![]() ![]() While Grann doesn’t write of this specific instance, he does detail the explorer’s prolonged interest in the occult. In the movie, Fawcett consults a psychic while on the battlefield in France during World War I. Rice had also, to Fawcett’s anger, once killed a group of Yanomami Indians who were threatening his men, and had reportedly brought bombs on his present expedition to scare away cannibal tribes.įact: Fawcett often turned to psychics, mediums and the occult for guidance. Fawcett’s expedition, once he finally funded it, would cost less than the price of a single one of his rival’s radios. When Rice mounted an expedition in 1924, as Fawcett struggled to fund what would be his last, it was with the latest gadgets, equipment and aircraft. His main rival was the American doctor and explorer Alexander Hamilton Rice, who had something Fawcett lacked: money. In fact, this fear originated long before that conversation and stemmed from a combination of his concern for the Indians’ safety and his own mighty ego. In the movie, Fawcett tells his son Jack that he fears Americans will get to Z first, killing Indians along the way. Fact: Fawcett was consumed by the fear that a rival might beat him to Z. But he also referred to them as “ape-like,” “jolly children,” and he believed any advanced civilization in the Amazon must have had origins in European society. He learned their languages and argued that the inhabitants of his “lost city” would have been capable of scientific feats on par with those of Europeans at the time. He did advocate nonviolence toward Indians and disapproved of intervention with their way of life. In reality, Fawcett’s views were more complicated. He even does so to a jeering crowd of RGS members, in a scene that appears to be fabricated. The movie’s Fawcett rails against his colleagues’ attitudes toward Indians, which he perceived as alternately paternalistic and racist. Partly fiction: Fawcett fought against paternalistic and racist views of Indians. Although she did visit her husband in South America once, he always refused her requests to join in his dangerous expeditions. An advocate for gender equality, she argued that she was in good health and knew how to navigate by the stars. Well-educated, insatiably curious and a speaker of multiple languages, Nina supported her husband’s missions from afar not only by raising their three children but by defending his reputation from his many detractors. These observations felt like mounting proof that a remarkable ancient city might once have flourished.įact: Nina Fawcett was an independent woman who always hoped her husband would allow her to join him on his expeditions. Later, when he met the Echoja tribe, he was impressed by their herbal medicines and their cultivation of floodplains to grow crops in the middle of the jungle. While there, Fawcett witnessed their advanced fishing methods. The tribe, the Guarayos, invited the men to stay as guests. After taking cover, they began to sing “Soldiers of the Queen” as Fawcett waved a handkerchief and walked toward the shore to indicate friendship. Much like in the movie, during one trip in 1910, Fawcett’s group was traveling by boat when they were suddenly inundated with a barrage of poisonous spears. During this and future trips, rumors of a lost civilization, which Fawcett heard first from Indians and later read about in conquistadors’ accounts, struck him as increasingly possible. The countries summoned England as an independent arbiter. ![]() With the auto industry gaining steam, demand for rubber boomed, and border disputes between Bolivia, Brazil and Peru threatened to erupt in a violent conflagration. Fact: Fawcett returned to the Amazon many times between his first and last expedition.Īs the movie depicts, Fawcett’s first expedition to the Amazon was a mapmaking mission. In pursuit of rumored treasure there, he had found the ruins of an ancient temple and knew then that he wanted to forge a path like those of Richard Francis Burton and David Livingstone. Whereas the movie presents Fawcett as somewhat reluctant to become an explorer - he says he hoped to rectify his undecorated uniform with some military action - the real Fawcett had been eager to work as an explorer since he was stationed in the British colony of Ceylon, now known as Sri Lanka. Fawcett first visited the institution in 1900 and spent a year training there before his first mission. Though the RGS did tap Fawcett for a South American voyage, it didn’t happen as unexpectedly as the film suggests. Mostly fact: The Royal Geographical Society summoned Fawcett out of the blue for a mission to Bolivia in 1906.
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