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The last remaining member of an indigenous group in Brazil has died. The man, who had lived in total isolation for the past 26 years, was known as the world’s “loneliest man” and “Man of the Hole” because he dug deep holes. He used some of these to trap animals and others to hide.

According to multiple reports, a majority of other members of Indio do Buraco’s tribe who lived in the Tanaru indigenous area in the state of Rondônia were reportedly killed by ranchers in the 1970s. The last surviving man of his tribe, he reportedly resisted all attempts to contact him, attacking and shooting arrows at anyone who came near to him.

Fiona Watson, advocacy director for Survival International, said:

“No outsider knew this man’s name, or even very much about his tribe — and with his death the genocide of his people is complete. For this was indeed a genocide — the deliberate wiping out of an entire people by cattle ranchers hungry for land and wealth.”

The body of the man was found in a hammock outside his straw hut on August 23. An official who discovered his body confirmed that he died a natural death and there were no signs of violence.

The man was first spotted in 1996, but would always flee when he saw outsiders, many of whom sought to give him seeds or tools. He once shot and seriously wounded a Funai agent with a bow and arrow. Government officials left him alone after that, and the man is believed to have sustained himself by gathering fruit and hunting and trapping animals while living in a thatched hut.

The region near Brazil’s border with Bolivia was often referred to as Brazil’s Wild West, as land conflicts were often settled violently.

According to Watson, the man “symbolised both the appalling violence and cruelty inflicted on indigenous peoples in the name of colonisation and economic benefit and their resistance.’’ 

More details of this story from DailyWire:

Brazil released a video in 2018 that showed a man chopping down a tree with a hand-made axe.

No one knows exactly how long the man lived alone, but it is believed that a final attack by farmers in late 1995 killed his remaining five fellow tribe members,

“After the last farmer attack in late 1995, the group that was probably already small — from reports, the local staff believed [it] to be six people — became one person,” Funai officials said in a statement accompanying the video. “The guilty were never punished.”

Funai officials estimate there are 113 uncontacted tribes in the Brazilian Amazon. They occasionally fire arrows harmlessly at aircraft flying overhead and run and hide if people from the civilized world approach.

Sources: DailyWire, Survival International

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