In the aftermath the press made much of this Caiapó group, describing them as people close to nature and therefore pure, and with experience so limited to their traditional ways that they understand airplanes as distant iron birds. The reality is more complex. I counted five satellite television dishes in the village, and, out beyond an imposing schoolhouse, found a groomed dirt runway long enough to accommodate high-performance turboprops. The Caiapós certainly know what airplanes are. In fact their leader, a heavyset man named Megaron, sometimes gets around on government-paid chartered ones, and several years ago was flown to New York by the musician Sting to join a campaign for the preservation of Indian lands. Sitting in a council space in the shade of trees, Megaron described his arrival in New York to me—looking out his window and seeing other airplanes in flight, and then watching them land, one after the other, just minutes apart. He had been impressed by the performance of New York Air Traffic Control. So much for the “iron bird” part of the story. Nonetheless, it is true that the Caiapós are not sold on modernity as it is typically defined. They have not, for instance, been Christianized or persuaded to abandon their traditional beliefs, which include the proximity of a parallel world “on the other side,” roamed by the souls of the sudden-dead, with whom only a shaman can talk. Was it possible that the thunder had escaped from there? In some sense it had. But to ride in airplanes is not to have them foremost in mind. No one among the Caiapós imagined that the thunder was the sound of a Boeing 737 hitting the ground.

The same bewilderment afflicted others within earshot of the impact. To the west of Caiapó territory, at the headquarters of a 21,000-head cattle ranch called Fazenda Jarinã, many of the employees heard the thunder and could make nothing of it. The manager of Fazenda Jarinã is a small, lonely man named Ademir Riebero, who told me he knew that the north-south traffic between Manaus and Brasília passes high overhead, and that at night you can hear the airplanes and see their lights. On the evening of September 29, however, when he heard talk of the unexplained thunder, he did not wonder if one had crashed. To me he said, “We just couldn’t imagine it could happen here. Only in São Paulo or places like that.” Indeed, the airplanes that passed overhead were in the least critical phase of flight, cruising high and straight through the cold clean sky, unstressed, and organically resistant to almost any error their crews might make. But then Riebero received a radiophone call from an official he knew, who said, “Ademir, there is a Gol airplane that has disappeared, and it seems to have gone down near you.” Gol is a discount airline named after the drawn-out victory cry in soccer—G-O-O-O-O-L!!! Riebero switched on the television news and saw a map labeled Jarinã on the screen. It was odd how this authenticated the situation in his mind. From the lack of reports from the outstations, he surmised that the airplane had not crashed on the ranch’s holdings. But given the size and density of the bordering jungle, it was not surprising that an entire Boeing could have disappeared.

Later that night, with more radiophone calls coming in, Riebero heard that workers at the neighboring farm had seen an airplane fall. These are the only known eyewitnesses to the accident. The farm where they live and work is small compared with Fazenda Jarinã, but large nonetheless. As something of a plaything it is luxurious and extremely well kept. It belongs to a 24-year-old man in São Paulo, to whom it was gifted by his grandfather. Being rich can be especially pleasant in Brazil—and the Amazon, let’s face it, looks better after it is cut down. The workers were laying a new brick wall when they heard a roar and spotted the Boeing perhaps a dozen miles to the east. It was pointed straight down and seemed to be wobbling and trailing a cloud. At that distance the airplane looked just a few inches long. It disappeared over a tree line and into the forests beyond. No dust or smoke rose into the sky. Some seconds later came the thunder. The workers ran to find their boss, who hurried to a radio and made the first call. That night people at the farm had a hard time sleeping.