- Goddamn.

We're being very, very quiet as we go through.

That last bit of grass I just pointed out that they pointed out to me was a recent mess made by elephants.

(footsteps crunching) Just kind of spooky just going right through the jungle knowing that there are gonna be elephants just about anywhere.

They just keep showing me elephant track after elephant track, and they're fresh.

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.

Before they're gone Before the past is lost.

Before their world vanishes.

I can learn their ways.

(driving action music) (haunting sitar music) - Sri Lanka is an island nation in south Asia, located 30 kilometers off the Southern tip of India.

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.

(exciting sitar music) I'm on a journey to connect with two cultures, obsessed with black magic, the Sinhalese 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 exorcizing my own.

(fishermen yelling) The culture of the Sinhalese fishermen was decimated when a huge tsunami hit in 2004.

Fish is their primary diet and economy.

In every way, they live off the sea.

Today, I've been invited to help out in what is normally a full community event.

(rhythmic drum music) So they're making one big loop all the way around.

That's about a half a kilometer of fish net that goes out.

One end is already at the shore and then bringing the other end into the shore and then just scoop all the fish in, which is quite a procedure once everybody gets involved.

(man speaking in foreign language) It's a bit of a commonwealth, as far as how the boats go.

Everybody has access to them.

Everybody seems to have access to the nets.

So it's really just a matter of everybody getting together.

These are the people that got seriously wiped out when the tsunami hit.

I'm in a fiberglass boat right now, they used to all be wood, but the tsunami destroyed all of the wood boats pretty much.

So they had to rebuild them all.

They remade them them all as fiberglass.

Same design exactly, just fiberglass instead of wood.

Under this searing tropical sun, life for the Sri Lankan fishermen is becoming extremely difficult.

Fishing has never brought in as much as the country actually needs and provides a meager income for the locals.

In 2000, the total fish catch was estimated at 300,000 tons.

But since the tsunami, they catch nowhere near that much.

Reality is they do this every single day, morning, night, depending on how bad the weather is or how bad the current is, but if they can get out there to do it.

When the tsunami hit, it wiped out so many of the fishermen, there's still a few left, and yet they're the backbone of the devil dancing tradition.

And without them, it's dying away along with a number of other traditions.

I'm here to try and see how much of their culture I can experience of yet.

True to form, it's vanishing quickly.

How long before the net fishing doesn't work at all anymore?

(mysterious drumming music) When community net fishing fails, many of the local fishermen can still put food on the table by stick fishing.

It's an ancient survival method still practiced today.

But with the encroachment of the modern world, it's a skill that's disappearing fast.

Okay, do you keep these sometimes or do you get a new one every time?

- Keep this.

We can use this one, one year.

- Okay, for a year, okay.

- To seven months.

- Another (foreign language)?

- Yeah, another (foreign language).

- Okay.

Sri Lanka itself is covered with demons.

When the British empire came in, that whole belief system was sequestered down at the southwest corner.

Since then, or at least in the last 30 to 40 years, it's also been squished down through globalization to a fine line along the coast.

The final blow and possibly very fatal blow was the tsunami.

International aid flooded into Sri Lanka in the wake of the tsunami.

The result was an influx of wealth for the poor people living in the hardest hit areas.

Aid workers, rebuild homes with indoor plumbing, they paved dirt roads, and even handed out televisions.

And so the horrific tsunami was happily dubbed the golden wave.

With the mismanagement of funds, the existing wealthy Sri Lankans didn't get the same support and many lost everything.

The poor became rich, but the rich became poor.

Almost 40,000 people died in that tsunami, and 28,000 of those killed were fishermen.

Fishermen who believed in demons.

With the wiping out of the fishermen, they were the backbone of the belief system.

They were the ones who still held it as a very strong practice.

Most fishermen kept the belief alive.

Now most of them are gone and no one's taking up the belief system or the practice after them.

Their sons, they aren't doing it.

Once they go, it's gone forever.

(water splashing) It's called (foreign language).

These sticks that they need for putting in the ocean to do the stick fishing comes from the marshlands because it's hard, lasts a long time.

The jungles and coastlands of Sri Lanka, though threatened as much as any natural area on the planet, still offer up the materials needed for survival.

Okay, we can (spitting) son of a, bit me on a lip.

Those suckers hurt when they bit.

Ow, son of a, god, ow.

These ants are all inside my pants.

(knife thudding) The ants are pretty ferocious protecting the tree, that's no doubt.

He's still climbing on me.

He's got some on his legs still.

(droning music) Stick fishing has been practiced around the world for nearly 10,000 years.

It was developed to satisfy the need to extend the range and reach of the human arm without disrupting the ocean waters below.

There was a time when hundreds of fishermen would sit for hours along this coastline, hoping to feed their families with a good catch.

(droning music continues) Fishermen are on their own a lot and fishing can be a dangerous profession.

When you have a dangerous job, you tend to be closer to your gods and your demons.

These men are the backbone of the Sinhalese devil dancing tradition.

Part of the belief that they are most susceptible to demon attacks at dawn, midday, dusk, and midnight, walking down a lonely road, deserted beach, or sitting on your stick fishing pole you can be possessed anywhere if you're alone.

This is another reason why the fishermen will go stick fishing in groups.

There's always safety from demons in numbers.

This is not easy sitting, especially for my bum.

I'm sure these guys have no issues whatsoever with it, and you get pretty used to it when you grow up with it.

It's been an hour or so, hour and a half, still no problems, but also still no fish.

Most of the men who are out here fishing with me are middle-aged and older.

A couple of guys that are younger, but just the same, a lot of this is dying out quickly.

So I was just gonna keep at it, stick fishing for absolutely hours on end.

They'll come out here for as long as three, four or five hours straight and just sit and stick fish often usually through the night, I'll probably stay with them now for another hour or two, or maybe they'll call it, I don't know.

I don't really know how they take it, whether they just say, "Oh, no fish today let's go home," or they wait it out.

All depends on how patient you are as a fisherman.

On the end of this rod, it's just a tiny little piece of led with a tiny little hook on it.

No bait whatsoever, and it's just using it like a lure, just jigging up and down, up and down.

See what we can find.

I'm sure there's been times when just sitting on a stick like this fishing and you see a big old shark come in and coming around.

There's no question that's gonna happen.

That'd be kind of freaky.

(mysterious music) It's time to take my journey farther into the places I can't go physically, a journey into the realm of the Sri Lankan demons.

(droning music) The night's coming in, and in Sri Lanka, that means it's time for demons.

The Singhalese have an elaborate ritual for dealing with demons, after all, it's these demons that cause disease sickness and even personal emotional problems.

(men chanting) The ritual lasts an entire night.

It's the powerful and nearly trance-inducing devil dance.

Before the tsunami, the tradition of devil dancing was already in decline.

And after the tsunami for the first six months, there were no devil dances at all.

Slowly, their tradition is returning, but today the (foreign language), the priest, performs only one or two devil dances per month.

25 years ago, there was a devil dance every single day.

(stirring energetic music) Tonight, they sacrifice a chicken, but centuries ago, their sacrifices were human.

Demons love vice, anything that enslaves the human mind and body.

And in this male dominated women often fall under the category of vice.

So devil dancers dress as women to entice the demons to the exorcism.

(drumming music intensifies) The entertainment part of the dance is meant to keep the 100-plus members of a spellbound audience awake for the entire night.

In this way, it's believed that their combined energy assist the (foreign language) in dealing with the demons possessing the patient.

Devil dancing is a nearly 3,000 year old tradition.

It can be dark and demonic.

Eventually the dancers are successful in enticing six primary demons and 18 apparitions that cause disease.

White masks are for women of high caste, red for bloodthirsty demons, blue for Aboriginal tribes, native gods and deities, black for the men of the Moors.

The sound of the drums becomes hypnotic.

The beat pumps through the patient's body, my body.

Each individual demon is summoned and appears as a masked dancer who then speaks to the (foreign language) priest and agrees he's been causing a problem.

Then the (foreign language) either asks, commands, or tricks the demon into leaving the body of the patient, freeing him or her from the affliction.

(drumming tapers off) (quiet cracking) (vibrant music) The intensity of the constant drumming and dancing is dizzying.

It's a visually stunning display that overloads every sense and the entire ritual is focused on curing me of fears and disease.

My personal devil dance goes on for 12 long hours.

(mysterious ululating music) Leaving the coast, I'm heading deep into the jungle to meet up with the first inhabitants of the island of Sri Lanka, the Vedda.

They not only practice devil dancing, they're considered by Sri Lankans to be half human, half demon.

Originally existing as hunter gatherers, the Vedda use their knowledge and skill of jungle survival to hunt with bow and arrow or slingshot, and to gather wild plants and harvest honey.

They've shown their skills to outsiders before, but no one has been willing to head out with them until now.

A little bit of serendipitous hunting.

They're going to set a trap for a, basically a small game trap, hoping to catch just about anything.

It's classic and gathering.

You've got to go after what you can while you're there.

It's always catch as catch can.

For the Vedda, there's never a wasted moment.

We set traps as we walked through their jungle territory, even while traveling, they're constantly on the hunt for wild game.

Venison, rabbit, tortoise, wild boar and monkey are all considered bushmeat to these jungle-hardened people.

Any game caught is commonly shared amongst the family and clan.

I'm sharing the skillset I've needed to survive in jungles around the world with men who lived this survival every day, and some of them were literally born in a cave.

Their high level of skill is obvious, but modernization is only a stone's throw away from this place, a place where they hunt wild game.

(Vedda chatting in foreign language) The Vedda were stone age until the Portuguese arrived in the early 1500s, and they continued to live in caves right up to 1986.

When the government forced the last of them out and into smaller communities within the last remaining pockets of the Sri Lankan jungle.

They put the traps up around the bush, just sort of around the perimeter of their village whenever they need some bushmeat.

They also will eat yams and things they grow or gather.

And just like any trap anywhere, they've got to come out and check the traps every morning, every night to see whether or not something's in it and whether or not the village eats meat that night.

(gentle flute music) So they definitely incorporate rice into their main diet while they incorporate farming now into their life.

This is relatively new for them, going from having lived in caves not all that long ago, come out, build huts, and now taken up farming.

Things have changed.

The government has taken away much of their land, and that's had a devastating effect on these traditional jungle dwellers.

The oldest Vedda spent most of their lives living in a cave and enjoying the freedom of an expansive jungle territory for hunting and gathering.

But that's no longer.

(insects chirping) Traveling through the center of the island of Sri Lanka, this small group of skilled hunters is taking me from bush skill to bush skill.

After setting a few small traps, we're now on the search to find materials to make a traditional slingshot in a style unique to the Vedda people.

Come a long ways into the jungle here just trying to find the items, the wood that we need to make this slingshot.

You gotta be really careful when you stand still for a moment because the answer in this jungle hurt.

Man, they pack a mean bite.

(vegetation rustling) Through our travels, it becomes obvious to me that the Vedda loved their betel nut, and it's a necessity to ensure the strength of the slingshot we're about to make.

They'll chew on the nut, along with a potent, and in this case, moldy tobacco leaf and add a cream paste made from lime.

For them, it simply replaces smoking cigarettes.

(man speaking in foreign language) You know, no matter how often I do this, the betel nut just doesn't get any better.

The Vedda betel nut mixture packs more of a punch than any other betel nut I've tried in jungles around the world.

(man speaking in foreign language) I think I just got dizzy from the betel nut.

So me and the old guy, we're just gonna chew betel nut while they do the work.

(knife thudding) To stop the betel nuts from overpowering me, their advice is to take more.

(echoing gong music) I'm in the middle of the Sri Lankan jungle with the Vedda, whose culture was one of cave-dwelling and living as hunters and gatherers only a few years ago.

Not wanting to be an outsider.

I've joined them in the chewing of betel nut, along with their tradition of moldy tobacco leaves and the effects hit me quickly.

Yeah, I think I am getting a buzz.

(all laughing) Okay.

It's working.

(man speaking in foreign language) I can't swallow this stuff if I wanna stay standing.

I've gotta spit the red slime from the lime tobacco and nut out.

Even spitting takes a bit of skill.

Ah, he's a pro.

(man speaking in foreign language) Oh, I'm not supposed to swallow it.

- The kobbe tree sapling is peeled and shaved down until the stick is flexible and can be bent into a bow.

The bowstring is made from the bark of a tree called (foreign language).

(man speaking foreign language) The Vedda's belief in demons is as strong as the coastal Sinhalese, so it's important that no spells are recited and no magic used when making bows and arrows or slingshots so that they're not cursed.

That was fast.

The whole thing couldn't have taken more than a half an hour.

The traditional Vedda slingshot is a method I've not seen anywhere else in the world.

It's not a handheld stick, like the slingshots that come to mind in north America.

These are much more powerful intricately made and they look a lot more like a bow and arrow.

(pebble pinging) (all chatting in foreign language) (all laughing) (string whipping) - They use the slingshots to hunt birds and small game and for protection from elephants.

Should an elephant charge, they'll grab a small stone and shoot for the eyes.

Nice.

And they're laughing at me while I did the betel nut.

I'm very dizzy, sweating profusely, shaky.

(laughs) His advice was to have some more.

I don't think I can.

Also feel a bit nauseous too, but we've got the slingshot made, so that's enough for today.

We can head out hunting tomorrow.

(mystical droning music) To bring me out of the effects of the betel night and the raw tobacco mixture, the Vedda prays into a cup of water, imbuing it with positive energy, an example of the Vedda's use of white magic.

Tonight, I'll sleep off the effects.

Tomorrow, I'll head out and hunt, slingshot at the ready, with Vedda hunting dogs.

(elephant trumpeting) Armed with only slingshots and utilizing small dogs to flush out game, the Vedda hunters and I are headed out to see what we can catch in the Sri Lankan jungle.

Reality is that with so much of their territory gone, they're limited to very small area, comparatively speaking for hunting.

If you're gonna hunt, you need a long, long, large range of area to properly hunt, especially if you're going for larger game, because you wanna feed your family.

You can get birds down any old country road, but a couple of birds will not feed a village.

(pebble pinging) The dogs have caught scent of something and are gone in a flash.

The hunt is on.

(Vedda man grunting) The Vedda are fast and nearly silent as they tear through the bush.

The barking of the dog lets us know we're close to something.

(animals screeching) While trying to flush out whatever the dogs may have cornered, a sharp eye has to be kept alert to the various jungle dangers.

We have to scan the trees for leopards, watch the ground to avoid the dangerous monitor lizard, and poisonous snakes.

But it's the elephants that own this jungle.

The Vedda watch for them always, steering clear of a possible elephant attack.

The hunt was on, but they think the animal's dug itself underground.

The dogs definitely came onto something, but back hunting again.

(driving hypnotic music) The guy with the natty hair is clearly a leader.

Even if he's not a leader by family name or whatever, he seems to be the swiftest, smartest, adapts to everything, will quickly fix the gun, very good with my camera, and he's very decisive and quick in what needs to be done when it needs to be done.

The Vedda know these jungles better than anyone, having trapped and hunted in this difficult terrain for centuries.

They're still barefoot and wearing little as they slip through their own tropical paradise.

We're retracing the steps of their ancestors, the ancient hunter gatherers.

Along the way, we take time at sacred sites to pay respect to past leaders.

(ethereal music) This is the former chief's home, and it's also his tomb, so they're not to pass by here without honoring the chief.

They have a branch, he's saying some prayer to the chief.

And then we carry on.

For the Vedda, the ghosts of the past are always near.

I wanna honor their heritage and their traditions, so I ask for blessings and safety as we continue on our travels.

These skilled men are anxious to share with me a survival technique, rarely, if ever, seen to an outsider: fishing with poisons.

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.

(driving hypnotic music) (water sloshing) (air whooshing) (bright music)