Welcome to Unexplained Extra, with me, Richard McClaim Smith.

Where for the weeks in between episodes, we look at the stories that for one reason or

other didn't make it into the show.

In last week's episode, always already, we found ourselves journeying deep into the

Amazonian rainforest with the Mayeruna tribe and acclaimed photojournalist Lauren McIntyre.

McIntyre had travelled into the forest in the hope of making contact with the tribe,

only to find himself hopelessly lost and unable to return to his camp.

Only after an epic three weeks, living side by side with the Mayeruna, during which he

believed he might be communicating telepathically with their chief, did McIntyre finally succeed

in finding a way out.

To some, that McIntyre had taken it on himself to locate the tribe in the first place might

smack of a certain kind of arrogance that speaks to a bygone age of colonial self-importance.

Certainly, McIntyre's ambition to be the first to photograph these people took precedent

over the tribe's evident desire to avoid all contact without ciders.

Though McIntyre had never intended to intrude in their lives quite to the degree in which

he claimed to have done, the notion of wanting to make contact with such a self-isolating

community remains an immensely complicated one.

For the Mayeruna, as it transpired, when they were first contacted in 1969, after living

in relative isolation since 1910, they were grateful for it.

The word Mayeruna translates to people of the river.

After getting embroiled in skirmishes with the Peruvian government, they had been forced

to leave the Riverside lands where they thrived and moved deeper into the jungle.

...