‘World’s Loneliest Man’ And Last Of His Tribe Dies

Officials report that the last survivor of a Brazilian indigenous group that has not been in contact has passed away.

The man had spent the last 26 years completely alone; his name was unknown.

Because he dug deep tunnels, some of which he used to trap animals and others of which he made look to be hiding places, he earned the nickname “Man of the Hole.”

On August 23, his body was discovered in a hammock outside of his straw house. Violence didn’t seem to be present.

The man was the lone surviving member of an indigenous clan, the other six having been killed in 1995. The clan resided in the state of Rondônia’s Tanaru indigenous region, which borders Bolivia.

The majority of his tribe were thought to have been killed as early as the 1970s by ranchers wanting to expand their land.

The “Man of the Hole” is thought to have been about 60 years old and to have died of natural causes.

There were no signs of any incursions in his territory and nothing in his hut had been disturbed, officials said, but police will still carry out a post-mortem investigation.

Under Brazil’s constitution, indigenous people have a right to their traditional land, so those wanting to seize it have been known to kill them.

The “Man of the Hole” had been monitored for his own safety by agents from Brazil’s Indigenous Affairs Agency (Funai) since 1996.

In 2018, members of Funai managed to film the man during a chance encounter in the jungle. In the footage, he can be seen hacking at a tree with something resembling an axe.

There had been no sighting of him since but Funai agents did come across his huts, which were built from straw, and the deep holes he dug.

Some of them had sharpened spikes at the bottom and are thought to be traps for hunting animals, while others are believed to be hiding spaces he used when outsiders approached.

Evidence found at his huts and campsites suggests he planted maize and manioc and fruits such as papaya and bananas.

There are about 240 indigenous tribes in Brazil, with many under threat as illegal miners, loggers and farmers encroach onto their territory, warns Survival International, a pressure group fighting for the rights of indigenous people.