Bruce Parry: 'Killing a goat for new Tribe was difficult – but taking the bus harms planet more'
Parry spoke with this week's issue of Radio Times magazine about his return to TV.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine.
There is vomiting, and then there is full-on, projectile expurgation. After the first episode of Bruce Parry’s new series, during which he is epically sick standing in a tributary of the Amazon river, I felt I knew the spew almost as much as the man. He didn’t even have a bug. Parry willingly drank a local concoction designed to detox the body in just this way.
The likeable Parry, who first leapt onto our screens in a variety of skimpy loin cloths in the original Tribe two decades ago before quitting TV to make a feature film (Tawai: a Voice from the Forest), is back on our screens on the trail of radical tribal custom. It’s his first series since Arctic in 2011. Nothing, it seems, is too challenging. He’ll have his nose pierced with a bone, he’ll be sick in a river, he’ll sleep on a dung floor in a mud hut...
Why go through it again? “Well, I am on a continuum,” says Parry, laughing. “I am still on this journey learning about how tribal people can offer some solutions to the world’s problems, and I wanted to share some of the things I have learnt. I feel very lucky they have allowed me back. So much of what indigenous people have to share actually feels more important now than it did the first time.”
For the new BBC series, Parry is the first foreign visitor to live within the communities. Filming much of his experience with his own camera, he goes deep inside the Colombian rainforest to visit the Waimaha people, while the second episode sees him walking for a day to find the Mucubal, who live in the Namib desert, southern Angola, and the third follows him to a tropical island in Indonesia to stay with the Marapu.
If you can manage the nasty details on top of all that vomiting (eating witchetty grubs, watching an 11-year-old child have her lower teeth knocked out without anaesthetic), you will learn a lot about people whose lifestyle is definitely different. Parry is an enthusiastic and winning guide, and willing to laugh at himself en route. No bodily function is out of bounds.
“Right, off for the first dump of the trip,” he confides in us on day two of his Angolan adventure, heading off into the bush. “As for cleaning myself up afterwards…I have been told to use, er… a stone. So I will!” Classic Parry. Definitely out of his comfort zone but in such an engaging way that you, the viewer, are brought along, too.
“You have to challenge yourself, otherwise you never do anything,” he says. I am so inspired by this that, after our Zoom call, I sign up to run the Valencia Marathon. Could I, however, suffocate a live goat? Parry can and does.
On arrival in an Angolan village, he received the gift of a spotted, fluffy goat from the head of the tribe, from his herd of 150. “Thank you so much. What would you suggest I do with this goat?” he asks, politely. The response? “Kill it. You must kill it. Now.” He didn’t want to cause offence, plus it was on the next day’s menu. So, he had to do it. Without a knife, which does not keep the whole animal intact and is seen as disrespectful.
“It was difficult, suffocating a goat. But I could be the most ethically minded person at home in the UK but still by simply getting on a bus, I will have a much larger impact on the planet than any one of these people. Who am I to judge them?”
Parry is very keen not to act like the superior white man on a grand tour, and on the whole, he succeeds. “These children have never seen a white person before,” he says before saying hello to about five small Namibian children in a hut. Cue screams of horror from the children. “That’s quite a greeting,” he laughs. “I definitely have this effect on some people sometimes.” But quite soon into his three-week stay, he is considered part of the furniture, accepted by the Mucubal with amused interest.
Vomiting with the Waimaha is definitely a Parry takeaway. The tribe see it as a perfectly normal cleansing ritual prior to a night of special festivities. The festival, which goes on until dawn, involves getting high on some natural herb, after which there is much shouting, dancing and throwing up. All night long. How different is this from a Saturday night in many British cities? “I think there is a difference: theirs is a ritual with a beginning and an end, and the young people are overseen by elders who have experience of such events.”
How did he get on, taking the strong stuff but still having to interview people and talk to camera? “I feel a sense of trepidation, because you don’t quite know how your body is going to react. It’s pretty hardcore. But there is always something positive to be found. These people are much more aware of what they consume. They have an empathetic relationship with nature, with the forest.”
He’d be brilliant on I’m a Celebrity, I say. Being showered by a zillion cockroaches would be a walk in the park for Parry. “I have been asked to be on all these reality shows with physical challenges. I have always turned them down.”
In his quest to advocate for indigenous peoples, Parry sportingly allows himself to be bitten by ants in one show, while competing in a fist fight (where the aim is to draw blood) during another. But seeing others in pain is difficult. In the Angolan episode he is invited to observe a young girl willingly getting her lower teeth knocked out with a bloody stone (it is a sign of beauty), plus two young boys being circumcised. Here, the smile fades somewhat.
“I struggled watching the young girl go through her ritual, but the male circumcision was definitely the hardest experience. Not only was I experiencing the pain of the boys, but also a deeper cultural pain. Why do we all, all of us, continue with certain practices, which don’t have a reason any more? It is a big part of why I am there. Why do we do certain things if they are so painful?” The tribe does not practise female genital mutilation, he tells me. “This was a male ritual. And it was very public. I was invited to sit in the front row.”
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When he’s out with his crew, being bitten by ants, using stones for loo roll and sleeping on animal dung, does he ever wish he was back at home with a cup of coffee? “No! I mean, there are times that are hard. Sleeping conditions and food are generally the hardest challenges. But generally, I wake up each morning and pinch myself, thinking how lucky am I, Bruce Parry. I remind myself to remember this moment and never to forget how privileged I am to have the opportunity to share this experience.”
He brings it home to you. It’s a good ride, although get ready to squirm.
The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here.
Tribe with Bruce Parry starts at 9pm on Sunday 30th March 2025 on BBC Two.
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