dropped the machete and the guy just looked at

him and was like, "Yeah, come and get it."

Uh, >> you know, I was like, "Yeah, you cross the river and see what happens."

>> Do you think he

figured out or they later figured out how to use a machete?

>> Oh, they know machete. >> They understand machet. >> Yeah. Yeah.

They do raids for machetes.

>> They understand the power of a sharpened

>> It's I mean, it's a it's a Excalibur

sword to them, you know.

>> Um, but yeah, that that one that one has stuck with me because I

go, "What were they carrying in there?"

>> So, what are some of the questions?

like if you can

know everything you'd want to know about them.

>> So maybe in the space of communication and language that's really interesting.

You mentioned that there's all kinds of calls, animal calls.

>> So they obviously know how to fake animal calls.

>> Yeah, they speak in they can use animal calls

with enough complexity that they can do basic commands.

So they can speak in capachin,

they use tinamu calls.

Um some of our rangers were up river a few months ago.

This is long after this. This is recently.

Uh just just recently they were up river and they found a a trail,

let's say no trail, a Mashkapiro

trail and it was Ignasio

of course and he made the there's like a secret whistle.

They do this mouth

and he whistled out into the jungle

and he was listening

and they whistled back

and so him and everybody on the team just ran back to the boat

and got got out of there.

But it was like at least they answered.

They didn't just shoot.

They He whistled, they whistled, and they said out,

and he got out.

But it's like, we don't know

where are the old people.

Do they not survive?

What is the what are the the marriage rituals?

How is reproduction handled?

Um there there's one or two children in the Amazon that I know of

who have, you know, washed down river on a log and been

rescued by communities and then raised and they either learn the native dialect or Spanish.

And then of course at some point somebody will go and say,

"What was it like

when you lived with them?"

And the answer is always the same. I forget.

They don't talk about it.

So maybe we know

that they value secrecy.

I mean, when you're afraid of the outside world, you don't.

Part of that is confidentiality.

They all sign NDAs.

>> They have some really good NDAs. >> It's understood. It's an NDA.

You can't there's there's no lawyers.

There's only one way

to execute the law. Yeah.

It's either a really strong NDA or or or

that it's it is savage

that they're living out there in the jungle and that you're eating monkeys and

turtles and you're hungry for days on end

and you know your wife might get stolen by another tribe,

your baby might get stolen.

You know, I mean, imagine the bot flies and the

and the things that they must put up with.

It's it's just I mean what we experienced in what 3 days of living

out with modern camping gear and headlamps

and a sense of direction and they're doing none of that.

You could put us out there naked

a very different story.

So yeah, the brutality of nature. Yeah.

>> Warner Herszog comes to mind that they have to live in that

>> but then there must be there's something about

the jungle that serves as a catalyst for spirituality.

So they must also have a

religious component, a spiritual component

that probably unifies them.

There must be an ideology they operate

>> Oh, there must be.

And there they there must there's many things they must have.

They must have a belief system.

They probably have amazing origin stories.

Um it would be

amazing to know what things they have accurately

and inaccurately guessed about us,

about the outside world.

I mean, they've never they've never heard of the country they live in.

>> Or of World War II or any of it.

And so seeing them coming across the the beach was surreal because it's like

this aperture into history.

By the way, I mean, you do have a certain look.

So you realize like

them singing to you.

Your face is carved in some wood somewhere

>> and there's a few of them gathering around

>> and like still singing about the the gray gringo

the >> full beard with a big nose.

They probably drew this like he's got hair all over his face and a

huge nose and they tell their children >> and it could be anything.

They you could be like

>> to the children they say this is the monster you should be afraid of

or this could be

the the most beautiful

encapsulation of the outside world and it could be every everything in between.

You don't get to control the the myths.

>> You don't get to control the myths.

Um yeah, God only knows.

But I mean it's

so So now now in that

130,000 acres that we have, we know and this is what we're we're sort

of we sort of have to come out of the closet with this like

we are now protecting these people.

And the only way to do that is to make sure that they're not

contacted, let alone that they don't get machine guns shot at them by the

Norcos or that crazy,

you know, hippie gringo don't go down there thinking they're going to, you know,

join join the the coolest commune on Earth.

So, how much of the land that they

move about is within the

130,000 acres of rainforest

you've been able to save?

And how much of it is not?

>> How much of it is in the extra 200,000

acres that you're trying to save?

>> Most of the rest,

most of that 200,000

that we're still trying to protect is territory that is theirs.

And in order and in order, people always ask me, they're like, first, a

lot of people ask, "How could you buy the Amazon?"

They're like, "That doesn't make sense."

And it's like, well,

I have bad news for you.

Somebody already owns it and we have to buy it from them so that

they don't log it.

And so these land owners

are going to sell their forest to the logging companies because

owning 10,000 acres of the Amazon doesn't help you if you're a third generation jungle man.

And now it's just something that's up there and you live in the city.

And so they're going to contract

either the narcos or the loggers or the miners to go out there and

use it and they'll get a little money.

And those people when they see these people will kill them. That's for sure.

And shotguns and machine guns in the end will win.

Not to mention the germs.

So all the money you're trying to raise and

all the land that you're trying to save,

it's all towards that.

Protecting the deep jungle.

So when you buy up the jungle,

you just want to let it be.

let the natural ecosystem

come back to life in the cases when it was logged

or just >> if it hasn't.

>> Again, we're talking about

the last great jungle.

I always called it the last endless forest because this place is so incredibly remote.

And then the other question I always get is people say, "Well, why is

this river so so important?"

And for my whole career, my whole time, 20 years in the Amazon, it's

been that it's massively intact forest.

Places like the ancient forest where the trees have never been cut.

So, it's forest that's been growing since the dawn of time.

And thousands of species can be on a single Shiuako tree.

And it's it's Avatar on Earth.

It's it's you can see the sweat come off your skin and rain down

and then drink it out of the river and you're part of the chemical physical reality there.

And so it's the one of the last places that's untouched.

This changed everything because we realized that

along with the butterflies and the monkeys and the jaguars and the trees and

the ecosystem, there's also a human culture that will in the next few years

cease to exist, that will be exterminated

if we don't protect them.

And when you look back at what happened to indigenous

cultures all over the world over the past few centuries that they've been wiped

out, we collectively now

because we know this

have a chance to undo

all of the injustices

that happened in the past by by at least doing one right

by saying these people want one thing to just be left alone.

Imagine if we just

protected the river and then it's not that they're this thing that's that's that's

vanishing from reality, but they get to continue living that way.

And then if they want to come out and contact us, great.

And if they want to continue living like this for the next 10,000 years, they can.

And that's and that's that's what we're working with now.

It's become so much more important than just,

you know, we're trying to protect the environment.

It's like, no, we're trying to protect,

you know, things like Yellowstone

and Yuseite and and and

the sequoas occur nowhere else on Earth.

You protect the things that are

unique and special, the crown jewels.

And in both a biological

way and as well as a

anthropocentric way, this has now become

a river with global historic

significance because this story is going to play out in the next 18 months.

you're you're further and further and further trying to save more and more rainforest

and the mission is clear because there's just this

deep >> that's full of this incredible

life and now we know with uncontacted tribes.

There's a lot of interests that don't care about the jungle they're pushing

>> and want to cut it down,

want to destroy it.

And the mission is pretty clear.

You just want this whole territory to be >> Yeah.

And that's what makes it so beautiful is that this is one of those crown jewels.

This is one of those special places on earth where

it's like a time capsule

for nature, for human culture,

for biodiversity, for climate services, for everything.

And then, you know, I think people get overwhelmed with where you say, okay,

we we have to save the environment.

We have to save the ocean.

>> This is one watershed.

>> It's 300,000 acres and we're already at 130,000.

We've shown we can do it.

The loggers are happy to turn into rangers.

People all over the world have become Jungle Keeper supporters.

We have several thousand people that every month give us between $5 and $1,000 every single month.

And that keeps the rangers going.

That employs the local people.

So it's not just making a,

you know, drawing a line and making a park and saying everybody stay out.

It's like no, you have the nom,

you have the indigenous people, you have

you have a future for the indigenous people where their their kids don't have

to worry about like eating monkeys.

They can they can be park rangers

and I get blowback from people right away where I say like and people

can even come see it through the treehouse or something and people go oh

you're going to bring tourists into the wildest place on earth and it's like man

look at that jungle and it's like that

300,000 acres of that

and you're talking about on a football field we're talking about two blades of

grass that we access so people can see it

which makes a huge difference and so like the fact that we can share

it with people that people I mean the amount of people that listened who

look like since since the first time I came here and spoke to you,

the amount to which

you've made it possible for us to protect this place, the amount of spider

monkeys and jaguars and giant anteaters

and and those ancient

millennium trees that you've made it possible to protect is monstrous.

And so, >> thank you, brother.

>> It's been an honor of a lifetime to be able to watch you.

I I tell to a lot of people,

there's certain people I'm glad exist in this world

because you've educated me and and

uh millions of people about the beauty of the jungle

and then how important the fight to save the jungle is.

Uh so if you're listening to this, you absolutely must go.

Please donate or post about it,

share it with friends. Uh junglekeepers.org.

You're also doing a gala in New York

at the end of January.

>> So, if you can, please go

and donate to help save the jungle. Yes, please do.

And because our first

conversation led to the first surge

where people realized what Jungle Keepers was

and then because we got this surge of support, then we were able to

expand our work, protect more acres.

A lot of our major donors,

a lot of our smallcale donors came in because of that.

And so these are people that went, "Wait,

if Lex thinks it's a good idea, then we'll do it."

And that based on your trust, they came in.

And so I I guess also I should say

it's not enough to

speak and communicate the importance

of saving the rainforest.

You actually have to have incredible people that are making it happen.

And we have talked and we'll talk more about the dangers and the complexities

involved and how to navigate everything.

And one of the things and

the reason I'm really excited about what you're doing

is I just gotten to meet the team and

uh just brings a smile to my face.

Several of the people I know who are extremely competent.

Stefan, somebody we've talked about,

yes, he likes to take pictures of stuff, but

primarily the the thing he does incredibly

well is um run everything,

organize everything to make sure that stuff happens

and happens quickly and efficiently,

all the kind of things that are required to

make stuff like this happen

in the in the complex environment that the jungle operates in.

the sometimes lawless environments

the jungle operates in.

>> So the team is incredible

which is why when you sort of

connect the money uh how does the money lead to the solution of the problem?

It's the team and the team makes it happen.

>> I didn't know that uh people like Stfan >> Yeah, me neither.

>> You know when I met him >> I I just like I

>> beautiful wonderful human being.

I just I'm I'm

you know again I can I can use a machete to catch a fish.

>> But like his systems

knowledge and his ability I mean his bandwidth

is the size of a country.

It has its own area code.

It's um he's you know just like JJ opened the door of the Amazon

and gave us that local indigenous perspective.

I mean yeah okay I told some stories about it but like Stefan

came in and went okay you guys have good ideas but you're both jungle guys.

You're not helping each other.

and running those systems and making the website and making it possible to connect

the people that care with the indigenous ranger program and make sure the rangers

have shirts and cans of tuna and that there's a person running the ranger.

I mean, and these are things that I couldn't dream of of organizing.

I can't even organ organize my I can't even make my bed, you know.

I can't even get that far.

>> I mean, caveman want fish. >> Caveman want fish.

Watching you uh fish or hunt for fish with a machete

>> is one of one of the most awesome things I've ever seen.

You're literally able to catch a fish with a machete.

>> So, that's what you're good at.

And then Stefan is good at everything else.

>> Everything else his you know that you remember the most interesting man in the

world and they're like, you know, he once had an awkward moment just to

see how it felt.

It's like Stefan's to-do list

doesn't exist because it's already

>> You know, he just is just incredible. >> Quick pause. Bath break. >> Oh, 100%.

I'm so happy about that. Yes, sir. >> And we're back.

One thing I forgot to ask you is about

the diet of the unconted tribes.

You mentioned potentially um monkeys and turtle eggs.

>> So, like what do we know about what they eat?

What's the source of protein?

>> Do they eat monkeys? >> Oh, yeah.

Their primary sources of food, I would say, would be

monkeys, turtles, turtle eggs,

and small game like like Pekka, the large rodent that's like the size of

a beagle, >> cappy bear, stuff they can shoot.

They don't really fish.

And we know these things because

our indigenous trackers and our rangers find their camps.

And so they'll find some of those little

thatched structures they make on the beaches.

And we see the bones.

There'll be taper bones.

There'll be turtle shells,

which seems like it's their closest thing to a bowl.

The day that we interacted with them,

they did find a bowl

in the We saw them walking away with it in one of the farms.

And then days later,

we found it destroyed.

So, they didn't seem like they saw much utility in the bowl. >> It's temporary. >> It's temporary.

So, they, you know, they kill it.

They make a fire.

They must be amazing at making fire.

I don't know how they do it out there.

It's very difficult because of everything is wet.

>> I don't know how they do it and I'm a really good fire starter

>> and it's tough in the jungle.

>> It is almost impossible

most of the year

because everything is wet to its core.

>> So you think they they cook the meat?

>> I mean they have they have to be cooking their meat from a parasite standpoint from everything.

We know that they're cooking their meat that we see it that they've cooked it.

you know, there's not a lot of excess

berries, things like berries and nuts and fruits.

The the monkeys and the birds are and the bats are getting to those

first as soon as I mean that's what fruit does, right?

A tomato is green

until its seeds are mature and then it turns red to advertise

eat me so that you eat it and then your gut transports that to

somewhere else and it gets free

>> In the jungle that

happens so quick that you we're never getting produce.

In the book you have a picture of a

native girl on the lepad

address uh having monkey >> for lunch.

it it it looks really strange

when you have a monkey kind of looks

just a it looks a little bit like cannibalism

cuz it looks like a

small >> I don't know what it is about

Well, I guess I do about monkeys. There's a >> Yeah.

element to them in their eyes,

in their in the form factor, but even in the warmth they bring to the interaction. Yeah.

I was babysitting her and she was six

at that time, Dyra,

and uh her parents went out and we were left at camp and they

just said, you know, keep an eye on her, make sure nothing eats her.

And I said, sure.

And she was like, hey, I I want lunch.

And I said, great.

Well, what is there?

And she pulls out this monkey head

and she was like, it's ready.

and she starts pulling at the ear and she's like, "I can't get the ear."

She's like, "Can you help me?"

So, I pulled off the ear with my teeth and then I gave it

to her and then we just shared this monkey head back and

>> and we're sitting there and I, you know, I took a few pictures of

her as she's eating and I have this video where I go, "What's your favorite food?"

And she was like, "Monkey."

And I said, "Not >> cake."

And she was like, "Monkey."

And she was like pulling its lips off.

And like you said, you see the teeth and the eyes and it's like

sort of grilled in static agony. >> Yeah.

And it looks like a tortured human and she was just enjoying.

>> Let me look it up on Perplexi.

How many uh people in the world eat monkey?

Does it taste good?

>> If it was prepared right, it would taste good, but they just throw it

over the fire and then eat it.

And so, I mean, even if you took a perfectly good chicken and did

that wouldn't taste great.

There's no reliable global count of how many people eat monkey meat, but available

data suggests many millions of people regularly or occasionally consume

uh primate bush meat,

especially in parts of Africa, Latin America, and Asia.

I mean, she looks like that is her favorite meal. >> Is monkey. >> Yeah. Yeah.

We had a great time.

Who are we to judge?

>> Who are we to judge?

I mean, have a tuna sandwich or a monkey face or whatever. She's loving it. That's awesome.

It's a good picture.

>> Now that some time has passed, when you look back at that encounter,

>> which I really do think is historic with the unconted

tribe, what do you think about

what lingers with you?

Honestly, I'm still processing it.

I'll still find myself just staring off sort of remembering it or looking at the footage.

But it felt like

the voice of the jungle was speaking.

You know, these these people are

there's that separation between humans and nature where we go, we have to protect nature.

You know, it's like the fish that you know, explaining what water is to a fish.

We're part of it.

We depend on it.

And these are people that depend on it 100%.

And as we sit here

surrounded by technology and concrete and civilization,

they're still out there right now.

And the fact that we've been trying to protect their

home without even really knowing that they were in it because they're so elusive.

It gives you perspective on where we came from and how far we've come.

You know, I look at simple things.

you know, you you board an airplane or you take a picture and you

go, "This is a miracle."

And and I think having that perspective of having interacted

with them where you go,

you know, how much work does it take to make this?

If me and you were standing in the jungle and somebody said, "You have to make this."

How many years before we came up with this?

how many rubber trees and where would we get the metal and what would

we use as die and how do we make the the the

spring mechanism and figure out how to make it rotate.

I don't know and it's like they are working with the bare essentials and

so it's an interesting

reference point to start at

in terms of how incredibly privileged we are.

You know, the the other thing is we we have

written we have so many different types of text and we have code and

we have language and we have

music and and we can communicate in all these different ways and they have

they have spoken word

they have oral tradition and that's it.

And so they're they're operating

the way our our great great great great

time you know to the power of what

operated and and and

persisting in modern times.

And so I think for me I come back to the

world and it and

I think it moves

very fast when I see it because I I'm still stuck on,

you know, whether or not me and you can drink out of that puddle.

>> You know, and and thinking

>> questions of life, >> the big questions of life. >> Yeah.

I mean, you're you're right. You're right.

From the perspective of the unconted

tribe, think going from the technological

world to to the jungle, you realize

the majesty, the magic