The Matis people of the Amazon are finding their place in the world just forty years after first contact with the West. As with many isolated cultures, first contact was a devastating experience. Around 60 percent of their population was wiped out by common western diseases to which they had no immunity. Bruce joins the Matis for a month in their village in the remote Vale of Javari, in the Western Amazon, near the border with Peru. They live in a highly protected indigenous reserve surrounded by an almost impenetrable border of red tape. Bruce learns to be a Matis hunter, undergoing a series of tests to toughen him up -- he's whipped with sticks, has excruciatingly painful tree sap dropped into his eyes to improve his vision, learns to hunt monkeys with a 12-foot blow-pipe and finally takes a powerful frog toxin to purge his system. This, inevitably, is a brutal process. Bruce is burnt with smouldering arrows on his upper arms and the blistered skin is smeared with frog toxin. Bruce is then free to join the men on a real hunt, rampaging through the forest in search of wild pig and spider monkey.
click here to see where to watch or .
Ready to Watch Tribe, Season 3, Episode 1?