Xingu River

SANTO ANTONIO, Brazil - The wind blows in from the river, mingling with the scent of the day's last meal in the kitchen. The smells of work and home for Valcione da Silva. He sits on a worn bench and watches children play on the floor, laughing. Somewhere outside, a siren begins, long and loud. Da Silva reaches beneath his bench to retrieve two knives, double-edged like daggers. They're not weapons, he says, clattering them together. They're special fishing tools. "Only wood," he says.

SANTO ANTONIO, Brazil - The wind blows in from the river, mingling with the scent of the day's last meal in the kitchen. The smells of work and home for Valcione da Silva. He sits on a worn bench and watches children play on the floor, laughing. Somewhere outside, a siren begins, long and loud. Da Silva reaches beneath his bench to retrieve two knives, double-edged like daggers. They're not weapons, he says, clattering them together. They're special fishing tools. "Only wood," he says.

Hundreds of Indians, wearing paint and carrying spears, gathered in the Brazilian Amazon town of Altamira to protest plans for hydroelectric dams that they say will drown the rain forest and displace 7,000 Indians. The unusual five-day meeting has brought together environmentalists, foreign media and Indians from about 15 tribes.

Hundreds of Indians, wearing paint and carrying spears, gathered in the Brazilian Amazon town of Altamira to protest plans for hydroelectric dams that they say will drown the rain forest and displace 7,000 Indians. The unusual five-day meeting has brought together environmentalists, foreign media and Indians from about 15 tribes.

Two Brazilian Indian leaders, on trial for speaking in the United States against dam projects that would flood tribal lands in Brazil, said Friday that they are mobilizing thousands of other Amazon Indians in a protest campaign. "We are going to continue our struggle," said Paulinho Paiakan, a Kaiapo chieftain. "We are not going to let them build those dams." Speaking at a Rio press conference, Paiakan vowed that if work starts on the planned dams, Indians will occupy the construction camps.

Former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and his wife, Maria Shriver, have separated, with Shriver moving out of their Brentwood mansion while the two determine the next step in their 25-year marriage. Shriver has been residing apart from the actor-turned-politician for the last few weeks. The former first couple confirmed the separation in a joint statement released Monday after questions from The Times. "This has been a time of great personal and professional transition for each of us," the statement read.

The Bowers Museum of Cultural Art has received the largest single donation in its 59-year history. Valued at more than $1 million, the gift from the collection of Roy and Bentley Dillard of Arizona includes a group of more than 400 pre-Columbian and Aymara textiles, including ponchos and other clothing, as well as pre-Columbian gold, copper and silver objects. The Aymaras, who live largely in Bolivia and Peru, were believed to have built a great ancient culture before the Inca civilization.

Orlando Villas Boas, a Brazilian explorer who gained an international reputation along with his brothers for protecting the rights of Brazilian Indians, died Thursday at a Sao Paulo hospital. He was 88. Villas Boas had been hospitalized since Nov. 14 with an acute intestinal infection. He was the last of four brothers who spent their lives defending Brazil's natives against the harmful incursions of Westerners.

A disabled Brazilian jetliner crash-landed in a remote wilderness area of the Amazon basin with 54 people aboard, and 46 of them survived, the Aeronautics Ministry reported Tuesday. The news came two days after the Boeing 737-200 disappeared. The last radio contact with the Varig plane had come Sunday evening. It reported trouble with the plane's navigation equipment and with an engine.

The fight to save the world's tropical rain forests has spawned its heroes and its martyrs, none more renowned than Chico Mendes, the leader of the rubber tappers, who was gunned down in the western Amazon four years ago. Since Mendes' murder, the man who has perhaps come best to symbolize the struggle to save the Amazon is an Indian chief named Paulinho Paiakan, of the Kayapo tribe who live on a tributary of the Xingu River.

Two Brazilian Indian leaders, on trial for speaking in the United States against dam projects that would flood tribal lands in Brazil, said Friday that they are mobilizing thousands of other Amazon Indians in a protest campaign. "We are going to continue our struggle," said Paulinho Paiakan, a Kaiapo chieftain. "We are not going to let them build those dams." Speaking at a Rio press conference, Paiakan vowed that if work starts on the planned dams, Indians will occupy the construction camps.

Deep in the Amazon forest of Brazil, archeologists have found a network of 1,000-year-old towns and villages that refutes two long-held notions: that the pre-Columbian tropical rainforest was a pristine environment unaltered by humans and that the rainforest could not support a complex society. A 15-mile-square region at the headwaters of the Xingu River contains at least 19 villages that are sited at regular intervals and share the same circular design.