Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
The Amazon rainforest is
the world's largest tropical jungle...
encompassing 700
square kilometers of land.
With a river that extends for
more than 7000 kilometers...
We spent a year in this hot climate.
By plane we found indigenous tribes that
most people have never heard of before.
Adhering to their unique way of life,
these Amazon tribes live deep in the
vast jungle, inaccessible by a land route.
Some of the tribes
refused contact with outsiders.
In 2008...
There was an uncontacted tribe
that pointed their bows at a helicopter.
What kind of traditions and customs
are these natives trying to preserve?
We were eager to meet the Zo'e tribe.
'An indigenous tribe that inhabits
the Brazilian state of Para'
They were first discovered in 1987.
It took a year of waiting and a battery
of physical examinations to meet them.
The government banned any contact with
the tribe due to the swine flu epidemic.
We were the first TV network to gain
permission by Brazil to visit their village.
Living in the northern part of the Amazon,
the Zo'e only number about 240 people.
As an indigenous tribe,
the members live naked in the jungle.
The poturu that they wear on their lips
distinguishes them from other tribes.
They like pets and
raise turtles and monkeys.
Monin / Zoe tribe
As a symbol of their tribe, poturus is first
worn after a child gets permanent teeth.
It'll start hurting
when the poturu gets old.
So you have to replace it with a new one.
Nobody knows when the tribe
first started to wear poturus.
It's simply a tradition
that they wish to uphold.
They believe that wearing a poturu
identifies them as Zo'e tribal members.
They hunt for prey in the jungle.
The men are lean and fit since
they constantly trek through the jungle.
With their excellent hunting skills,
they hunt monkeys, armadillos, deer, and
just about anything that can be eaten.
After the fresh kill is butchered,
it is shared with the tribe.
As hunters and gatherers,
the Zo'e tribe will move their village
to stay close to the animals
that they hunt.
As we travel to other villages,
we'll find families like them
pitching hammocks in the jungle.
There's another small village over there.
They set up hammocks
wherever they want.
Adults only marry other members of the
tribe so they share the same A-blood type.
Men and women can marry
as many times as they want.
Monin's first wife is pregnant.
He also has a second and third wife.
These two wives are sisters.
Monin's sister, Tusa, has two husbands.
Her first husband is Baro.
And her second husband is called Wahu.
Both of her husbands care for her baby
as if it were their own son.
Baro / Tusa's first husband
The crew experienced culture shock
while spending time with the tribe.
We'll go when the sun is in the center.
The Zo'e people keep time
differently from us.
They don't use clocks.
She'd probably do really well in school.
She'll touch everything I'm holding.
She wanted to talk to
the person on the other line.
We incurred delays during shooting
because of curious onlookers.
The children were curious
about our covered bodies.
They even tried to take off our clothes.
I was afraid of the indigenous tribes
in the beginning.
But they're very friendly people.
My friend is about 17 years old
while I'm a 40-year-old guy.
Last Amazon warriors
Zoe tribe living in paradise
However
The shadow of death looms over them
The Amazon River flows through
six South American nations.
Amazing creatures live in the river.
A samauma tree over 400 years old
stands strikingly in the rainforest.
Half of the known species in the world
inhabit these rainforests.
With such diversity comes
a fierce competition for survival.
Crawling ever so slowly,
a sloth catches our eye.
Sloth
Only found in the Amazon,
the sloth is a rare, slow-moving animal.
Its maximum speed is
900 meters an hour.
It spends most of its time
hanging from trees.
This particular sloth carries a baby.
While shooting footage of the sloth, we
experienced the pace of life in the jungle.
- It's incredible.
- It's excruciating.
It's been sitting in that position
for an hour already.
When I check back on it,
it's still sitting there.
We'll never lose sight of it.
How do sloths survive when animals
have to be quick to avoid predators?
The indigenous people coexist with
wild animals at the top of the food chain.
The Matis use jarabatanara blowguns
to kill prey with poisonous darts.
After aiming his jarabatanara, the hunter
blows hard to shoot down the monkey.
Monkeys are a vital source of meat
to the natives.
At the turn of the 20th century,
Matis were rumored to be cannibals
after people mistakenly thought
that the monkeys they ate were humans.
A hissing sound is directed at the hunters.
This brown tree boa can swallow
animals larger than itself.
Anaconda
As the world's largest snake,
the anaconda can grow longer than
10 meters during its lifetime.
A suitable environment for wildlife,
the Amazon is home to large animals.
We were constantly watching out for
any danger posed by the Amazon wildlife.
Several men were trying to catch
a monstrous fish.
With its powerful fins, the fish was
too hard to catch by one man alone.
This enormous fish of the Amazon
is called...
...pirarucu, a prehistoric fish,
that grows to lengths of 3 meters.
Other prehistoric fish have gone extinct
ages ago except the pirarucu.
We also shot footage of fishermen
who used spears to catch pirarucus.
Due to overfishing, the pirarucu is
endangered and rarely found in the wild.
But the few that are still found
grow as long as 2 meters like this one.
The crocodile is a voracious predator
in the Amazon.
When the night deepens,
Yawanawa hunters catch crocodiles.
They use bright lights to confuse the
crocodiles and use spears to catch them.
They must kill the crocodile in the water
or else they could get bitten.
In the Amazon,
you're either prey or predator.
In the morning, the Yawanawa tribe
will feast on crocodile meat.
Today, the Mariwin spirits
will visit the Matis tribe.
They punish bad children.
Where are the kids?
Bring all of them outside.
Mariwin does not like to wait.
It is tribal ritual that
children of the jungle must pass.
This Matis tradition was
hard for us to understand.
It was quite unsettling.
Children need to grow up fast
in the jungle in order to survive.
The women are just as tough as the men.
Waura tribe
A tribe that live nears the Xingu River
in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso
The Waura are celebrating
the Ukauka festival today.
All right.
Let's begin the game.
As a display of their strength and bravery,
the participants wrestle each other.
In the women's matches,
the competition is fierce.
You win by grabbing your opponent's
thigh or throwing him/her to the ground.
Autu, last year's women champion,
enters the ring.
Her husband Abahu cheers her on.
She is confident and poised.
The competition is intense.
Yamulu, 13 / Autu's daughter
And the reigning champion
wins her first match.
Her husband is proud of her.
I won even though I made love
with my husband this morning.
I'm so tired.
The tribe wanted to challenge us
to a wrestling match.
So our 29-year-old assistant director,
who has a belt in judo, took up the offer.
Go! Go!
Who will win this
traditional wrestling match?
Our director was taller
but his opponent was tenacious.
He didn't last for more than 2 minutes
against these hardened warriors.
How tough was it?
I got dizzy.
I couldn't gain my balance.
Fish teeth are used in the Piwa ritual
to scrape the skin and draw blood.
Yamulu / 13, Waura tribe
For girls in puberty, they must endure
this important ritual twice a week.
As a young teenager,
Yamulu started her period.
Here she is with her family.
In tribal life, marriage is
directly linked to survival.
When their daughters are ready to marry, mothers become more attentive.
Autu / age: 27, Yamulu's mother
Do you have a boyfriend?
No.
- Did you sleep with a boy?
- No, I didn't.
Really?
I didn't sleep with any boy.
You have to tell me
when you get a boyfriend.
And you must tell me
when you sleep with someone.
If a Waura girl has sex four times with her
boyfriend, then she must marry the boy.
It was interesting to see
that love was universal in any culture.
There was strife between the men
and women in the Waura tribe.
We were surprised by
a few uncommon events.
The stench from rotting food
permeated the village
and all the women came out
to throw things at the men.
The men were helpless inside.
You don't know how to
have a proper festival.
Do you think the women who you like
will always be young?
They have potbellies
and saggy *** like me.
Instead of confronting the women,
they hid themselves.
One man gets pummeled by the women.
It's hard to comprehend
what is happening.
Why are the brave men
acting so weak in this situation?
What is going on within the Waura tribe?
The Amazon covers
7 million square kilometers of land.
We met indigenous tribes
all over the Amazon.
And we brought back
vivid images of their lives.
Vina is imparting his knowledge to his son
before he dies from hepatitis.
I'll teach you this in the beginning.
But you'll have to hunt alone later.
Look down at the ground
and search for any fresh tracks.
Alicia, chief of the Yawanawa tribe,
is a cancer survivor.
We can drink the spirits
when we drink awayaska.
She was from her cancer
by drinking an awayaska brew
and receiving traditional remedies.
It was a miracle.
Liliani of the Marubo tribe
was abandoned by her father.
She does odd jobs around the village.
How did Liliani's life become like this?
When the sun goes down,
I miss my mother a lot.
It was hard to communicate
and get to know the indigenous people.
Different tribes spoke
different languages.
We needed multiple interpreters
to translate native languages,
Portuguese and English.
Our Portuguese interpreter
spent hours every night translating
with the help of one of the villagers.
We used a CineFlex camera system to
shoot panoramic images of the Amazon.
We were in awe of the Amazon's beauty.
35 times larger than the total area
of the Korean peninsula,
the Amazon rainforest supplies 20% of the oxygen in the earth's atmosphere.
It plays a vital role in preserving
the planet's climate and environment.
The Amazon River is
the largest in the world,
supplying enormous amounts
of clean freshwater.
The lush green environment of
the Amazon is home to diverse wildlife.
Many indigenous tribes make their home
in this last haven on the earth.
There are quite a few undiscovered
animals in the Amazon as well.
A piece of meat is thrown into the river.
A school of piranhas
catch scent of the meat.
The meat is picked clean
in under 2 minutes.
The most experienced
underwater cameraman at MBC
was outfitted with the best equipment
to shoot the underwater scenes.
How does it feel before
you'll dive into the Amazon River?
I don't know.
I feel excited.
But there was also
an undercurrent of fear.
He was entering unknown waters.
Cutting through the rainforest, the
Amazon River featured a reddish color.
The submerged roots of trees
and the dead foliage in the river
provide ample nutrients to river life.
However, it was difficult
shooting in the river.
A school of ferocious piranhas...
Inhabiting the Amazon River, piranhas
are known for their razor-like teeth.
They'll eat dead human bodies
and also each other.
The Amazon is the only river
where you can find dolphins.
As pink-colored dolphins, boutus are
the focus of many legends and tales.
We had to play a game of hide-and-seek
with them to get footage of them.
Originally from the ocean,
boutus are living legends of the Amazon.
Tambaquis are peculiar fish that eat fruit.
The beautiful arowana
are called living fossils.
A 2-meter long pirarucu lazily swims by a
crocodile that is startled by our cameras.
Certain underwater scenes
were shot in an aquarium.
Fish is a vital source of food
to the Indians.
Different tribes used
different ways to catch fish.
When you hear that sound,
it means you caught a fish.
They also catch fish
with a bow and arrow.
Since most fish have sharp teeth,
they immediately kill what they catch.
There are about 2000 known
fish species living in the Amazon.
Tucunare is a favorite fish
among the Waura people.
Pirarucus, large prehistoric fish, were
caught by indigenous tribes for ages.
They are delicious to eat
and have a lot of meat.
Spending a year in the Amazon
was a trying experience.
Waura pound roasted monkey meat
in a mortar before eating it.
The meat is tough.
Oh, it's tasty.
It's good.
But it wasn't easy to digest
the "tasty" meat.
The Marubo tribe offered us their
hatbe pipe whenever we made a visit.
Choi Jae-pil / Cameraman
The crew could not refuse
this form of hospitality.
But the indigenous insects
were hardest to deal with.
What kind of insects are these?
Is it attracted to human sweat?
We faced swarms of insects
wherever we went.
Our sleeping grounds
were infested with insects.
We were constantly attacked by
a particular kind of blood-sucking bug.
Most of the insects
that we encountered were poisonous.
Even the ants were formidable.
Ow! That stings!
We wore long-sleeved shirts and gloves
in the tropical heat to protect ourselves.
We used mosquito nets to no avail.
Oh. I'm so itchy!
It gets worse every night.
The microscopic biyung bug
was unstoppable.
The crew tried to treat the bites
by exposing their skin under the sun
but nothing worked.
They couldn't find any ointments
in the village either.
The wounds became worse.
Despite the terrible itching and bug bites,
the crew kept shooting the documentary.
After enduring insect bites
for a month in Javari valley...
the assistant director came down
with a serious skin inflammation.
He had to be hospitalized.
The jungle took a toll on the crew.
The Amazon is threatened.
Forests are burned.
In the name of development,
human-caused fires destroyed
an area the size of 32,000 soccer fields.
Over 1000 fires were reported
in Novo Progresso in one month.
There's little that we can do here.
The forest has already been burnt.
At this rate, 40% of the Amazon rainforest
will be gone within 20 years.
Examining satellite photos
between 2001 and 2009...
...we discover intense deforestation.
Ranches stand in place of the forests.
Slash and burn practices are the easiest
way to clear a rainforest for a ranch.
As the world's biggest exporter of beef...
Brazil supplies beef from cattle
that grazed in the Amazon.
Human greed for gold
is destroying the Amazon.
The forest attracted gold speculators,
creating a vicious cycle of destruction.
'Alilio / Yanomamo tribe'
There are no more big fish.
The gold miners have killed them all off.
Infectious diseases from the settlers
killed many natives.
14% of the Yanomamo people died
in the last three years.
70% of those deaths
were attributed to malaria.
After making contact
with the West in the 1980s,
the Matis witnessed 1/3 of their people
die from diseases brought by outsiders.
Many surviving tribal members are sick.
Does your chest hurt?
Is your leg OK?
There is a deep sadness in the Amazon.
After 250 days of filming...
...we brought back footage of the
rainforest, river and the native people.
The Amazon was revealed with
a unique perspective on January 2010.