Among the few to have clapped eyes on him is Brazilian film-maker Vincent Carelli. It's unclear what happened to the rest of the man's people, but FUNAI reckons "he is the sole survivor of at least two successive massacres", although these massacres have never been proved.

The last time FUNAI tried to contact him in 2005, the man shot its field worker in the chest with an arrow, fortunately not fatally. Since then FUNAI has decided to leave him be.

The Man of the Hole is not alone in his plight: he's one of an estimated 40,000 isolated people worldwide, about whom we know very little. Sadly, one thing we do know is that many of them are constantly threatened by loggers and oil companies, who want to commercialise the land they live on, or harassed by paramilitary groups, missionaries, drug traffickers and foreign tourists who want to make contact.