In 1996, Marcelo dos Santos and Altair Algayer, part of a team of men who worked for FUNAI, the Brazilian government agency charged with protecting indigenous interests and cultures, heard an intriguing rumour: One man, believed to be the last of his tribe, was living completely alone in the middle of the Amazon rainforest.
Marcelo, Altair and their team embark on numerous expeditions to find the Indian, who is constantly on the move, and as they piece together the clues he leaves behind they come to believe that his tribe was murdered. Until the land on which he has taken refuge is declared an official preserve, he is in constant danger from the ranchers, loggers and land-grabbers who want the land for themselves. In order to protect him, first they must find him and prove that he exists. But here they are thwarted by the ranchers, by the machinations of the Brazilian courts and their own government agency, and by the Indian himself, a man determined to preserve his solitude and keep the outside world at bay...at any cost.
With special access to documentary footage and the cooperation of the FUNAI team, Washington Post correspondent Monte Reel takes readers on a thrilling journey into the heart of the Amazon jungle, to the wildfrontier of the state of Rondonia, which was only declared a Brazilian state in the 1980s, and into the fascinatingworld of spirited modern-day ethnologist/explorers and the Indian tribes whom they try to protect from the dangersof progress.
The Last of the Tribe is a heart-pounding adventure and a story of survival against enormous odds, set in one of the world's last truly wild places.
