MacPorts / Terminal: `Unrecognized action "sudo"`

I'm trying to install Image Magick on MAMP. And I'm seriously out of my depth.

I've installed MacPorts, and opened the terminal. I've typed in sudo port -v selfupdate per the instructions on http://www.macports.org/install.php#pkg

But the response I get from the Terminal is Unrecognized action "sudo"

I've googled and googled, but can't find anything that makes a slab of sense.

Any clever people feeling generous?

You are running ports on interactive mode, and you are not in your system shell. The port program won't recognize sudo as one of its commands, and I am guessing you didn't run your port command with sudo so you won't be able to do much, try the following:

• Click on your terminal.
• Press command + Q (command is the key left of your space bar)

• Open your terminal once again and do not run anything on else but the command suggested:

  sudo port -v selfupdate

If you get the same thing, you are still or again in Macports interactive session, type CTRL + C, or type quit.