Tribe (known in the USA as Going Tribal) Going is a British documentary television series co-produced by the BBC and the Discovery Channel in which Bruce Parry — a former British Royal Marine — visits a number of remote tribes, spending a month living and interacting with each society.
The series originally aired in the UK on BBC 2 from 3 January, 2005 to 25 September, 2007. There are 15 hour-long episodes in three seasons.
Tribe premiered in South Africa on DStv's BBC Prime (and later BBC Knowledge) channel on Sunday 11 June 2006, at 21h00. See "Seasons" below for seasonal broadcast dates and times.
Season 3 premiered on BBC Knowledge on Friday 26 June 2009, at 21h30. There are six episodes in the third and final season.
Season 1
Many of the Earth's oldest cultures, traditions and skills are on the point of being lost forever, as Western influence takes over.
Former Royal Marine officer Bruce Parry journeys to some of the remotest corners of the globe to live alongside indigenous people.
He sets out not just to observe, but to experience the lives of others. In doing so, he is tested to the limit.
There is a strong emphasis on hunting and the rituals of the warrior, as he learns how to survive using bows, arrows, blowpipes, dogs, spears, traps, snares and clubs.
And he must cook and eat his catch using traditional methods such as hot stones, waxy leaves and bamboo pots.
Bruce also braves the local poison, whether it is recreational or ritualistic.
When he stays with the forest people of Central Gabon, he is initiated into their spiritual wisdom by eating the powerful, hallucinogenic Iboga root, which causes three days of strong physical and emotional effects.
And, with the Sanema of the Amazon, he attempts to become a shaman, by taking a massive overdose of a psychoactive tree bark, blasted up his nose through a blowpipe.
Bruce also examines the effect of the western world on these hidden pockets of humanity. How is our medicine, religion, and way of life changing remote cultures?
Modern clothing, technology and medicine can radically improve lives. But equally, contact with the West can devastate the environment on which local people depend; Western religion and weapons can disrupt ancient cultures and fuel rivalry and violence.
Will contact with the modern world destroy these cultures? And what can we learn from them?
Season 2
Former Royal Marine officer and expedition leader Bruce Parry sheds the trappings of a Western existence and lives alongside indigenous people, adopting their methods and practices.
Taking adventure into a whole new realm, Parry goes hunting, cooking and eating with the local communities and tries their local recreational and ritualistic traditions.
He also examines the way in which western influence is encroaching on these remote areas and asks whether this is a good thing.
In Season 2 he travels to the so-called 'Cradle of Mankind', the Omo Valley in Southern Ethiopia, to live with different tribes such as the Bume, a proud flamboyantly dressed, cattle-herding people armed with Kalashnikovs, and the Danssenach on the shores of Lake Turkana where Bruce takes part in his biggest challenge yet - a night-time crocodile hunt, armed with just a wooden harpoon.
Season 3
In this third season of extreme tribal adventures, explorer and expedition leader Bruce Parry experiences amazing cultures from around the world.
Bruce believes there is only one way to understand a different culture - to immerse you in it completely.
In previous seasons Bruce has lived with cannibals in New Guinea and taken life-threatening jungle potions in the jungles of Central Africa.
Now, he pushes the boundaries of immersive anthropology with more journeys to the ends of the Earth and the people who live there.
This third season finds Bruce undertaking six long expeditions to the world's most remote, untouched and flamboyant people.
Tribes featured in the season include the Matis of the Amazon, whose first contact with modern man was only 40 years ago, the Nenet reindeer herders of Siberia, the devout Buddhist Layap tribe of Himalayan kingdom Bhutan, and the inhabitants of the tiny, isolated South Pacific island Anuta.
Episodes
SEASON 1
Episode 1: Lost Tribe - The Adis (India)
Bruce spends four weeks with the Adi people, who live in Arunachal Pradesh in the Himalayas, a remote corner of India.
As well as participating in sacrificial ceremonies with the tribe of former warriors who were cut off from civilization for centuries, Parry tries the local delicacies: the flesh of the prized "toilet pigs" and "rat cake".
Episode 2: Dangerous Game - The Suri (Ethiopia)
Bruce goes to live with the Suri tribe of southwest Ethiopia and takes part in the fierce stick fights that are at the heart of Suri culture. These fights, called donga, have traditionally been used to settle scores between villages, and to keep order.
But the system is increasingly threatened by the invasion of guns. No longer are the elders looked to for permission that a donga can take place — with a bullet, retribution can be swift, and fatal.
Episode 3: Living With Cannibals (Indonesia)
Bruce is deep in unexplored jungle as he travels to West Papua to meet a tribe rumored to be cannibals. The Kombai people are hunter-gatherers, with no history of living in villages, and still use stone tools.
They're not bad with bow and arrow either, as Bruce discovers when he is suddenly surrounded by locals, all with arrow tips pointing at him.
Episode 4: African Vision Quest (Gabon)
Bruce faces one of his toughest tests as he is inducted into Bwiti, a rainforest religion practiced by the Babongo people of Gabon. He's right to be worried — on occasion the ritual, which involves consuming an overdose of a powerful hallucinogenic, iboga, has proved fatal.
This dramatic episode follows Bruce's build-up to the ceremony as he goes hunting, collecting forest honey and spends time getting to know his new friends, before they judge the time is right for his "rebirthing" ritual.
Episode 5: Horse Masters Of Mongolia (Mongolia)
Bruce travels to Mongolia to meet the nomadic Darhad people. The family he stays with follows a tradition of herding through steep valleys to find grazing for their cattle, sheep and horses, which has continued for centuries. And they also have satellite TV.
But with no roads, horseback is the best way to travel, and though Bruce has never ridden, he is soon coming to grips with a new mount — at least until he loses it.
Episode 6: Waking The Spirits (Venezuela)
Bruce learns the secrets of the spirits when he joins the Sanema, a group of indigenous people who live in the Upper Caura region of Venezuela, to discover the strange dual-reality world in which they live.
The Sanema believe spirits dwell in everything — the river, the rocks and the animals around them — in a world as real to them as the jungle they live in. And their shamans can commune with such spirits through the use of hallucinogenic snuff.
Now Bruce faces the task of training as a shaman to get an insight into their experiences.
SEASON 2
Episode 7: Return to Africa
Bruce returns to southwest Ethiopia to visit the Suri tribe, his hosts during Season 1.
After an emotional reunion with old friends, Bruce announces his intention to travel south through the Omo Valley to visit the Nyangatom people, arch enemies of the Suri. The Nyangatom, also known as the Bume, are one of the most feared Omo tribes.
To truly become one of the Nyangatom, Bruce must prove himself and become a member of the Ibex - the warrior class.
Episode 8: Rites of Passage - The Hamar
Bruce visits the Hamar people, who live in the fertile hills of southwest Ethiopia. Their culture is rich, too, and the tribe is known for its spectacular celebrations, dancing and adornments.
The tribe invites Bruce to participate in a male initiation ceremony. If he successfully runs and jumps over the backs of cattle four times, he will be considered a Hamar man and able to marry.
Bruce lives with another initiate and his family as they get ready for the ceremony. With two weeks until the jump, he has a lot to learn and little time to practice if he is to pass this test of nerve and athletic skill.
Episode 9: Crocodile Hunting
Bruce arrives at the shores of Lake Turkana, in Ethiopia's Omo Valley. This area is home to the Dassanech fishermen.
Unlike the other groups of the valley, the Dassanech don't live as cattle herders. They fish for giant Nile perch and hunt crocodile and hippo in the lake and river delta.
Bruce is adopted as a son by the charismatic Abranetch. She is central to village life and to Bruce's time with the Dassanech. He is introduced to their different clans, amongst them the rainmaker, scorpion and crocodile peoples.
Bruce joins them in the deadly business of hunting huge crocodiles with a wooden harpoon.
SEASON 3
Episode 10: Hunting with the Jaguar Tribe
The Matis people of the Amazon are finding their place in the world just forty years after first contact with the West.
As with many isolated cultures, first contact was a devastating experience. Around 60 percent of their population was wiped out by common western diseases to which they had no immunity.
Bruce joins the Matis for a month in their village in the remote Vale of Javari, in the Western Amazon, near the border with Peru. They live in a highly protected indigenous reserve surrounded by an almost impenetrable border of red tape.
Bruce learns to be a Matis hunter, undergoing a series of tests to toughen him up - he's whipped with sticks, has excruciatingly painful tree sap dropped into his eyes to improve his vision, learns to hunt monkeys with a 12-foot blow-pipe and finally takes a powerful frog toxin to purge his system.
This, inevitably, is a brutal process. Bruce is burnt with smouldering arrows on his upper arms and the blistered skin is smeared with frog toxin.
Bruce is then free to join the men on a real hunt, rampaging through the forest in search of wild pig and spider monkey.
Episode 11: Nomads of the Siberian Tundra
Bruce joins a brigade of Nenet reindeer herders on the remote Yamal Peninsula in Northern Siberia, for their annual winter migration. The brigades follow their vast herds of reindeer (8,000 animals) south as winter pushes down the peninsula.
There is a timeless beauty to this bi-annual movement of people. The Nenets live entirely off their reindeers, moving their skin tents every other night as the herds move to new pastures.
For more than a month, Bruce wore reindeer skin clothes, ate reindeer meat and drank reindeer blood.
In one of his toughest expeditions yet, Bruce and a small team lived with a Nenet brigade for around six weeks, eating and travelling as they did. The brigades travel over 400km in the permanent twilight of the Arctic Autumn. Temperatures reach 40 degrees Centigrade below and blizzards scour the landscape.
Episode 12: Lost Island of Anuta
Bruce sails to the island of Anuta, a tiny, remote tropical outpost in the South Pacific. It is one of the most isolated communities on Earth - 75 miles from its nearest neighbour (four days sailing).
Due to its extreme remoteness, Anuta is one of the most intact Polynesian cultures remaining on earth. Two hundred and fifty Anutans inhabit a beautiful island just a half mile wide. They are an ocean-going culture, still capable of navigating great distances by the stars.
The men fish with hand lines from traditional out-rigger canoes for sharks and marlin. They dive on the reef for lobster and collect shellfish at low tide. The women cultivate every available patch of land with taro, manioc and bananas.
To the Western eye it looks like paradise - white beaches, turquoise sea, swaying palm trees. But what is life like for the people who inhabit paradise? Bruce spent six weeks finding out.
Episode 13: Life in the African Bush: The Akie
Bruce lives with the Akie people of Tanzania. The Akie are hunter-gatherers who live on the African plains. They hunt with small bows and poisoned arrows, forage for food and raid bees nests in huge baobab trees for highly prized honey.
The Akie are one of the few Savannah-based hunter-gather groups left in Africa. Unlike their neighbours, the Masai, they own no cattle and so rely completely on their landscape for food and shelter.
They are a secretive people, feared for their magic and their mystical relationship with their environment. Their story is one of survival - their traditional hunting grounds are being taken by big game hunters and it is becoming increasingly difficult to kill enough meat for their families.
Bruce joins the increasingly hungry Akie as they seek to live off the land and kill a kudu. Bruce is forced to face his biggest fear and put his hand into a bees nest to gather wild honey.
Episode 14: Ghosts of the Forest
Bruce travels to Sarawak, Borneo, to live with the Penan people. The Penan are nomadic hunter-gatherers whose forest home is in the process of being cut down around them.
It is an intensely personal journey for Bruce, who has longed to make this film ever since he travelled through Borneo as a young man.
The journey takes him deep into the forest in search of the last nomadic Penan. As the forest recedes around them, many Penan have been forced to abandon their traditional way of life and settle in government-built villages.
But deep in the jungle, the last Penan are still living as they have for thousands of years, hunting wild pigs with blow pipes and moving silently through the trees.
The journey proceeds without government permission as the authorities are hostile towards anyone telling the story of the Penan.
Episode 15: Journey to the Clouds: Bhutan
Bruce treks for ten days into the high mountains in the tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan where he stays for a month with the isolated Layap people. They are devout Buddhists and yak herders, cut off from the outside world for half the year by deep snow.
Bruce lives a life of unrelenting hardness, herding with the men in the high pastures and wrestling yaks to the ground to push salt into their stomachs, struggling for breath in the thin air at over 17,000 feet.
It is a spiritual journey for Bruce, as the community's astrologer reads his birth chart and tells him he's an emotional disaster, and his destiny is to be re-incarnated as a monkey.
Bruce studies the four noble truths and ultimately learns a lesson of humility after an epic three-day attempt to drive his yak train across a snow-covered pass in the high mountains.
Seasons
(All seasons aired exclusively on BBC Prime/BBC Knowledge)
Season 1 (6 episodes)
Premiere: 11 June 2006 | Finale: 16 July 2006 | Sundays, 21h00
Season 2 (3 episodes)
Premiere: 13 April 2009 | Finale: 14 April 2009 | Monday, Tuesday
Season 3 (6 episodes)
Premiere: 26 June 2009 | Finale: 31 July 2009 | Fridays, 21h30