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The last member of a besieged Indigenous tribe in Brazil has died, apparently of natural causes. Activists are holding up his legacy as a symbol of both the genocide and resilience of his people, calling for his land to be preserved as a reminder of both.

Little is known about the man, whose death was announced over the weekend by Funai, Brazil's federal agency for Indigenous affairs. He was the only inhabitant of the Tanaru Indigenous Territory in the western Amazon state of Rondonia.

His ethnicity, language and name remain a mystery. But his singularity — and decades of isolation — did gain him some broader recognition in and beyond Brazil. He earned the nickname "The Man of the Hole" because of the deep ditches he would dig (sometimes with sharp stakes inside), and could be seen chopping a tree with an ax-like tool in a video captured by a government team in 2018.