"In 2002, National Geographic asked journalist Scott Wallace to chronicle the trip of a 34-man team to search for the perimeters of a people known as the flecheiros — or the Arrow People.

The Unconquered is the story of the team's paradoxical quest: to study the Arrow People without coming into contact with them, for the safety of the explorers and the tribe.

"They are known as tenacious defenders of their land," Wallace tells NPR's Scott Simon. "People who have tried to enter their territory have been repelled with poison-tipped arrows. There was no way they could understand our presence in their land as anything other than a hostile intrusion, although we would leave a gift here and there — cooking pots, machetes, ax heads — [to] demonstrate our peaceful intentions.""

Get the Story:
'Unconquered' Explores An Isolated Amazon Tribe (NPR 11/26)

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