‘One more tribe made extinct.’ Reclusive last member of decimated Amazon tribe dies

He was known only as the “Man of the Hole” for the pits he dug in the Amazon rain forest to trap animals and hide from the outsiders who killed his tribe, experts say.

“No outsider knew this man’s name, or even very much about his tribe — and with his death the genocide of his people is complete,” Fiona Watson of the organization Survival International, a global movement for tribal peoples, told CNN.

The man’s body was found Aug. 23 in a hammock outside one of his straw huts, BBC News reported. He had been alone for 26 years.

“He was the last of his tribe, and so that is one more tribe made extinct,” Sarah Shenker of Survival International told The Guardian.

The man’s family and tribe were slain by cattle ranchers and others encroaching on the rain forest, Survival International told CNN.

Most were slain in the 1970s, and the remaining six members were killed by illegal miners in 1995, BBC News reported.

The man resisted all efforts at contact, firing arrows and laying traps for anyone who got too close, The Guardian reported.

“Having endured atrocious massacres and land invasions, rejecting contact with outsiders was his best chance of survival,” Shenker told the publication. As a result, little is known about him or his tribe.

He kept several camps with straw huts in the Tanaru indigenous land, deep in the Brazilian Amazon in Rondonia state, CNN reported. The man grew corn and papaya.

Believed to be in his 60s, the man covered his hammock with colorful feathers before his death, BBC News reported.

“He was waiting for death,” indigenous expert Marcelo dos Santos told BBC News. “There were no signs of violence.”

Brazil has about 240 indigenous tribes, with many under threat from encroachment on their territory by illegal farmers, ranchers and miners.

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