The Unconquered: In Search of the Amazon's Last Uncontacted Tribes

The Unconquered: In Search of the Amazon's Last Uncontacted Tribes by Wallace, Scott. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780307462961.

The Unconquered tells the extraordinary tale of a journey into the deepest recesses of the Amazon to track one of the planets last uncontacted indigenous tribes. In this gripping first-person account of adventure and survival, the author follows a 34-man team into the Amazons uncharted depths, discovering the rainforests secrets while moving ever closer to a possible encounter with the mysterious flecheiros - or "People of the Arrow" - a seldom-glimpsed tribe of deft archers known to defend their lands with showers of deadly arrows before melting back into the forest shadows. While on assignment for National Geographic, author Scott Wallace joined the brooding and charismatic explorer Sydney Possuelo on a quixotic mission: penetrate the jungle redoubts of the Arrow People, gather crucial information about them, and return to civilization without contacting the tribe. As head of Brazils Department of Isolated Indians, Possuelo seeks to protect the Arrow People and their rainforest homeland from the ravages of the advancing frontier. But the information he needs to safeguard them can only be gleaned by entering a world of darkness and danger beneath the forest canopy, to seek out the untamed tribesmen while at the same time trying to avoid them. Drawing on lessons from anthropology and the Amazons own convulsed history, Wallace uncovers clues as to who the Arrow People might be, how they have managed to endure as one of the last unconquered tribes, why they seem to want to have nothing to do with us, and why Possuelo fights so passionately to see that their wishes are respected. In this tale of high adventure and survival, we come to know the unforgettable Possuelo as he wages an uphill battle, risking his life to protect these mysterious people and the species-rich rainforests on which they - and all of us - depend.