Two years after Brazil’s president vowed to bring the Yanomami tribe back from the brink, hunger and infant mortality rates are falling

The Yanomami villagers had trekked for days through some of Brazil’s most secluded jungles to reach the assembly, their traditional clothing announcing an existence deeply entwined with nature that stretched back thousands of years.

As they filed into a thatched communal hut to share stories of their lives, the forest dwellers wore armlets fashioned from toucan and macaw plumes and monkey-tail headbands representing their bond. “It’s a symbol of unity​ because these little monkeys never get separated: they always roam together,” said local leader Júnior Hekurari, as the group gathered in Kori Yauopë, a cloud-cloaked Yanomami hamlet on a table mountain at the heart of their ancestral home.