You're welcome. By about the 90's, the world started growing pretty concerned how much rainforest was being burnt down in Amazonas. I'm glad Brasil now has FUNAI to try and serve some of the needs of Indigenous people, though the amount of territory FUNAI oversees is understaffed, predictably, as the Amazon is huge. A tribe I was staying with in a different Amazonian region had just lost a huge number of members due to malaria a week before I arrived. All the burning of the jungle had caused mosquitos to suddenly concentrate in their territory and thrown ecology out of whack. This tribe- a ways from Maranhao where Aure and Ara hail from, consider the jaguar their ancestor-its a revered important animal central to their culture. I wondered if Jaguar was as important to their tribe, or what to interpret from him including in his story he kept telling.

Knowing how tribes started being massacred by mining companies, narco-traffickers, yet even more importantly settlers seeking land grants, his words and even the machete story make perfect sense. The Brasilian government had started giving settlers land, as long as they cleared it (the clearing being done via fire, and had at least 1 cow to make it official). The many beards, ie any of the above, who make a loud noise, ie gunfire, and the presence of smoke, which could be from intentionally set fires (s) fit perfectly as a retelling of the usual Indigenous v forces of progress in Amazonas tale.

The cow is a major clue, and he seems to understand that these strange other people had cows. It almost seemed to me as if he was relaying that the birds were making a racket when they approached. The fact that he's talking of many of his people dying makes sense that they could quite possibly have been murdered. What this doc fails to explain to people is that #1 there wasn't always a FUNAI trying to preserve Indigenous people, and #2, that there had been many Natives murdered-it just gave the brief mention of iron and the railroad. I'm not sure why he's mentioning the wild boar, but they are seen as THE fiercest and most dangerous wild animal. There must be a reason he's mentioining the jaguar as well.

As someone who has spent significant time in the Amazon with tribes and understands competing forces there, these are my 2 cents. Disclaimer-I did NOT spend time in the specific area these 2 were found in.