The Unconquered: In Search of the Amazon's Last Uncontacted Tribes [Kindle Edition]

I was so excited when I quite accidentally came across this book whilst reserching something on Wikipedia. The book details the journey of an expedition to identify the area used and hunted by uncontacted indians in the Brazillian Amazon. It was NOT, and the author is very clear about this, not an expedition to make contact with these people. The book details some historical, sociological and ethnological background; but not as much as I would personally have liked.

The author clearly details the expedition, the dangers, the environment, the wildlife, the fears, anxieties and hopes of the expedition members. I did get a real sense of the physical and emotional journey - perhaps too much than I personally would have liked. I enjoyed the authors descriptions of various expedition members, that really gave them some identity. The book flows well and is well written.

To my mind though it read like an elongated National Geographic article: i.e. not much was covered in any depth, more a diary converted into a book. Not that there is anything wrong with this, it just did not appeal to me. Perhaps I was looking for a contemporary 'The Tribe That Hides From Man' by Adrian Cowell - which I probably should not have. I fully understand why most readers gave the book 4 or 5 Star Ratings. I'm very happy to recommend this book, but doubt I'll re-read it any time soon.

There are two stories in Scott Wallace's "The Unconquered: In search of the Amazon's last Uncontacted Tribes." The first story is the National Geographic adventure journalist's gripping first-person account of adventure and survival in the deepest recesses of the Amazon jungle. Wallace follows a 34-man team lead by Sydney Possuelo, the President of the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI) through the seldom explored Javari Valley of the Amazon's rain forest for three months to track the much feared Indian tribe known as "The People of the Arrow" without making contact. The second story illuminates the complex issues surrounding indigenous tribes in the Amazon and their relevance to us all.
Possuelo had previously been an agent of contact who wooed Indians from the forest with gifts and friendship to cushion the blow of civilization's inevitable arrival. He experienced a change of heart in midcareer when he repeatedly watched Indians succumb to disease, death and despair in the wake of the contact he had initiated. Having evolved in isolation indigenous tribes have no resistance to New World germs.
Possuelo started Brazil's "no-contact" policy when he created the Department of Isolated Indians within FUNAI in the late 1980s. His efforts on behalf of indigenous tribes began to command world-wide attention. Time hailed him as "Hero of the Planet" and he was given awards and grants from a number of European countries. To leverage his renown into more financial support he began fact-finding missions to demonstrate that the policies he fought so hard to enact were working and that the tribes were thriving in isolation.
Possuelo's 2002 expedition with Wallace was to gather vital information about the Arrow People: the extent of their wanderings, the relative health of their communities, the abundance of game and fish. They were also on the lookout for trespassers - loggers, poachers and drug trafficking.
The physical and psychological hardships of the 34-man team that included three Indian tribes is heart-wrenching. They endured sickness (dysentery and debilitating fevers), starvation, frequent falls, drenching rain squalls, deadly animals and insects, foot-slogging through mud, stumbling among the roots of the jungle's dark closed canopy, close encounters with the Arrow People, building and paddling a canoe and Possuelo's foul moods.
This amazing, well-written travel adventure is informative and rich in detail.

There's something oddly addictive about books on exploration and survival in the Amazon jungle. After reading David Grann's mesmerising 'The Lost City of Z', followed by two of Penguin's admirable 'Great Journeys' series by the Victorian zoologist Walter Henry Bates and German naturalist Alexander Von Humboldt, I settled into journalist Scott Wallace's record of a journey to find - but make no contact with - a lost tribe of South American indians known as Los Flecheiros, the Arrow People, the 'unconquered' of the book's title. Commissioned by National Geographic magazine, Wallace joined Brazilian explorer and Indian protectionist, Sydney Possuelo, on a three-month, 34-man trek into the heart of the Javari Valley, his first-person account a gripping chronicle of the dangers (snakes, piranhas, caymans, fire ants and vampire bats) and the daily discomforts (mud, mosquitoes and meagre rations) of Amazon exploration. With its cast of colourful and determined characters pushed to their limits, and its discomforting examination of the politics of preserving the integrity of the jungle and its undiscovered people, this is a thought-provoking adventure story that's easy to read and hard to put down.