Top-rated
2020
(Jungle Ambush) Hazen learns in a village of the semi-nomadic Mani tribe in the pristine forest of Malaya (peninsular Malaysia), full of wildlife, some as dangerous as vipers, how they live, especially preparing and practicing the traditional blowpipe and darts poisoned with fig sap or harvesting bee hives. As prey gets rare after a few months, the tribe regularly packs everything together and sends a hunters party ahead to prepare a new camp site while the families follow. Hazen proves himself as 'warrior' by journeying to the new valley alone, living from what he catches and gathers in fish and plants. He only ventures in the forest when no river is available to use by self-made raft, but it proves obstructed by rocks, so he risk following it into a huge cave system. Finally he joins the communal wild boar hunt, meat for the resettled village.
Top-rated
2020
Hazen learns the fairly pristine culture of the Marr tribe, which is quite isolated in the highland jungle of inner Papua New Guinea. He seeks to earn an invitation to an impending elaborate traditional wedding by joining in the communal preparations with the villagers, tutored by two elder warriors. They repair the long house feast venue's thatching with freshly cut, painfully sharp long grass, and make their way into a high cave the harvest a bat as delicacy. The whole village uses a dam and poisonous plant for fishing. Then he sets out alone to collect three suitable presents: naturally perforated pandan grass seeds for use as beads, self-made spears and cassowary feathers. He dodges dangers like snakes and crosses the dangerously swollen river just in time to join the hunting party to catch wild boars as live brides price. An the way he trades the self-crafted stone ax he hoped to offer instead of the plumage of the dangerous bird he couldn't find, but bumps into a neighboring village's hunting party, which happily trades it for cassowary feathers. The impressed chief is happy to have Hazen face-painted and admitted to the arranged wedding.
2020
(Masters of Fire) Hazen learns the traditions culture of the Saramaccas, one of six maroon ('bush nigger') tribes in Suriname, descendants of escaped slaves who fled during Dutch colonial from plantations to the Amazonian interior jungle. He seeks to earn an invitation to an impending 'fire dance', an elaborate tradition of the villagers 'inspited by wood spirits'. An old man teaches him to make a canoe, the champion warrior learns him about hunting with an ancestral flint and arranges to meet him far away. He sets out thereto alone on the Suriname river and later into the forest, aware of venomous creatures, constrictors and piranhas. He dodges dangers like snakes or army ants, makes fire, sets a fish trap in a pool and crosses the dense forest. He join the hunter to shoot an agouti for the festival. They return in time with their offerings, to the chief's satisfaction.
2020
(Extreme Tribal Tools) Hazen compiles what he learned about traditional tools of various tribal cultures from previous episodes and seasons. Includes from the tropics Ecuador's Amazonian Hoarani precision weapon, the blowpipe with home-made curare darts, Panama's Embara balsa rafts to use the numerous rivers and New Guinean highland's Yima dugout canoe, hammock, the odd Samburu throwing weapon to ward off savanna predators. Fo use at sea, the Bajau seas nomads diving goggles and Solomons islanders all join to tie vines into a huge finishing strand 'noose' to catch fish in a large circle after chasing the shark. Also Canadian Artic Inuit ice sled and igloo.
2020
(Extreme Tribal Foods) Hazen had to get over sôntaneaous disgust at some traditional foods, especially in tribal cultures wehere it's too scarce to waste, such as yak heads in Tibet, pulling the tongue out by mouth and gacking at the horro taste of the brains. Some foods are just 'acquired tastes' such as abundant, live grubs the Amazonian interior jungle. Bee stings are the price for superfood honey, climbing for tree fruit. Fishing requires skill and technique, but for the lao on the upper Mekong also braving wild falls on shaky ropes. Expert hunters like the San in the Kalahari invest much time tracking and sneaking up on prey, dealing with holes or dangerous other wildlife. Some prey are sought after as traditional religious offering or bride price, like wild pigs on Indonesian Siberut, the hunting a tribal bonding feature and young man's initiation. Inuit harvest wild molluscs under the frozen sea during short periods of super-low tide, risking the 'ice ceiling' to cave in.
Top-rated
2020
(Hostile Environments) Hazen learns to brave the perils of tribal homelands. The Dulong in a Chinese valley harvest bee hives from high cliffs. In Laos, the Lao Loum fish among the barely accessible rapids of the mighty upper Mekong. The Rendille tribe in Kenya are camel herdsmen, but also traverse the crocodile-infested Lake Turkana reusing the rare logs to improvise rafts. The Marcushi of Guyana are among the jungle people of Amazonia, abundant in dangers. Even on one volcanic island of Vanuatu, he needs various skills of the Salkon tribe to brave the jungle, a waterfall, the river with rapids, the central lake to pass by canoe, mountain slope and non-dormant volcano fumes.
Top-rated
2020
(Wild Animal Adventures) Hazen considers wildlife no less part of the exciting exploration then tribal cultures in testing environments. The richest and wildest is Amazonia, like the land of the Macushi in Guyana, crawling with caiman, snakes, spiders, dart poison frogs - The rice fields people in Chinese southwestern highland province Guizhou (Kweichow) are man-made with elaborate irrigation, yet teem with wild animals, from 'chiggers' (itchy red mites) to cobras, and even the domesticated water-buffaloes require careful handling due to a residual wild side. The semi-nomadic camel herds in the northern Kenian desert braving heath, drought, predators like lions and hyenas and venomous wildlife, from scorpions to snakes, plus wild bees.