General views about Fawcett's death

The story of Colonel Fawcett and his son is legendary.  In 1901 Percy Fawcett was a mystical student in love with geography. A married man and father, he had left home to excavate sites in Bolivia and Brazil. After discovering some very important relief carvings, he felt sure that the remains of a major unknown civilization lay hidden in the still unspoiled regions of the upper Tapajos and upper Xingu rivers. 

Captivated by the mystery of the Amazonas, Percy Fawcett returned to the virgin forest in 1920 after being promoted to colonel in the battlefields of France. Malaria drove him away, but in 1925 he turned up at Cuyaba, a camp of gold and diamond miners in Matto Grosso. This time his son Jack came with him. Percy Fawcett used to say that he was abiding by the wishes of an Indian witch doctor- “You will find a fabulous city,” the sharman told him, “when your son is old enough to come back with you. You shall be taken prisoner, but by marrying he will set you free!”  

A Brazilian explorer provided them with two Indian guide and gave them a little dog, which they promised to watch over. For a while, their campfires could be seen every night in the Sierra Azul, where peaceful Indian tribes lived. In June 1925 the guides came back alone, bringing with them wonderful letters and film that Fawcett had committed to their care. 

Percy explained that the increasingly dense jungle growth had made it impossible to clear a path with axes. He had built a canoe. His son, their friend Rimmel and he, were traveling up the Rio Koloseu towards the settlements of the primitive Kalapalo Indians.. A few days later, the little dog, covered with sores and frightened to death, wandered into a logger’s ranch alone.

Peter Fleming's conclusions and theories

about Colonel Fawcett's fate

In 1928 Dyott indicates that Fawcett’s party was massacred, probably by Suya Indians at a spot four or five days march east of Kuluene.

Murika, chief of a Kalapalos village on the Kuluene described Fawcett's itinerary from Cuyaba to Kuluene. A trail which Dyott followed in 1928. Murika’s story mysteriously produced by Major Pingle, gave general support to this theory, modifying it in that Murika claimed to have seen the smoke, not for five, but for eleven days, and laid on Aruma Indians responsibility for the outrage.

A closely similar conclusion was in the statement by Mr. Petrullo, archaeologist and ethnologist to the Pennsylvania University Expedition, which visited the Kuluene in 1931. Mr. Petrullo elicited from the Kalapalos substantially the same story as they had given to Dyott three years before. Smoke had been seen for five days, but this time the Indians were less specific with regard to the faith of the party, saying only that the cessation of the smoke meant that they had disappeared into dense jungle.

At the time of writing, these three stories represent the only reliable body of evidence with regard to Fawcett’s fate.

Taking in conjunction, they establish almost (but not quite) beyond doubt that the expedition perished in 1925 at some spot not less than five, and not more than eleven, day’s march east or north-east of a Kalapalos village situated on the Kuluene south of the small tributary called the Tanguro. As a rider to this, I would add that Murika’s figure, eleven, is open to suspicion for two reasons.  

• First, because the Brazilian aboriginal is not a great arithmetician, and should never be pinned down to any statistical statement involving a number larger than five.

• Second, because, unless there is a high ground near the banks of the Kuluene, which is extremely unlikely, I doubt the ability of even the hawk-eyed Indians to see smoke eleven days’ march away: though it is, of course, likely that Fawcett was traveling very slowly indeed and may have been compelled by the obstacles he encountered to follow a tortuous course.

• It is probable, but by no means certain, that the party was massacred. Fawcett’s party, when it crossed the Kuluene, was not comparatively fresh. They had already endured a long and arduous journey down the Kuliseu. The two young men, Rimell and Jack Fawcett, were lame and – if the Kalapalos are to be believed – reluctant to go any further. It is by no means certain whether they had any fire arms  with them, and they could not, by this time, have been carrying a large supply of ammunition. Moreover they were not, as we were, following the course of a river, but striking into a region considerable tracts of which are probably entirely waterless.

Finally, the Kalapalos say that one of the young men could only move slowly, and was being forced to lag some way behind his companions.

In the circumstances, hunger, thirst, and exhaustion  must have greatly weakened, if they did not at last combine to destroy, the little party.

I do not think the Indians would have attacked an expedition, however small, that kept together and was in good shape physically. If they did, as the evidence suggests, perpetrate a massacre, they merely anticipated a result, which they could have achieved, slowly but surely, simply by withholding their good offices.   

It is virtually certain that the Fawcett expedition could not have survived  for many days after crossing the Kuluene; but probably we shall never know whether to bring in a verdict of murder or suicide.

For all this, however, there still remains an infinitesimal, a million to one chance that Fawcett was still alive. If he is, we must assume that he is in some way mentally deranged. Suppose one of the young men broke down, an Indian tribe proved friendly, and the explorers had no choice but to stay in their village and recuperate. Suppose again that they were not fit to move before the rains began, and had to face those incredible unhealthy months in miserable huts, eating miserable food.

The young men, being ordinary mortals, could never have survived this long-drawn-out ordeal. And if they had, they would certainly have made their way back to civilization at the first opportunity, I find it impossible to believe that, if the white men were healthy, any tribe could have held them (or even one of them) captive, over a period of years, in a area where they would never have been more than one hundred miles away from friendly Indians. The young men then, must have died, if they were not killed.   

Fawcett, whose powers of endurance and immunity to disease were extraordinary, might have lived through the rains. He might conceivably have elected to stay with this tribe, or with other tribes, for a year; perhaps for two years. But not for eight. There is nothing to keep him there, Even if he could have endured the terrible primitive life of the Indians, he could hardly have given the last years of his life ( he was sixty when he disappeared) to a study of it – a study of which the results would never be made known. His quest led him to no Lost City; even the mountains on which it was to have stood were missing. No, there is nothing to keep him there of his own accord for so long; and, as I say, I do not think he would have been kept there against his will.

So if he is still alive, he is mad or he has lost his memory. There are no other circumstances in which it is conceivable that he would deliberately choose to end his days in an existence which at it in the dry season, is on a level with the life of beasts. I repeat: everything points to the whole expedition having perished in the summer of 1925, probably at the hands of Indians.

IMPORTANT NOTICE: All the above mentioned references were taken from the following publication and represent brief summaries and highlights for the purpose of review and only, with intention to provide help to those who are interested in proceeding further to search for evidence, clues and information about Colonel Fawcett's disappearance.