The indigenous Amazon archer aiming for Olympics glory The quiet teenager is one of 12 boys recruited from the rainforest for his remarkable skills with a bow and arrow, honed since the age of nine and passed on to him by generations of ancestors. If he is selected as one of the best three of the dozen indigenous archers, he will move to the capital of Brazil's Amazon region, Manaus, for training ahead of the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro. It is a prospect that leaves Jardel, who has his ear pierced in traditional fashion with a wooden splint, both excited and daunted. "If I'm selected, I'll have to move to Manaus, I'll have to change schools," he says with trepidation. It's very different there. It certainly is. Jardel's village, which is 90 minutes by boat from Manaus, sits right in the dense rainforest of the Amazon basin, its dozen-odd wooden cabin homes built on stilts for when the nearby river occasionally rises its banks. Its rickety wooden jetty is the only lifeline to the wider world, and for many of Jardel's fellow archers, a recent trip to Manaus for a training session with Brazil's champion archer, Roberval Fernando dos Santos, was the first time they had ever left their communities. Among the novelties for those used to living in and from nature was yoghurt, something they saw for the first time on a trip to a supermarket for groceries. In Três Unidos, everything is crafted from the natural resources, from the bows and arrows through to their distinctive jewellery and face paint, which is made from the crushed seeds of the urucum fruit. More used to shooting for meals than medals, Jardel described how his days were filled with archery - less a sport than a life skill - from well before the project began in January. "Now, I go straight to training from 7am to 9am, more or less two hours in the morning and in the afternoon too, it's the same thing, from 4pm until 6pm, until sunset," he said. But before, it was the same, using the bow and arrow just for fishing, but nobody thought anything of this. The man behind the Amazonian archery project is Professor Virgilio Viana, the CEO of the Amazonas Sustainable Foundation, who was inspired by the 2016 Games to uncover hidden talent , He hopes it will provide the first Indian member of the Brazilian team, which sent only one representative to the London 2012 Games, as well as continuing an important Amazonian tradition. "If you look at the personal history of young Indians, instead of being given a little car or a doll, they get a bow and arrow," he said. They can hunt a bird flying at 100 metres or they can hit a turtle by calculating precisely how to land an arrow perpendicularly onto its shell. The people of Três Unidos live close to the water's edge on the mouth of a tributary to the Rio Negro, which together with the Rio Solimões forms the Amazon. It is on the beach, once the river subsides, that Jardel and others practise their aim on the most basic of training grounds, in the dry, hot summer and the wet, tropical winter that divides the year. When Jardel begins practising, two other prize-winning archers - Deivide and Nelson - meekly join to show off their skills. They say little but their aim is true; children pick up bows and arrows like toys in the village. "I started at the age of nine with native bows and arrows that I used to fish," Jardel said. All my siblings shoot, everyone here does. It was my father who taught me. My grandfather passed it on to him, and my father passed it on to me. Jardel's parents, Sebastião and Marina Kambeba, who, like many in the village take the name of the tribe as their surname, are supportive of the project as a way of both preserving their tribal name and the wider Amazon Indian culture. Self-esteem among the Kambeba has fallen as the number of natives has decreased. Once known as Omagua, one of the most important tribes on the Amazon basin with 400 villages of up to 3,000 people each, they number just 300 now. Already a champion archer at the Indigenous Games in Amazonas, which also featured canoeing, tug of war and spear throwing, Jardel is something of a star among his people. His success is restoring pride to the village, though the attention sits uncomfortably on his young shoulders. The elder of the village, Valdemir, is protective of the young protégé. Wearing a traditional wooden beaded headband like a crown, he greets visitors to the village with questions before allowing anyone to speak to him. As well as archery, native languages, music and dance, are also being revived at the village's two schools, one municipal and one state, which serve five nearby communities. The foundation hopes to extend the project to canoeing, another typical indigenous sport. Although the Kambeba tribe is not in complete isolation - its people speak Portuguese and has contact with non-Indian communities - its fragility is recognised in law and is designated as an Area of Environmental Protection (APA). Raimunda Kambeba, one of the teachers, said keeping alive indigenous culture was important to the self-worth of the tribe. Young Indians are learning there is no shame in being indigenous. Our archery is not being forgotten. Professor Viana said that the project's success relied partly on helping the boys prepare psychologically for the new and very different environments that being Olympic contenders would bring them into. Earlier this month, the archers travelled to the National Championships in Belo Horizonte, to experience a competition atmosphere. The group will eventually be reduced to the best three archers to continue training next year, swapping their native equipment for aluminium bows and carbon fibre arrows, viewfinders and stabilisers. "Olympic archery is about the posture and position," Jardel said. My bow here is made of wood but the Olympic bow is stronger and heavier too. It's different and a little difficult. Their new coach, Mr Santos, who won a bronze medal at the Archery World Cup, praised the talent and discipline of the indigenous boys. "It's very different because native bows are very rudimentary, very primitive," Mr Santos said. I would say the most advanced part of their equipment is the cord but the bows and arrows are made from what they can find naturally. I've had two or three opportunities to try with a native bow and it's difficult. After three brief training sessions, he said, his trainees had made more progress than would be expected in several weeks. Back at Três Unidos, Jardel carries the hopes of his community with him as he waits to hear whether he will get the chance to continue training. "It would be great to qualify for the Olympics," he said. As my father says, before, indigenous people were not seen. But now, through this project, it's a great advancement for the community and all indigenous people.