- Hi, I'm Les Stroud, host and creator of "Beyond Survival".
Within the scope of filming this series, I circled the globe eight times in 10 months, I was never not in a state of jet lag, to embed myself with cultures who still either live close to the Earth or engage in practices meant to keep their connection to the Earth.
It was a chance to stretch my own skills and beliefs beyond what I knew, beyond survival.
In many cases, I had to come to these cultures in a state of humility, offering a gift and seeking permission to take part in their lives to experience life as they knew it.
I went in without pretense, without presumption, without agenda and left myself completely in their care so that I was open to learning their ways, hunting, fishing, eating, sleeping, the way that they do.
Sometimes, it was modern-influenced with much connection to the outside world.
And other times, it was near primitive.
In all cases, I was challenged both, in my own well-hone skillsets of survival and wilderness experience, but also, in my own belief system about life itself.
I learned to go beyond the technicalities of hunting and fishing and shelters and fire.
And instead, to dig deeper into what it means to be truly connected to the Earth in profound ways, to go beyond survival.
(suspenseful music) I'm being very, very quiet as we go through.
That last bit of grass, I just pointed out and they pointed out to me was... (group faint talking) (suspenseful music) Recent mess made by elephants.
(suspenseful music) It's kind of spooky just, going right through the jungle, knowing that there could be elephants just about anywhere.
They just keep showing me elephant track after elephant track.
And they're fresh.
(intense suspenseful music) I'm Les Stroud.
I'm on a mission to seek out the true masters of survival, the last indigenous people from around the world.
(intense suspenseful music) Before they're gone.
(intense suspenseful music) Before the past is lost.
Before their world vanishes.
I can learn their ways.
(folk and rock-infused music) (pensive music) (folk music) Sri Lanka is an island and nation in South Asia, located 30 kilometers off the southern tip of India.
(folk music) Sri Lankans believe that the island is home to millions of demons, often spreading disease and chronic affliction through acts of Black Magic.
This obsession with demons has existed for over 2,500 years.
To be cured from demon possession, you have to do a devil dance exorcism.
(folk music) I'm on a journey to connect with two cultures obsessed with Black Magic, the Singhalese fishermen and the mysterious tribe called the Vedda.
Direct descendants of the original Stone Age inhabitants of Sri Lanka.
The Vedda are believed by some to be half human, half demon, themselves.
I'm here to learn their secrets of survival and take part in their devil dance to experience their demons while exercising my own.
(man grunting) These skilled men are anxious to share with me the survival technique, rarely, if ever seen, to an outsider, fishing with poison.
I don't know how many leaves or roots we're going to need, but apparently, it's a little bit of a concoction.
(rhythmic folk music) (men faintly speaking) - Kokudo, kokudo.
- Kokudo?
- Kokudo.
- Okay.
(folk music) Has a real minty smell to it.
It's called kokudo, part of the poison concoction, for killing fish.
(folk music) Collecting the kokudo was easy, but now we have to harvest the most dangerous element of the poisonous mix.
Apparently, the poison from this tree is so powerful that they won't let me try this.
If I get some on my skin, I get a horrible rash.
And if I get any my eyes... (men faintly speaking in foreign language) Like I just did.
I just got some on my skin.
If I get it in my eyes, I'll go blind, so.
I'm gonna back up a bit.
(folk music) (men speaking in foreign language) They're being really careful here.
This is very poisonous.
I wonder how many people are messed up and lost their eyesight because they've had this splashed into them?
They tell me that if you get this in your eye, it kind of forms a web over your eyeball, and so you can go blind.
You can't use it anymore.
For them, how they relate it is, it simply means, that they can't go hunting.
(folk music) I can just tell by the look on somebody's face and the look on their face, when I had the poison on my fingers, they weren't kidding around.
They were like, get it off your finger, get it off your finger now.
Wipe it on the grass.
They've had members of the tribe go blind from it, so, must be some pretty strong poison.
(suspenseful music) (folk music) Back to uh, back to betel nut breaking up.
Chewing the betel nut.
(folk music) (men speaking in foreign language) Some of them actually have these little contraptions for munching up the betel nut and the lye and the leaf.
I don't know what does originally would have been used for, but it's certainly perfect for this right now.
(Les speaking in foreign language) (folk music) Mouth is going numb again.
At this point, I think I'd rather have a smoke.
(folk music) (men speaking in foreign language) Oh yeah.
(Les speaking in foreign language) (folk music) I think I just swallowed some.
Ah, it's fun being on the verge of puking.
Yeah, I like it.
(speaking in foreign language) Oh.
(scoffs) (folk music) Union break.
(folk music) To call each other through the bush, it's really a simple grunt that they make from a distance so they can hear each other.
(grunts) (men grunting) This is another poison called Kaluwara.
(suspenseful music) (metal banging) By chopping the bark away, we gather the soft insides of the Kaluwara tree.
The fibers of the tree are a key ingredient in making the poison.
You also have to dig down to unearth the roots.
They need this whole root of this tree to mix with the other four ingredients before they have the right poison concoction that'll work on the fish.
(suspenseful music) While gathering the poison for fishing, the Vedda we're distracted by the possibility of finding honey.
All right, they're just watching the bees that are flying, checking out the direction of the bees and that's classic honey hunting, same way it's done all around the world.
You watch the bees.
Bees will fly in a straight line.
They don't curve around.
They go in a straight line from the hive to where they're collecting their pollen.
(suspenseful music) We've caught a distinct line of honeybees coming and going from a distant hive.
And we embark on miles of searching to see if we can be led back to the honey.
(suspenseful music) By following the bee's flight path, we're led straight to the hive.
Honey hunting is as old as the Vedda's culture itself, being reported by the first colonial explorers who encountered the Vedda tribe in the early 1500's and their honey is notoriously good.
The Veddas are fearless as they approach the hive.
For them, honey is not only their favorite food, it's a valuable bartering item in the market.
(folk music) This is a whole new method here, okay?
So they're not actually even smoking them out.
He's just blowing in, up the tree.
Do the bees, do the bee sting?
(metal banging) Yes?
Okay, then.
The bees sting.
(metal banging) All we're doing to calm the bees and keep them from swarming us is gently blowing on them.
Perhaps, it's the peaceful energy and the Vedda confidence and calmness that's transferred to the bees, lulling them into a non-aggressive stance.
(folk music) (men faintly speaking) Whatever it is, it's working.
There we go, look at that.
Sweet.
(folk music) (lips smacks) Hmm.
(men speaking in foreign language) This is only done two or three times a year.
Let the combs rebuild.
Got bees going up my pants.
(bees buzzing) It was really interesting to do it without using any smoke at all, just blowing on it and putting my hand in and pulling it out.
Never would have thought that was even possible.
(pensive music) (men faintly speaking) Right now, the oldest is offering some of the honey to the bees that- (men chattering) So he's doing an offering right now over the freshly gathered combs.
Time is taken to honor the bees.
And we even close the hole back to protect the bees from weather and allow them to rebuild.
(folk music) This is gonna be good.
(folk music) (men speaking in foreign language) Wow.
(men speaking in foreign language) It's a lot better than betel nut.
Hmm.
Both the main gatherer and myself have received a couple of bee stings, the small cost of a sweet treat.
(men speaking in foreign language) Everybody's having a bit of a piece.
And a lot of it will go back, to the village for those at home.
This is amazing.
After a successful side trip to gather honey, we're back on the path to carry out fishing with natural poison.
And the path here is not as benign as it may seem.
We're still trying to wait and make our way down to the spot where they figure, dropping the poison, but on the way there, some of the trails, obliterated by elephant traffic.
It's also Jaguar, elephant, and sloth bear.
They worry a lot about sloth bears, as well.
Sloth bears have very long sharp claws so, when they do get nasty, they can take your face right off.
(suspenseful music) I'm in the middle of the island of Sri Lanka with the jungle inhabitants called, the Vedda.
We've set to work quickly breaking the fibers of the Kaluwara tree bark, using clubs, axes, and even rocks.
We're preparing the poison.
If somebody in the group as a pregnant wife or girlfriend, the poison won't work.
(ominous music) Preparing the poison in this way as time consuming.
So hopefully, the results in the pond will be quick and effective.
Each ingredient of the poison has to be broken down individually.
And the desired effect is that the poisons will react with each other and with the water, either killing the fish outright or causing them to come to the surface.
(folk music) This young man represents hope for the Vedda people, a youth willing to live the jungle lifestyle, alongside of his grandfather.
(water gushing) This is the spot where we're supposed to do the fishing.
Unfortunately, the water is flowing too much.
It's hit or miss, right?
We've got too much of a flow here, now.
We don't have the stag and still water that we need for fishing.
So they're going to look around and see if there's any pools that we might get lucky in.
Hunting and fishing, that's the way it goes.
It's all about luck.
Survival for these Vedda is as much about luck as it is for anyone else, whether the fish are there or they're not, either the game is there, or it's not.
You can go out hunting for it, you can go out fishing for it, if you can't find the right spot, to hunt your game, or catch your fish, you're outta luck.
So both top and bottom, they've began to dam up this pond here, block it, block the water from coming in at the top and block the fish from getting out at the bottom so that they can make the pool obviously more still and poison the fish.
(suspenseful music) At first, they told me not to even touch the poison because I could go blind, but now they say, jump in the water, and mix the poison in.
What I'm hoping is that it's diluted enough not to affect me.
(suspenseful music) So we're trying hard to get, essentially, the juices out of these roots, so that we can get it into the water.
(suspenseful music) I don't feel anything on my skin, yet, within minutes, the fish begin to react.
That was incredibly fast.
Just within the first few minutes of getting the poison in the water, fish have started float to the surface.
Just little ones, which is all they promised in this little stream anyway, was that we would find small ones, but they're starting to come up already.
The fish react as if the oxygen has been removed from the water.
On their sides or their backs, they struggle to the surface, seemingly searching for air.
We knew, in coming here, that this pond was just going to have little small fish, but sometimes they can do this in ponds and pull out fish like this, with the same poison, same method.
And that's gotta be a real catch when you do that.
(suspenseful music) (stick smacks) This is a lot more active than I thought it was going to be.
The fish don't just plop up to the surface and float there and wait to be picked up, they're actually actively going around and using a stick and whacking 'em as soon as they see them.
One way or the other, they come to the surface, we whack them with a stick.
One of the guys actually caught a real nice fish, about eight inches long, and tossed it across the creek to his buddy here, missed and it went in the water and sunk, and it's gone.
It's the one that got away.
(men faintly speaking in foreign language) (coconut cracks) (folk music) (rhythmic clanking) (folk music) Using flour, shaved coconut and water, they prepare their food in a traditional East Indian style.
During the right time of year, they can catch 50 pounds of fish this way.
And this makes poison fishing a very viable method for feeding large groups of people who work together to make it happen.
(folk music) Today, it's just going to be a quick meal, of small jungle fish.
(folk music) In a few hours, armed only with slingshots and looking for small game, we'll head out into dangerous elephant territory.
(pensive music) We're being very, very quiet, as we go up the road.
That last bit of grass I just pointed out, that they pointed out to me, was a recent mess made by elephants.
It's kind of spooky, just, going right through the jungle, knowing that there could be elephants just about anywhere.
That seems to be their concern, anyway.
And if they think it's something to be concerned about, then I'm concerned about it.
(insects chirping) (suspenseful music) They just keep showing me, elephant track after elephant track and they're fresh.
Nobody's talking, now.
(faint chattering) I've been allowed to come into the home, which is apparently pretty rare and pretty, they had to think about whether or not I could come in, so they had to talk about it and discuss it.
So I'm just being really kind of careful about how I throw this camera around.
If I'm shooting kind of crazy, that's why, but you can see the women behind me there.
And as far as I know, that's the first time a Vedda woman has been photographed or filmed.
(man speaking in foreign language) The inside's very, very, very modest, very humble.
It's just a cement floor or mud floor, mud walls, and an old sort of rickety, beat up bed, and a few things and that's it.
That's fascinating.
See, I was told I was not allowed to actually even see the women, go in the house, keep them away but apparently right now, it doesn't seem to be a problem at all.
Maybe it depends on who you ask.
Well, it's betel nut, time, again.
(suspenseful music) (men speaking in foreign language) We stopped at the one hunter's house to get the gun on and look after.
It's really, really kind of strange to me, (spits), still chewing betel nut, to see them setting up an old Flintlock like that.
And this thing is rusty, rust on the inside of the barrel, rust on the outside.
But, they're taking the time to do it.
(men speaking in foreign language) (suspenseful music) (gun bangs) (pensive music) And they're very nervous about this.
They're also watching out for sloth bears and leopards but right now, it's just elephants that we have to worry about.
That's all.
We've got an elephant up ahead.
(insects chirping) After traveling through extremely dangerous elephant territory, I'm in a place deep in the Sri Lankan jungle that's been used for over thousands of years for hunting and gathering and it's here that the Vedda people will show me their own dark version of the original devil dance.
How do you say, in Vedda, fire?
(man speaking in foreign language) (Les speaking in foreign language) (man chanting) For the modern Senegalese, who live far from here on the coast of Sri Lanka, the devil dance is the means to ward off the evil influence of the thousands of demons that cause illness and even bad luck.
This is also true for the Vedda.
They go a step further.
Their trance is meant to part the veil between worlds so they can gain access to key survival information.
Dancing and singing for hours on end, they'll into a trance and communicate with their demons, know where to find game and wild edibles, to ensure their tribes continued survival in the jungle.
(folk music) (men chanting) Coconut water is used to cleanse the area.
The fire is meant to clarify the air of demons that you don't want before you call in the demons that you do.
The Vedda dance for guidance.
They have no need for masks or costumes.
(men chanting and speaking in foreign language) It's an absolute, incredible difference between the way these Vedda do their devil dance and the Senegalese do their devil dance.
Now, here, it's very crude and very organic and with the Senegalese, it's a very beautiful, colorful, it's really, it's more like performance art, although they believe it very strongly and they utilize it for the exercising of demons and spirits.
This one, crude and rough and dark, and thus, pretty intense.
We're supposed to leave there quickly because of evil spirits and because I'm talking right now with the camera on, I'm the last person on the trail.
I think I'll pick up my pace.
(suspenseful music) (slow pensive music) This one spot here, sort of out in the middle of the Sri Lankan jungle, you really feel like you're touching the past here.
These guys have been out here many times before.
They said, as long as they've known, they've always come here and the always stayed here while they've hunted.
A bit of a height of land.
You've got a good view all the way around.
They also have rock caves that they stayed in, as well, but this was a place where even whole families would come through and plan on staying here.
There's lots of fresh elephant dung, even right up here, right on the top of the rock.
They said that last night, the fire, they kept it big to keep the elephants away.
Those are the guys back there having their morning betel nut.
(folk music) The Vedda's territory has been reduced so much that the loss of traditional hunting grounds means the loss of accessible game, the same story that exists all around the globe for many Aboriginal peoples.
(folk music) I haven't quite put my finger on the Vedda, at all, just yet.
It's tricky to try to understand the Vedda and their way of life.
On the one hand, when I first arrived here, I was extremely skeptical, even to the point of being cynical about what I saw, but since I've had all this time with them, I found that within their own minds and hearts, they are still attempting to live the life they've lived for thousands of years.
They certainly maintain their skillsets.
They can hunt and fish and live on the land and evade bear and snakes and elephants.
But for how much longer can they evade encroachment of civilization?
This is the strangest case of a vanishing culture that I've come upon, yet.
Geographically, the Vedda are only a short drive from the modern world.
And according to the Vedda leader, they've made a conscious decision to avoid cell phones, television, and electricity.
Yet, some areas are already set up now for tourists to come and experience the Vedda culture.
And this brings them dangerously close to becoming a human petting zoo, when all they really want is to live their traditional lifestyle.
But unfortunately, they no longer have the available lands to live it in.
For them to properly and truly hunt, they've got to travel much farther than they are essentially allowed to travel.
(ominous music) It's an old familiar story.
All around the world, it's the same thing.
The Veddas exists, on the brink, of being yet another vanishing culture.
(folk music) If, in the face of encroaching modernization, the Sri Lankan people can keep their belief in demons and practice their unique methods of fishing and hunting, while they discover the technology of the new world, then perhaps, they can continue to enjoy their own rich culture and successfully take it beyond survival.
(folk music) (gushing water) (air swooshing) (upbeat music)