Forty years ago, Brazilian officials made first contact with a tribe of Indigenous warriors called the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau in the rain forests of the western state of Rondônia. The contact was the culmination of a years-long pacification campaign by FUNAI, Brazil’s Indigenous affairs agency, to lure the tribe from the jungle with gifts, such as knives, axes, cloth, and mirrors.
The ramifications of that contact, and the tribe’s resolve to defend its land and traditions, is now the subject of a powerful documentary, The Territory, which will be available to stream on Disney+ beginning on December 2. The documentary was released by National Geographic Documentary Films in select theaters in August.
In the early 1980s, Rondônia was experiencing intense social and environmental upheaval.
