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Kendjamour next frontier in jungle angling
Untamed Angling photos
K E N D J A M I S A small Kayapó community located deep in Brazil’s isolated Mekragnoti Indigenous Territory. It is the largest native preserve and home to the most isolated and untouched tribes left in the Amazon. It also surrounds the fantastic, pristine, 430 mile-long Rio Iriri which, until recently, had never before been fished by white people.
Kendjam is an environmental treasure that’s been kept isolated, unexplored to any extent, and unblemished for centuries by the Kayapó.
In a partnership nearly identical to that which Untamed Angling developed with the Tsimane and Marié Indigenous peoples of Bolivia and Brazil, and under the protective wing of FUNAI (Brazil’s National Foundation for Indian Affairs), we are about to explore the Iriri for the first time with a fly rod.
These plans are being undertaken with the full Kayapó support, in the hope that their fish-rich river will help them gently enter the modern world. It is a project that has been well under- way for two years while each of the nearly 700 natives living in this vast territory was found and consulted.
Should we be as successful as we anticipate in our exploration of their untouched fishery, Untamed Angling and the Kendjam/Kayapó Nation will proceed in developing a new jungle lodge, expected to be fully operational by the Fall, 2016 season. It’s the first time they have embraced non-Indian society,
An invitation
We here at The Fly Shop invite you to be among the very few anglers who will have ever been allowed in this part of the world and, if our efforts are successful and the river is all we expect it to be, to join us in next fall (2016) and experience what we hope will be the next fly fishing jungle jackpot.
KENDJAM EXPLORATORY trips were developed as a reconnaissance vehicle to further our understanding of the clear Iriri waters, give anglers a view of the potential of the unexplored Kendjam fishery, while simultaneously helping us become more familiar with the social customs of the Kendjam Nation, and introducing the Kayapó warriors to sportfishing.
This is a nation that has beaten back ranch- ers, gold miners, missionaries, fur trappers, and famously stopped a dam.
Now all the tribes of the Iriri have put away sometimes fractious relationships and joined forces in an effort to take control of their future in a most logical way, by capitalizing on their own skills, fishing knowledge, expanding their universe to slowly include capitalism and free enterprise, and exploiting the ridiculous wishes of others from the “outside world” to catch the fish in their river and then let them go.
The Kayapó are going to be more than land- lords, and plan on being active participants in the development, use, and protection of their fishery and environment. They will be involved in guiding and welcome the prospect of inter- acting with anglers and advancing their lan- guage and social skills. At the same time, the project is very sensitive to the preservation of their ancestral rainforest culture.