Watch rare video of uncontacted Amazonian, alone in forest for 22 years since rest of tribe was murdered

Remarkable footage has been released of an uncontacted indigenous man who has lived alone in an Amazon forest for at least 22 years.

Semi-naked and swinging an axe vigorously as he fells a tree, the man, believed to be in his 50s, has never been filmed so clearly before and appears to be in excellent condition.

“He is very well, hunting, maintaining some plantations of papaya, corn,” said Altair Algayer, a regional coordinator for the Brazilian government indigenous agency Funai in the Amazon state of Rondônia, who was with a team who filmed the footage from a distance. “He has good health and a good physical shape doing all those exercises.”

Known as the “indigenous man in the hole”, he is believed to be the only survivor of an isolated tribe. He hunts forest pigs, birds and monkeys with a bow and arrow and traps prey in hidden holes filled with sharpened staves of wood. He and his group were known for building holes and his hammock is strung over one in his house.

Loggers, farmers and land grabbers murdered and expelled indigenous populations in the area in the 1970s and 1980s, and this man is believed to be the only survivor of a group of six murdered during an attack by farmers in 1995. He was first located in 1996 and has been monitored by Funai ever since. A glimpse of his face filmed in 1998 was shown in Brazilian documentary Corumbiara.

Funai has a policy of avoiding contact with isolated groups and has protected his area since the 1990s. The indigenous reserve of Tanaru was legally set up in 2015. Axes, machetes and seeds traditionally planted by indigenous people have been left for the man to find, Algayer said, but he clearly wants nothing to do with mainstream society.

“I understand his decision,” said Algayer. “It is his sign of resistance, and a little repudiation, hate, knowing the story he went through.”