In the Amazon, Kayapo warrior culture, they were only pacified in the late sixties. While other indigenous groups around they were already pretty much vanished, they’ve managed to stand up to the outside world. They're still very much in touch with their culture and their traditions. They are not like other indigenous cultures.

When National Geographic calls with an assignment to go down to Brazil, to the Amazon, first you're very excited, then there’s a problem with FUNAI, with the authorization, you don't know if you actually can go. Then it goes back and forth. Then you are going all of a sudden. This is all the equipment we took. My approach to photographing these cultures is that I treat them the same as if they were a famous person in Hollywood. I bring my lights and my studio setup. I want to differentiate myself from just a pure journalistic photographer. I want to be a documentary photographer but I also want to document their faces and their bodies against a plain background so we have quite a lot of equipment.

Then we were told we’ll be going with a woman named Dr. Barbara Zimmerman. She sent us this picture of herself. And we ended up in Maraba, which is in the Amazon. We had to drive for six hours to Tucumã, the closest town in the north of the Kayapo lands. And on the way there, you drive through a landscape that looks like this. I thought it looked beautiful. It was very pretty. But basically it's all cut down rainforest. So, Barbara kept on telling me, No, this is ugly, horrible. This is what cut down rainforests look like. This is the enemy right here. And this is where we went. You see Brazil, and you see the green area. All that area is indigenous territory. It's a huge territory that they have. It's about a quarter the size of France. Or the same size as South Korea. It’s actually the largest piece of protected rain forest in the world. Protected as long as they protect it. As soon as you leave Tucumã, which is right on the border of the land, you fly over the rainforest and-- Our first village was called Kendjam and right next to Kendjam is this beautiful rock that just comes out of the rainforest. This is an aerial view of the village. I feel like it's out of a movie. It couldn't be any prettier. This setting.

The Kayapo warrior culture where young men at an early age would learn how to fight and kill. They were only pacified in the late sixties while other indigenous groups around they were already pretty much vanished, a lot of the neighboring tribes. But because they had this strong warrior culture, they even raided each other's villages. There's stories where I met one chief, Pukatire. His village was raided when he was about 5-6 years old, and he was taken hostage by other Kayapo and grew up with a different Kayapo family. And his mother was killed in front of his eyes. They’re a very fierce warrior culture. I think that's the main reason they're still around today.

This is now the beginning of our first real day. The men were going hunting, we asked if we could go along. This is Ynhire, my favorite person I met in Kayapo lands, because he’s very traditional, very tough and hardworking. He’s constantly doing something while we’re driving the boat down to a spot. He's shooting at fish with a bow and arrow. Then we pull up at the sandbank and he starts digging and pulls out these little grubs for fishing, it turns out. They keep on digging and digging. Take out a lot of turtle eggs. They took all of them out and put one back in. It's in their culture to always leave one egg behind. So with that grub, it took him five minutes to catch this fish. This piranha. They’re not good for eating, so he would cut it up and use it as bait for other fish.

This is Okêt. They wear their traditional bead jewelry. 2010 I think was the last World Cup. So they incorporate elements from Brazilian culture into their jewelry. He was excited. He heard a wild pig. There he shot this. And they just use tree bark to tie the animal up. He doesn't have any red paint on his legs, but oftentimes they put red paint on their legs before they go into the jungle because that way they can find their way home easier. The red paint stays behind on leaves and grasses. And while we were maybe in the jungle, Ynhire by himself caught all this fish maybe in one hour and a half. With that one piranha he caught earlier. Whenever you come out of the jungle, everybody goes swimming. The mahogany boat paddle turns into a plate. For lunch. So he then cut up the pig in different pieces and then traded with Ynhire part of the pig for some fish. They had so much food, so many fish and fruits that it felt like they couldn't even eat it all. I’ve seen rotting bananas. Fish laying around, papayas. The food was so plentiful. I've never seen anything like it. They still have bows and arrows but, ever since they encountered the first white people, the first thing they got was shotguns which are obviously a lot easier to hunt with.

Older people are allowed to get money from the Brazilian government if you’re over a certain age, which is hard to prove because none of them have a passport or any ID cards. But that’s a way to get a little bit of money and they buy shotgun shells with it. The hunter who shot the pig, his wife has a pet pig at home. So-- It was quite ironic. When they shoot a mother that has a baby, and the baby doesn't die, they take the baby home, and raise the baby pigs as pets. And while we were gone, the women were sitting right next to the men's house hanging out, practicing a dance. The great chief Ropni had agreed to meet us in Kendjam, in his village, Metuktire. But he said he'd come up to meet us with Mekaron, old friends of Barbara's.

So it turns out these women were practicing a dance for his arrival. This little baby already has his huge earlobe pierced out right after they're born. And that was Day one, pretty much. It was a long day. This was our dinner. I skipped the eye.

The women said they'd take us out into the jungle. They've all worn these dresses for the last 40 years. They have them custom made, they have their own style that they like. They trade beads, fruit and other things to get these dresses. This is my other favorite subject. You can see why. Some of them still have traditional wooden boats, then they have metal boats that they got from the Brazilian government. It's a mixture of cultures coming together in these villages. Plastic and metal. The women are as hardworking as the men. Everybody has their job. They always take one or two men with them when they go into the jungle so somebody has a shotgun in case an animal comes, a jaguar. But for the most part, it's like twenty women, maybe one or two guys. The boat's engine broke down so we had to wait for them at the river and it doesn’t take long. And they're just settled in. Anywhere in the jungle they're as at home as at home. You know, they start smoking... or cutting their hair. The babies always come with their mothers no matter where they go, all the time. And this young girl climbing a tree with a big machete in her hand. Very good idea to send a six, seven year old up a tree with a machete. What she does is she cuts out Açaí, which is a berry that was very popular here. After pomegranate, I think before coconut water. It’s supposedly very high in antioxidants and they grow in the wild so they harvest a lot of it. They peel a lot of bark off trees. Sometimes you wonder if that's such a good idea. They strip many trees for many different purposes.

It was so nice to see that after one day everybody was so comfortable with us because we made a donation for each village we went to. And we had two groups before over the last four-five years. And both times the money went to the men. So the men got to decide with that money. This time it was the women's turn. So the women were extremely friendly to us. Normally as a man, it's hard in these cultures to make a connection with the women.

On that day, we were expecting Ropni. Together with Mekaron, he's the most famous Kayapo chief. After Ropni showed up, this older lady came up to him and they started crying hysterically. I was not prepared for it. They literally started to wail and I learned later it’s a traditional crying ceremony, so when you see each other again after a couple of years you start crying hysterically to remember the people that you have lost that you both have known. It went on for literally five, ten minutes. And then somebody else comes and they cry again. It was very moving. It was very moving. Then everybody's being greeted. They line up and everybody comes, says hello to this chief. All the way on the right is Mekaron, who lives outside of Kayapo lands. He speaks very good Portuguese and he was also instrumental in getting the Kayapo land demarcated. It's tradition that when the new chief comes the whole village gathers in the men’s house, but a lot of the men were out of town. They were at a soccer tournament up the river.

The Kayapo are actually quite vain. They love looking at themselves. They videotape themselves, they photograph themselves, they photograph their ceremonies. Some of them have TVs. They watch their own ceremonies over and over again. So they love looking at pictures. And then we set up our studio in the schoolhouse. And I started taking some portraits. I love the contrast of the glasses with their face paint. And they have two different kinds of paint. The black one which stains your skin and it takes about two weeks to come off. And the red one is more oil-based and rubs off very easily. Their sense of style is amazing. This red paint with blue feathers is spectacular. And then you have the Brazilian flag on his arm. And he's wearing a necklace made out of river pearls.

In the background you see that rock on the right side that you saw in the beginning. We climbed that rock. And then you get up on it, and one of the Kayapo pulls out his cell phone. And you’re just, Oh, my God, this is wild, but-- They don't have any cell phone service. So where they are, they don't talk with them. But I guess they get them really cheap and they use them. They have songs on them. They use them as cameras. They take a lot of pictures of themselves and other people with their phones.

They were pacified in the sixties. And in the seventies they started having contact with the outside world. Ropni led a couple of raids against rubber tappers, missionaries, farmers. Anyone infringing on territory he thought was Kayapo lands. And in the process they killed a lot of intruders because it was such a headache for the Brazilian government killing all these intruders that in the 80s with the help of Sting, James Cameron and other groups, they were given this big piece of land. While their neighbors have these tiny little parts, they have this huge territory. And there's only 7,000 Kayapo.

Our next village, our last village, Turedjam is right on the edge of their land. This bridge was built a couple of years ago by the Brazilian government. They decided on settling there. It wasn't a Kayapo village, but the Kayapo wanted to be closer to the outside world and start a new village. And because they're Brazilians, they can vote in local elections. Whenever there's elections coming up, they make new demands, so-- One of their first demands was that they build them a bridge. So those 300 people voted for this local official and they got their bridge. Because they have a bridge, and they're close to Tucumã, the village where we started, they even have taxis coming to this village. A couple of years later, a new election was coming around and they demanded electricity. They're hooked up to the grid. This is their men's house. It's even lit at night. It was pitch-black in the other villages. As opposed to the outside world the jungle there looks more like what you'd expect with these tall trees, this old-growth tree. I liked their jungle better than in Kendjam or Metuktire because they had this grand feel to it. They know how to find some vines to get water when they're thirsty.

So, they're still very much in touch with their culture. And their traditions. As long as you can walk, you're doing some kind of work, there's no such thing as retirement at a certain age. There's always somebody getting painted no matter were you go, any time of the day. Young and old. Kids looked like they were suffering. Some people you can only paint when they're sleeping.

There was a lot more chubby people in this village. Their closeness to a supermarket has its effect and some even had a fridge. There were some TVs. Mind-boggling was that Ecuadorian traders had come by and sold them DVDs with people dressed like Sioux Indians playing flutes. They bought these DVDs and they were running 24/7. They were looking at people dressed like Sioux Indians playing flutes and drums. He's still practicing with his war club. The traditional Kayapo weapon is not a bow and arrow. It's a club. That's what Ropni used on a lot of white guys too. They picked up the bow and arrow from neighboring tribes. You see these guys looking like this, watching a soccer game. And a couple of hours later they looked like this. Getting ready for a naming ceremony.

We got very lucky. There was a whole other village visiting. Because in this new village they wanted to show off what a great party they can have. What a great ceremony. They prepared for months for this naming ceremony that goes on for days. And they invited the neighboring village to join them. So there was a lot of people getting dressed up. That was very fortunate. Suddenly, they would dance and run off into the jungle. Stay in the jungle for half an hour. This is a young boy that’s about to get a name.

A couple of days later. They had to dance the same dance for 24 hours. They were going in a circle. It gets darker and darker. In the middle of the night, they’re still dancing. Then they started to take some breaks. The whole village sets up tents. And sleeping bags. They start camping around. Alcohol is strictly forbidden. All the Kayapo chiefs put a big ban on alcohol. So we didn't see one drunk Kayapo, luckily. But they love their soda. It felt like at a tailgating party. The older people start sleeping. And some people totally pass out. This little boy is getting his name by his grandfather. The man on the right is his grandfather. And then everybody goes home.

So here comes a little video so you see a little bit about how these people move.

People still know? The people - our people still know. They know the war dances and the war songs. Oh. Ah!