Short Stuff: RIP Man of the Hole

The Man of the Hole has died and we're pretty sad to hear it. Listen in to our tribute to this solitary hero today.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh, and
there's Chuck and Jerry's here and this is short, short,
short stuff. This hello stuff so short. I said short
three times. Did we do a full episode on this guy? Yeah?
We did the who was the Man of the Whole?
And I think it was within the last three years,
maybe maybe four years. I would guess it was probably
around two thousand eighteen because that's when they released that

(00:26):
video of him and everybody became aware that this man
even existed. Right, So this is a bit of a
recap and for sure a lot of tribute, uh to
a gentleman named the Man of the Whole is what
he was called. He was He lived by himself, um,
in total isolation for twenty six years on his indigenous

(00:49):
land in the Amazon rain Forest, the Tanaru indigenous land.
And very sad to say, the Man of the Whole
has passed away. Yeah, and they think roughly in mid fifties,
maybe age sixty tops. Um. He was discovered by a
FUNAI agent. Funis Brazil's Indigenous protection agency and fun I
had been basically tracking him quietly for the last twenty

(01:13):
six years. Um. And the reason that they call him
the Man of the Whole is because that's what fun
I calls him. He digs holes or he used to
dig holes. Um. Certainly some were for animal traps, but
they think some sadly were for protection from attack from
other people. I should say, Um, but the reason they
called them the man of the whole is because no one,
literally no human being on earth aside from that man,

(01:37):
knew what that man's name was. That's right. Uh. He
lived on about twenty thousand acres of for us that
eventually became protected, and thus he was protected. Uh. He
at one point had his people. Um, we don't know
what tribe he was from. We don't know what language

(01:57):
he spoke. Uh. We do know that his people were
likely killed uh by invaders. I think the last people
that they think he had was about six people with him.
They were all killed, leaving him alone. And finally that land,
in his lifestyle was protected. And as much as I

(02:19):
don't even we'll get to sort of the ins and
outs of even peeking in on somebody like this, uh,
and whether or not that's the right thing to do,
because that is sort of a thorny issue. But he
passed away on August UM no signs of struggle. Uh,
they believe he died of natural causes. Um, this is
another sort of thorny thing. They're going to do a

(02:42):
forensic examination of his body, which I get. I think
there could be some value there to see what someone
who lived in isolation might die of. Obviously, their genetic
things that can still happen, but in any sort of
man influenced death is probably not the likely cause. But
my favorite part about the story is that he died

(03:05):
in his hammock and he had covered himself with bird feathers,
with McCaw feathers, because he knew he was dying, and
that just sounds like a really peaceful, lovely way to go. Yeah,
it is. But again, like if he was sixty and
this guy was living like about as healthy a life
as a human being can live, you would think it
seems really young. But yeah, the fact that he was

(03:26):
covered in McCaw feathers and there wasn't any sign that
anyone else had been around him definitely certainly does point
to the idea that he was awaiting death and a
new death was coming, So should we take a quick break.
Let's do that, and won't come back and dig some
more into this. All right. So you mentioned video which

(04:09):
was probably around the time we did our first episode
on the Man of the Whole. This was in July
of that year on Facebook. Uh, Survival International posted a
video of him from a distance chopping down a tree.
But this is from two thousand eleven. Uh. They sat
on this footage for seven years and um, you know,

(04:30):
they found out some things about him over his life,
which is that uh and some of it since he
has has left us um abandoned camp sites. This was
the fifty third thatch hut that he had built at
least over the past twenty six years. Holes everywhere, holes
inside these huts. Uh. So they're getting little clues on
how he lived his life a little bit now that

(04:50):
he's passed. Yeah, he was not just a hunter gather.
He was also a farmer too. He farmed corn, manioc root, papaya, bananas, um.
And he also is a great hunter, apparently with his
bow and arrow. And also those holes that he put
stakes in what they called like tiger tiger traps. No no no, no,
that sounds that sounds good. But he used those to

(05:11):
like catch wild bore. Um. So this is how this
guy was living um again by himself for twenty six years.
He did not, as far as we know, have any
contact with anybody, despite um Fu and I trying to
make contact with him after he became the last surviving
member of his tribe um because when they tried to
initiate contact, they brought him some gifts and they basically

(05:33):
went and visited him at his home and he apparently
flipped out. They said he was terrified and very aggressive
and was clearly not at all happy that they were there.
So from that moment, on Fu and I said, we're
never contacting this man again. We're gonna track him, we're
going to make sure that he's okay, but we're going
to keep our distance, both for um his own comfort,

(05:55):
but also for his safety too, because one of the
problems is people from outside of the Amazon coming into
contact with an uncontacted tribe bring a lot of germs
that the uncontacted tribe has no defenses against whatsoever. Yeah,
and that sort of brings up a little bit of
what I mentioned before, which is what what do you

(06:15):
do in a situation like this? Do you go in
and try and um vaccinate people to try and keep
them safe? Do you try and completely leave them alone.
Do you give them these gifts like they would? They
would give them seeds apparently, and small tools occasionally, which
apparently he rejected. He never or at least rarely took
the gifts. Um. You know, it is sort of a

(06:37):
moral question that I don't think it's super easily answered. Um.
I think leaving someone alone like that is for sure
probably the best route. But what does leave someone alone
really mean? Like does is even spying in and tracking
them too much? Well? So, yeah, you could definitely argue that,

(06:58):
like his his privacy was being invaded, whether he was
aware of it or not, in that in and of
itself like robs him of some of his dignity. But
the reason Fu and I was doing this wasn't just
for their you know, own jollies or anything like that.
The way that Brazil's government set up protection of indigenous
lands was you had to verify through a sighting, uh

(07:21):
that an uncontacted tribe existed, And I guess they through
And I think there's about a hundred undred and fourteen
uncontacted tribes living in the Amazon still, but they're only
aware of something like twenty three They've only confirmed twenty three,
so only twenty three are protected, and that protection is
only continued. Uh when there's a sighting within a certain

(07:42):
amount of time, every like say three years, they have
to be cited. So that's why they were tracking him
like that. Yeah, and you know, the idea of protection
is not just here, take this vaccine to help protect
you from sickness. UM. One of the articles I read
was talking about the fact that these parts of the
jungle are not just free of people. They're bad people
in there. Their drug dealers and poachers and people use

(08:05):
this place for cover. So it's not like they're completely alone.
They're just living, uh, you know, their indigenous lifestyle, ideally
away from the bad people. Yeah. So those bad people
apparently are the reason why he was living alone for
twenty six years. UM and fun I pieced together probably

(08:25):
what happened to his tribe from um local residents in
the area around where he lived, and they said that
in the seventies they believed that most of the tribe
was killed because they were given poison sugar, probably by
ranching interests that were invading the area. UM, which would
explain why he would accept zero gifts from anybody. UM.

(08:45):
When they tried to give him to him in the nineties,
and then in the other six I think he was
um one of seven survivors, and in or six the
six others were gunned down, and from that moment on
for the next any six years, he lived by himself. Yeah,
it kind of cracks me up when I think of

(09:05):
I love all the survival shows alone and all the
shows where they're like, we made it a hundred days,
What an experience, even with our modern duels, and this
guy's like, what a hundred days I've been That's what
he said. He went, but I've been out here for
twenty six years. Right, you cracked the code. His language

(09:25):
was not lost after all. Um. So the thing is,
Chuck is, in addition to those tools, not just making
it being alone, having no one to talk to, no
one to interact with, Like, how would you not crack
up in that sense? Even though you have an area
that's almost as big as the entire Disney World resort,
bigger than the entire island of Manhattan to wander around,

(09:47):
you're still wandering around it by yourself, on your own.
That would be the hardest thing of all, I think. Yeah,
And you know, as far as leaving people alone, like
as a curious individual, part of my brain says, oh,
I would love to have seen a documentary on this
guy's day to day life because it's so fascinating to me.

(10:08):
But the other part of my brain says, no, chuck,
that's the wrong instinct, like leave him alone. So Brazil
officially did say we will leave these people alone. When
we discover an unkind contacted tribe, we will cordon off
their um indigenous lands and just leave them alone. Um.
The problem is they have a president right now called Bolsonaro,

(10:31):
President Bolsonaro UM, and he has done everything he can
to roll back every protection that he can find that
protect indigenous lands and indigenous people and instead open the
Amazon up to ranchers and loggers and miners and just
basically chew through the Amazon and an even even faster
rate that it was being chewed through before. So they

(10:52):
think that I should say fu, and I believes that, Um,
probably more and more uncontacted tribes are going to go extinct,
include some that we will have never confirmed and never
even knew about. And by extinct, we're saying like they're
being massacred. Their genocides that are being carried out day
to day, um year to year in the Amazon, so

(11:13):
that people can grow plants or um graze their cattle
there instead for progress. That's what makes this whole thing
so heartbreaking to me. Yeah. Absolutely, Um, hats off to you, sir,
man of the whole not you, Josh I. My hats
always off to you. But R I P and just

(11:35):
very interesting story. I want Does that mean this twenty
acres is now a progress so the protection runs out.
It's not clear whether they'll try to roll it back
before then, but fu and I was trying to say, no,
let's just make this particular preserve permanently protected. And who
knows what will happen depends on whose president I think. Alright, well, good,
good yet sad follow up to this story Creed Chuck

(11:56):
good idea, uh and I guess that ain't short. Stuff
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