- Hi, I'm Les Stroud, and welcome to the series Beyond Survival.

In it, I circled the globe, embedding myself with cultures that spend their time close to the earth.

- It's been an exhausting journey just to get in here.

And now we're heading out with the dogs at night and see what we can catch.

It's getting a little bit crazy.

We're heading straight up just boulders and rocks.

Okay.

We're right on top of something, but whether or not we can actually get to it is another story.

- [Les] I'm Les Stroud, I'm in Madagascar on a mission to seek out the true masters of survival.

Some of the last indigenous tribes from around the world.

Before they're gone.

Before the past is lost, before their world vanishes.

I can learn their ways.

(rock music) - [Les] Separated from the coast of east Africa, some 165 million years ago, Madagascar is the world's fourth largest island.

I'm here to learn from two of the tribes on the island.

The Antandroy, who live on the extreme Southern coast, and the Antanosy who live in the remote interior.

The Antandroy live in huts along the coastline, living life between sand dunes and ocean.

They're strong and tough, but survival is becoming a struggle for the Antandroy, as they battled drought from deforestation and over fishing from illegal fishing boats.

From the water's edge, all journey to the southeastern interior of Madagascar, across rough roads and wet mud define the Antanosy tribe.

Antanosy means people of the island, invited to live in their rural village, I'll hunt with wild dogs and take part in an ancient tribal tradition of seed reading performed by local shamans, to learn of the connection between spirituality and survival.

I'm with the Antandroy tribe of Southern Madagascar.

After two failed fishing trips, the villages are showing me an easier and more sure way to scare up a meal.

Night hunting with torches along the reef.

But the first step is simply to build the torch.

- As much as they feel that their survival is tied in with the ocean, and 80% of their food comes from the ocean, there's still all of the spill over from the land, what they need from the land to be able to harvest from the ocean.

I think we found what we're looking for here.

That's great in all kinds of survival, it's the reality of how far you have to travel sometimes for one little item is often missed and journeys can be very far.

So if I want to make a torch, we've got a long way to go into the Madagascar desert.

Something that strikes me with these people in Madagascar is how incredibly, incredibly fit they are.

They all look like lightweight boxers if you ask me.

- Fishing by night is my next challenge.

And there are no stores here that I can run out to and buy a torch from.

- Tree is full of sap.

I can see it in the wood.

It's also very hard, like chopping stone.

(ax hitting tree) That's what's working for this particular tree is the, its full of sap.

So we're just going after the chunks here because of sap to keep the branches burning for using the torches.

- A few hours later, and we're back at the ocean, getting ourselves set up for night fishing.

Torches used by people living off the land are simply a bundle of material that holds a flame.

Similar to most survival torches, fine fibers are found in the middle and coarser fibers are at the outside of the fire bundle.

The sapwood acts like a wick within the torch, allowing it to burn longer and stronger throughout the night and keep it from blowing out in the wind.

Binding all the materials together, we set flame to the tip and we'll soon begin our hunt.

(indistinct) - The tide is out.

So whatever bounty that might be there is now exposed for an easy catch.

The method of torch fishing is very basic.

Walk along the reef at low tide with your torch lit.

Then you grab the sea creatures with your hands.

Lobster, fish and crayfish can be found hiding in these reefs, but you've got to be careful.

Their spiny shells and sharp pinchers can easily slice open a finger or hand.

Normally not a big deal, except out here, there's no hospital or doctor.

So a simple infection can take hold and kill.

And there's plenty of poisonous creatures in the reef.

(laughing) - See that?

(speaking foreign language) - Looks like it's just a baby eel.

There you go, it disappears.

This reef is essentially their grocery store, both adults and kids alike come out here, not for a quick treat, but rather out of the necessity to feed their families.

The Antandroy are experts at snatching up these defensive creatures, an example of their quick reflexes and adept survival skills.

- Ah, yeah.

Okay.

That's what we're looking for.

That's what we're out here for.

Who are these guys?

Lobsters?

I tried to go and he stopped me from doing it, said, it's just, just don't even try.

These things, they've got a couple of different pincers, a couple of different spikes.

And if you don't know just how to grab them, you saw how quickly he went in and grabbed him, didn't get his hand stabbed.

We got dinner.

Now we eat, finally.

- Here in what is considered a remote part of the ocean.

The ocean bounty is thinning out and the fishermen have to travel farther every year to simply feed their families.

- It doesn't get any fresher than that when it comes to lobster.

That's about it, it's as simple as that just, you know, head out and, it's like a dinner table served up with this massive reef out there.

You just go out when the water's low and walk along and look in all the holes and sooner or later you come up with a crab, bunch of lobster, a big, nice, grab a couple dozen lobster.

Tough thing about tonight is it's actually a bright, full moon.

And that makes for the worst lobster catching of all.

So he said it was going to be tough when we get out there.

When we found one, we wouldn't have starved.

It's just always speaks to a belief of mine, and that is that survival for any culture is a lot easier when you're on the coast of an ocean, just what rolls up on the shore as far as refuse and things you can use.

That's always a big thing, but the fact that you can just walk down, catch crabs and oysters and lobsters, survival inland in the middle of a jungle or in the middle of a forest, I believe is a lot tougher for that very reason.

I think that's why you see so much artwork around on the ocean coast is because people actually have the time to make art because they don't have to spend so much time hunting the Antandroy they, they completely rely on the ocean to about 80% of their lives.

So to be able to walk down there and grab dinner, like this is as vital to their survival.

That was well-worth it.

That's survival food.

The Antandroy have taught me what it's like for pure survival out here.

Some sort of crazy hybrid of harsh desert survival and bountiful ocean.

Now I'm going to head further inland to another group of people in Madagascar.

They concern themselves much more with ceremony.

There's a lot of black magic in this country ceremony.

What I want to find out, is if some of that touches the people and their lives and enables their survival.

The Southern coast of Madagascar, for me, it looks a lot like desert.

Desert, right on the edge of the ocean.

(speaking foreign language) And these wells are vital to survival here set up around at 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, maybe about a dozen or more Wells dug down deep.

It's been here for years and it's the only fresh water around, so we come from miles to here.

These wells hold life for these people.

Without them, there's no fresh water here at all.

Every day, people come from miles around to get this water and to bring it here into the troughs for the cows to drink long hikes, a lot of their time is lost just in looking after the cattle, cattle slaughtered for ceremony, slaughtered for weddings, that sort of thing.

(ocean waves crashing) (tribal music plays) - [Les] I leave the coast and begin my journey inland.

Part of the difficulty of reaching these tribes is the lack of good roads.

It'll take two days of driving to get to the village of Tishiladna, the remote and isolated home of the Antanosy tribe, known as the people of the island, the Antanosy are widely regarded as the traditional healers possessing great knowledge of the rare and medicinal plants that only grow in southern Madagascar.

I have to travel through small villages, herds of cattle, and inevitably tropical downpours.

This after all is the rainy season.

These rural villages rarely get travelers passing through, and everywhere I go, the villagers stop and stare.

As I climb higher into the mountain ridges, the villages become few and far between until eventually the roads seem to disappear altogether.

- That's the deal just to get started, we got to go across the river here.

No problem for the kids, apparently, Madagascar kids, they go across this everyday, probably.

Problem is, when I get to the other side, if it does come on the rain tonight is, the river can go up a few feet real quickly and I'm not coming back.

Start a new life with the people of Madagascar.

- [Les] Ancestor worship is considered the most important part of the Malagasy culture.

- And this is what I call gravestones.

These are the gravestones of the Madagascar people.

There are places where they actually paint the rocks as well and paint the rocks with the life story of the person who died.

But these are just rough and rugged because we're way out in the hills right now.

They had to work all this stone without any machinery.

- Gravestones like these can be found throughout Madagascar and are considered to be sacred spiritual sites.

- Like I said,now it's rainy season in Madagascar, this will be a heck of a hike further into this valley to get to the people I'm trying to get to.

Now, these people are a lot more say, interested in ceremony than the people on the coast where it's more just about survival.

That said, the first thing they want to do when they get me in there is to go out hunting with them, apparently tonight's the night, and they don't want to miss it.

- [Les] The Antanosy like to hunt with one or two dogs and they go after just about anything from small mammals to flushing out various species of deer.

- Okay?

So this is the deal.

At the time, I was able to make it in to the little village in the middle of the hills and valleys here, it was already nighttime and pouring rain.

It's been an exhausting journey just to get in here.

And now we're heading out with the dogs at night to see what we can catch.

See what survival with the Antanosy is like.

- [Les] I'm told whatever we catch tonight, we won't eat right away.

We return to the village to share the feast with the rest of the tribe.

92% of the reptiles found in Madagascar exist naturally nowhere else on Earth.

(speaking foreign language) - Just halted on a hillside here.

Dog's off doing his thing, trying to scare up a tamarack.

It's a small mammal, they eat at night.

- [Les] The reason for doing this hunt is to earn their respect, to allow me to participate in their seed ceremony.

- It's crazy, we're heading straight up boulders and rocks, thick vegetation, all because apparently the dogs might have spotted something up here or maybe not.

We're actually boulder climbing in the dark here now.

(speaking foreign language) - Okay.

We're right on top of something, but whether or not we can actually get to it is another story.

Dogs are hold up here and he's looking at a couple of holes in the ground.

See what we can find.

(speaking foreign language) - Hey!

(laughing) - There you go.

Dogs were successful after all.

They're laughing because they were standing right over the top of it the whole time, trying to find it.

The dogs do the business, and it's still warm and a dinner.

- [Les] After catching what's called a tamarack, the morning brings with it the promise of my involvement in the seed ceremony.

- Well the night of rain over with, we are headed out to gather sap for the ceremony.

The Antanosy primarily survive through farming.

So ceremony to them becomes important and take a part of what they do in their daily lives.

We've got about an hour hike to get out into the hills here and gather some of the sap that we need for the ceremony.

Apparently it's a trance inducing.

We're walking through mostly rice paddies to get out into the, the bush area here, which is a lot of the farming that they do.

They've got cattle, ducks, various fowl, rice, potato, that's about it, mostly a farming existence.

- [Les] A lot of the topography here is very park-like.

But for the Antanosy, it's simply a vast open storeroom of useful, medicinal plants.

- Little guys to eat along the way.

My stomach's not really ready for any food, but.

Not bad.

The thing about survival in a situation like this, for these people, eating, eating is either all at once, maybe once a day with the community, with the family, and the rice or the duck or whatever it is they're going to eat.

Or as a matter of little bits of food here and there as they travel along.

If you can graze while you're traveling and keep putting nutrition into your body, good thing.

Okay.

Finally, after hiking up the hill, and I do mean hiking up the hill, check this out, we've finally made it to the tree, because we asked it was a flat hike, and it will only take a few minutes, nothing flat about this hike.

It's a straight climb up very steep hill, past a bunch of boulders.

So anyway, this is the tree here.

This tree is called a Harami.

We need to pick up some of this dried sap here, same sort of process you might have, anytime you're gathering sap from a tree, they'll come here and they'll cut it.

They wound the tree, let it ooze out and bleed, and then that'll become solid later.

And this was later now, basically coming back and being able to pick up the sap we need for the ceremony.

- [Les] Sometimes shamans have their own trees for harvesting the materials needed for performing ceremonies and communicating with their ancestors.

And sometimes they'll share a certain trees when they know the bounty is good.

- The sap of the tree is burned as incense meant to keep the bad spirits away, keep peace in the ceremony going.

So I'm going to need this.

It's kind of bizarre, I went to one jungle and you taught how to get sap from a tree for poisoning fish and its white sap, touch it to your eye you could go blind.

Really, really cautious about it.

Come here, another tree, white sap, and we're just handling it like nobody's business and nothing sad about it.

I'll just have to hope it's safe.

I've gathered up some other plants along the way here as well.

- [Les] The Antanosy rely almost exclusively on plants for treating illness and spirit possession.

They say the healings work because of the strength of the plant medicines.

- You've done a long hike straight up hill, and back down just to get a bit of sap and a few leaves.

Anyway.

Now we head back, and start the ceremony.

- [Les] I'm in rural Madagascar about to partake in an ancient seed ceremony.

I'm not sure of all I'm about to take in.

All I know is that a seer will perform a ceremony to protect me, and then perform a second ceremony, that's meant to put me in a trance.

- This is just simply presenting them with what they need to perform the ceremony, white robes.

- [Les] This ceremony is an important happening for everyone in the village, as they say, it's big medicine.

- Traditional healer is a, he's called a Baskititi, and the ceremony is called skiti.

Now the Baskititi, it's believed that he has the gift to be able to read the seeds.

And the gift is passed down from generation to generation father to son.

Sometimes it also skips a generation.

It could go from the grandfather, grandson, same situation with the women.

- [Les] The purpose of the seed reading is to communicate with the Malagasy ancients, the lives of traditional Malagasy people are determined by connecting with the spirit world.

When and who to marry, where to live, when to plant crops.

All individual decisions are made following consultation with the ancients through the Baskiti.

It's the Baskiti's gift to interpret the message through the seeds.

Seeds are placed in columns from north to south to represent aspects of a person's life that was affected by illness, unhappiness or regret.

Opening a portal to the spirit world can be dangerous.

The incense, the mixture, and the actions, are all designed to protect me.

Each element he puts in the pan carries with it, its own energy force, and he begins to pray.

(speaking foreign language) - [Les] Outside the hut in honor of the seed ceremony, the duck and the tamarack we caught while hunting are being prepared for a ceremonial feast.

(indistinct) - [Les] Before the women shamans even enter the hut where I and the other shaman await, they already begin to go into a trance.

The music, the chanting, and the percussion, will all become trance-inducing, and seemingly endless.

For hours and hours, they won't quit.

Stopping only for a moment now and then, to ingest pure cane alcohol or smoke tobacco.

(speaking foreign language) - [Les] The ceremony that's designed to protect me and send me into my own trance is starting to appear more like black magic.

What happens now, and where I go, I can't say.

It's not a lucid dream.

And for the first few hours, I feel nothing.

But then just when the shaman was feeling that I couldn't be tranced, it comes over me like a wave.

The music that was at first simply annoying, starts to vibrate through my body.

And I leave myself.

The shamans intensify their own trances.

This feeling can't be described.

Black magic, voodoo, white magic, trancing, communication with the ancients, it all comes together in a crazy, semi-dark, spiritual hybrid.

Perhaps sometime later I'll remember it all in a dream.

Perhaps it'll come to me in a trance I have yet to partake in.

Or perhaps only the ancients and the spirits will ever know where I went.

- He's in a trance.

He cannot hear me.

Les You move him to sit facing the east.

You sit facing the east.

- [Les] Is it voodoo?

The mysterious plant mixture?

The effects of the tree sap?

Or is it the ancients themselves?

The forefathers of these unique and courageous tribes people, who inspired my journey beyond this realm.

Madagascar has proven wilder, more difficult, more awe-inspiring than I had imagined, but perhaps I've taught them something too.

Reminded them their skills are not forgotten, their ingenuity and strength a lesson to us all.

The next generation will undoubtedly face greater challenges.

Maybe the ancients have the answers and maybe the next generation will be willing to ask the questions.

(water splashes)