THE only surviving member of a reclusive Amazonian tribe has been caught on camera in the Brazilian rainforest.

The man, believed to be in his 50s, has been living alone for the past 22 years in Brazil’s western Rondnia state. He was filmed chopping down a tree in the clearest ever footage of his activities, The Guardian reported.

Altair Algayer, a regional coordinator for the Brazilian Funai agency — which oversees the country’s indigenous populations — was with the team who filmed the footage. “He is very well, hunting, maintaining some plantations of papaya and corn,” Algayer explained. “He has good health and a good physical shape doing all those exercises.”

Indigenous tribes in Brazil faced constant attacks from loggers, farmers and land grabbers during the 1970s and 1980s. The military government was unable or unwilling to protect natives, leading to a sharp drop in the population of indigenous tribes and the area available to them. The man videoed is believed to be the only survivor of a 1995 attack by farmers that killed five of his comrades.

He was discovered living alone in 1996 and has been monitored by Funai since then. He was briefly filmed in 1998 as part of the Brazilian documentary “Corumbiara.” Funai protects tribes by avoiding contact with them and setting up surrounding exclusion zones. The group has observed the area since the 1990s and established it as the Tanaru reserve in 2015. The man survived an attack by ranchers in 2009, but Funai said no one has strayed into the protected area in the past five years.

The man sustains himself on forest pigs, monkeys and birds caught using a bow and arrow and holes filled with sharpened wooden sticks. Because of this, he is known as the indigenous Man of the Hole. He lives in a shelter built deep in the forest, sleeping in a hammock strung over yet another hole in the ground.

Funai officials have attempted to make contact with the Man of the Hole several times, but have always been rebuffed. Axes, machetes and seeds have been left for the man to find and use, but he has rejected all attempts to build a relationship. Algayer said he understands the rejection, believing it is “his sign of resistance, and a little repudiation, hate, knowing the story he went through.”

There are around 240 tribes currently living in Brazil, with a total population of about 900,000 people, or 0.4 percent of Brazil’s population, according to Survival International, an organization that campaigns for the rights of indigenous tribal peoples.

(SD-Agencies)