- Hi, I'm Les Stroud, host and creator of "Beyond Survival."

Within the scope of filming the 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 engaged 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 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.

In the middle of an Indonesian jungle, with an elder of the Mentawai tribe, speak a word of English.

There's something burning in my left eye, and he wants me to put ants with a really powerful bite on my tongue.

It's not going so well.

(dramatic music) I'm Les Stroud, and I'm in Indonesia seeking out the true masters of survival, some of the last indigenous people on Earth.

(dramatic tribal music) Before they're gone, before the past is lost, before their world vanishes, I can learn their ways.

(dramatic music) The Mentawai live in the jungles of an island called Siberut, the largest of four major islands located off the west coast of Sumatra in Indonesia.

My journey starts at the main port called Muarasiberut, dirty and polluted.

From here I'll travel 10 hours by boat to the heart of the remote jungle island, where the Mentawai live in family clans in long houses called Umas.

The Mentawai culture has survived for centuries because they've always lived in balance with their surroundings.

Jacobus, the young man who took me monkey hunting, and a young boy who wants to become a shaman, are leading me to a place where they've trapped another smaller pig.

It's my job to carry it home.

Over here.

(dramatic music) The pig down in there he's- (pig snorts) Oh!

He's not happy.

(dramatic music) (pig snorting) (pig squealing) (insects chirping) The reality is that there's no point in dispatching the pig right here, right now, they want it to be fresh and ready for the feast, so it looks like I'll carry it back alive, so that when they want to dispatch it, and prepare it for the ceremony they can.

I have no idea of knowing just how many brands of fleas are on the back of this pig, or diseases or whatever else, soon transferring to my back.

But I got to do my part one way or the other.

It's not a pleasant job by any stretch of imagination.

Dispatching game for eating purposes, or in this case, ceremonial eating purposes, is never pleasant, no matter which way you slice it.

But hey, if you like bacon.

(speaking in foreign language) Okay, (speaking in foreign language).

Good?

Okay.

- Okay.

- Once we make it back to the Uma, the pig will be put in a small pen for an hour or two, before being killed.

(pig squealing) They'll remove the heart and the intestines for the sole purpose of reading the signs the organs have to tell, to see predictions or guidance.

That's just a quick burn off just to get rid of the ticks and the bugs and the hair and whatever else is on that pig that they want to get rid of.

Burn it all off.

(gentle percussive music) The Mentawai live communally, so everything is shared.

It's taboo for one family to eat meat, without sharing with the rest of the clan.

Since they look at me as a traveling shaman, they offer me the best cuts of the boiled pig.

And we sit in the Uma, eating sago palm and pig, and discussing preparations for the trance ceremony.

They tell me tomorrow I'll finally receive my Mentawai tattoo.

(dramatic music) I'm in Indonesia with the Mentawai tribe, and I'm bonding with a group of shamans on my way to experiencing their tattooing methods and trance ceremony.

The sacrifice of a rooster is meant to consolidate and bless the clan.

They touched the rooster to everyone's head individually, before they sacrifice it to call the spirits.

They need me to connect with the spirit of the rooster as a request to have me take part in their ceremony.

The Mentawai believe hearts and intestines conceal messages, and the shaman spend years learning how to read them.

He's reading the intestines of the chicken right now.

You can tell by the intensity of his face that he's taking this really seriously.

He's really examining the intestines.

(shaman speaking in foreign language) Only shamans can read these omens, and know whether they're bad or good.

(dramatic music) Three shamans discuss the signs until they can agree on the meaning.

(shamans speaking in foreign language) They say they can see my visit in the reading of the heart, that's taken as a good omen that the spirits are happy I'm here to learn and share in their ways.

(shamans speaking in foreign language) (rooster crows) This morning Terocha prepares the mixture needed for tattooing.

To make ink, they make sugar cane juice, with black soot scraped from their pots and pans.

For the Mentawai, ink markings and plant adornment have the purpose of making their bodies look attractive so that the good spirits will inhabit them and won't feel the need to leave.

They use an old semi sharp needle, or a rusty nail, sharpened on a rock.

This is a young shaman apprentice.

The Mentawai tradition originally, is that only shamans are tattooed.

As they grow older, the tattoos continue down their bodies in stages, until as a full grown man and shaman, they finished with an ankle bracelet-style tattoo.

This young boy wants very much to become a shaman, and is willing to undergo the pain and dedication it takes to do so.

But boys like him are rare now.

Not far away, the distraction of the outside world gets louder every year.

In a day or two, it'll be my turn to feel the sting of the tattoo nail.

Fishing for small fish is an absolute staple for the Mentawai here.

The women have gone up ahead of me.

I'm catching up to them.

They're gonna show me how they fish in these tiny, little creeks.

While we wait for a couple of more shamans to arrive from deeper in the Indonesian rainforest, the women of the clan have asked if they can show me their own ways of survival in the jungle.

They make themselves skirts out of banana leaves, because this is the traditional attire to go fishing in.

The Mentawai have always dressed in leaves and plants, though lately, they opt for more modern clothing for their day-to-day activities.

(dramatic music) Gathering food like this is not meant to be long-term, it's simply for the day's food or an immediate meal.

Streams can replenish the supply of shrimps and small fish daily, making a quick bite easy.

Life for the Mentawai women has changed a lot in recent years.

As the clans get smaller, men have started taking two, three wives.

This was never their way in the past, and it's troubling for women.

As mothers they put very few restrictions on their children.

Mentawai children are expected to watch their parents and learn their role within the Uma based on gender.

This makes for a slippery slope into assimilation with the outside world should the next generation choose to not follow the traditional ways.

(upbeat tribal music) The fishing continues into the night, and we use torches, not to attract fish, but to simply make it easier to see.

This plant is full of resin so it's got a good burn going on.

The Mentawai rarely fish when the moon is full or it's raining, the catch is just too poor at those times.

When the torch burns bright it's not so hard.

Basically, classic night fishing using the torch.

Just so many of the aquatic creatures, crabs, crayfish, shrimp, even fish, they're so much mellower at night.

And with the torch you can get pretty close to them, increase you chances of catching them.

So that's all this really is, same type of fishing you can find all around the globe.

Going out at night with a torch.

Though now the women aren't wearing their leaf skirts, they still carry the hollow bamboo shafts on their backs for stashing the bounty, the catch from the riverbed.

I have absolutely no idea what they're talking about, but it's a pretty lively discussion.

(women speaking in foreign language) That's a good size crab.

(women speaking in foreign language) (Les speaking in foreign language) Nice, nice.

You see the difference in the night fishing, the crabs and these shrimp much bigger.

(woman speaking in foreign language) (dramatic music) Having paid my dues in the jungle, and proven to the Mentawai that I come in respect for their ways, the shaman are ready to give me the beginnings of my tattoo.

But first they're asking me about my own western style tattoo.

(Mentawai speaking in foreign language) They're like a wild dog in our part of the world called a wolf, two wolves and the moon, and they represent my children.

Yeah, my children are wolves.

(shaman speaking in foreign language) First the tattoo is drawn on the skin as a guide, no different from the North American practice.

As I am an outsider, getting a tattoo here in this Uma, is a big deal to this family clan.

They're offering me respect, and accepting my respect in return.

(dramatic music) Terocha and I have connected on a deeper level through our time together.

He's very pleased to do the work on me.

It will ever connect the two of us.

The singing is meant to communicate with the spirits, and to seek their acceptance of my process.

The women often keep a close eye out for the quality and placement of the tattoo.

And I have no problems voicing any concerns that the men aren't doing it quite right.

It's like getting a regular tattoo, that is, a modern style tattoo.

There comes a point in tattooing where it hurts, okay, but what more, is really annoying, and you wanna say, "Hey enough already."

And you know you can't stop because they have to finish the design, and it's just that constant annoying pain, that normally it would stop them from doing.

(dramatic humming) (tools tapping) Terocha is quite possibly the last shaman of this Uma.

So the honor of receiving a tattoo from him is great.

Surrounded by the clan, I can feel the excitement and the energy in the air as I share in this tradition.

This Mentawai tradition is a devotion to personal beautification, preening their bodies, filing their teeth, and inscribing tattoos to honor the beauty in the landscape that surrounds them, and the spirit that lives within.

There are some meanings and some stories behind the tattoo.

Too often, in an anthropological sense, we try and put way too much meaning on certain things that various indigenous cultures do.

It's the same thing here with the Mentawai and their tattooing.

It has meaning, but it may not necessarily be super deep, super metaphysical and super spiritual, as we want to assign to it.

Could simply be design, nothing more.

(dramatic music) A visiting shaman wants a turn tattooing me, as he's still in training, but his hit is much harder than Terocha's when it comes to making sure the nail is breaking through my skin.

Unfortunately for me, he's not paying attention to how much ink paste he's using.

First time around, they did the entire design, but didn't put enough ink into the skin, so they've redrawn over it, and he's redoing the tattoo, puncturing into the holes that are already punctured.

This time, hopefully, with enough ink.

Do you know what it's like to re-stab an injury?

(shaman speaking in foreign language) (dramatic music) Following the tattooing, we'll prepare for the Mentawai trance dance ceremony.

(dramatic music) I'm on the island of Siberut, with the Mentawai, and receiving a shaman tattoo.

It's an occasion for celebration.

And the elder women of the clan have decided that my hairy chest and red nipples are something to laugh about.

(women speaking in foreign language) The pain of the nail is only temporary, but these markings of acceptance into the Mentawai clan are permanent.

And I'm beginning to understand why they like to give a nice place for their spirits to live.

It is after all only flesh and it will heal.

(dramatic music) In this hot and humid place, the tattoos must be rubbed with medicinal leaves to prevent infection.

(dramatic music) (all speaking in foreign language) Means finished, we're done.

So the traditional Mentawai tattoo's in place, tells the story of their connection to the sun.

Story is that the sun was too close.

it was burning people, so they shot arrows to push the sun away, and the tattoo, the markings of the story, so they always remember that story.

So the children remember, they remember their connection to the sun, and it would probably connect me to their tribe forever and a day.

If I were to show up here even five, 10 years from now, they're going to see those tattoos and they'll know, this is part of what they do, and part of how they live and their beliefs.

Man, that hurt.

Well, a little bit of a first on my hand.

This time the shaman wants me to go and gather, and actually make my own loincloth.

Feels it's important that I have my own.

(spirited music) (shaman speaking in foreign language) (spirited music) During the process, the shaman, Terocha, was just saying, "You see, where you go you have to buy your clothes, here we can just go into the jungle anytime we want and make our clothing."

Next time I come back, I don't need to bring clothing with me.

I can just go and make as many loincloths as I want.

This is the start.

(all speaking in foreign language) (mallets tapping) (all speaking in foreign language) (light tribal music) Okay, so that's it.

Now the loincloths just have to dry, and I've got myself some new clothing.

The tattooing complete, it's time for the trance dance ceremony.

The purpose of these ceremonies is not unlike the same purpose in other ceremonies around the world, to bring harmony between these humans and the Earth itself, between the Mentawai and the natural world in which they live.

Yeah, just getting ready for more ceremony here, and the women are being done up beautifully with their headdresses, the poles put out front to let people know that there's a ceremony going on here, but they're not to come in.

There's two poles to show that there's two big sacrifices for the ceremony.

It's kind of like a wedding preparation in a way.

Hopefully don't end this day finding out that I got married without knowing it.

But it's still a vital and important ceremony for them, because it's the one type of thing that brings them together as a people.

It creates a community where there is none, which is hard to come by, so these types of ceremonies are held in high esteem 'cause of that.

Any evil spirits that may be present have to be chanted, sang and danced away, including any bad spirits within the pig itself.

This way the pig becomes fit to eat.

Terocha and the visiting shaman sing and ring the bells to call the spirits to the ceremony, to welcome and bear witness to the sacrifice that is being performed for them.

(bells ringing) Finally, everything's been prepared, and they're going through having a feast.

Everything is set up very evenly so that everyone is perfectly fed, nobody missed in the feast today.

The people who are not shamans are eating outside of this room in their separate family clans.

Here he shamans eat together.

And they allow me, kind of like a traveling shaman, to sit in and eat with them.

And in this way, the community stays strong.

Belief stays strong.

Friendships and connections, especially the connections to the spirit world, stay strong.

And the culture stays strong.

(rooster crowing) (bells jingling) (dramatic music) The feast completed, it's time for the all night long trance ceremony.

The men fully adorn themselves, and the intensity is about to heat up.

Like the tattoo, the dance is influenced by the shaman who performs it, taking on his own style or spirit.

The stomping of the feet and the bell ringing, all serve to intensify the emotion.

It eventually sends one of the shaman into a trance.

(dramatic music) He falls to the floor convulsing, while the young men run to his side, to protect him from injury.

This visiting shaman said he was struck by the vision of a spirit dancing beside him and he was overcome.

(shamans speaking in foreign language) As the ceremony continues, there are more sacrifices.

(shamans speaking in foreign language) There is yet another reading the signs in pig, as well as rooster, intestines.

(bells clanging) (men chanting) I've been asked to join in.

And we danced to the animal spirits, monkeys, wildcats, birds.

We connect with the spirits through mimicry.

(intense percussive music) Tattooed, painted and adorned with flowers, I've trance danced in deserts and jungles.

I've tasted the plant medicines of people from across the globe.

And I felt the energies of the Earth ripped through my spine and manifest as greater understanding.

The Mentawai are just about as primitive as it gets on this planet, and in their lack of progress, they retain a connection to the natural world that my culture has lost.

They retain a balance and harmony, that I, and my civilized world, can only envy.

(intense percussive music) (water splashes) (upbeat music)