Yanomami Indians

Earnest and God-fearing, jungle missionary Gary Greenwood may not look like a spy for the CIA. But Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez says the lanky young man from central Michigan is no less than an advance scout for an imminent U.S. invasion of this South American country. Last month, Chavez ordered the expulsion of about 200 evangelical Baptist missionaries from the country's Amazon rain forest.

Although novice filmmaker Leslie Baer-Brown recently won an award for her documentary about the Yanomami, an indigenous people of South America, her trip to their small Venezuelan settlement did not have a happy ending. The village of Ashetoeateri lies within a biosphere reserve, a 45,000-square-mile area of rain forest meant to protect all Yanomami from outsiders. Gold miners have brought diseases that have already killed scores and that continue to spread.

The dwindling Indians of Brazil implored Pope John Paul II on Wednesday to help awaken international awareness of dire threats to their survival. The Pope met with 150 Indian representatives on the sweltering back patio of a Roman Catholic social agency in this western Brazilian city, a gateway to the vast Amazon forest.

Bitter disputes over gold and diamonds involving miners, priests and soldiers are endangering the lives of the Yanomami Indians, the largest primitive tribe in existence. The Indians are threatened by a gold rush atmosphere in the remote northern Brazilian territory of Roraima, a region about the size of Minnesota, where a statue of a gold miner is the only monument gracing the tiny of capital of Boa Vista.

Heavy tropical rains are stalling a government effort to relocate thousands of gold prospectors who have illegally invaded tribal lands of Brazil's Yanomami Indians and endangered their pristine society, a Justice Ministry spokesman said Wednesday. A gold rush that began in 1987 has lured the prospectors to large areas of Yanomami land, exposing the previously isolated Indians to diseases and disrupting their traditional means of livelihood.

The Yanomami forest people cremate the bones of their dead and grind them into dust, which they sometimes eat in a plantain gruel as they wail and weep in mourning. They observe a strict taboo against mentioning Yanomamis who have died, except during this funeral ritual.

Hours after the jet helicopter delivered her expedition into a settlement deep within the Amazon jungle, Leslie Baer-Brown fell victim to uncontrollable fear. She had come to study the Yanomami, an indigenous South American people once reported to be fiercely violent murderers, primitives who gang-raped women for fun. This particular Venezuelan Yanomami village, Ashetoeateri, about which she was making a documentary had previously never been contacted by outsiders.

Delays in government help for Brazil's beleaguered Yanomami Indians have permitted thousands of invading gold prospectors to remain on Indian homelands, exposing the Yanomamis to disease and ravaging their traditional hunting grounds. On Sept. 5, armed prospectors entered a Yanomami village and killed two Indians, including a chieftain known as Lourenco. Indians killed two prospectors in the clash, which reflected the deadly nature of the struggle over Yanomami lands.

The Cartier Foundation for Contemporary Art can't be accused of being an ordinary place with a predictable program. Ensconced in a modern glass jewel box of a building on Raspail Boulevard, it's an institution where up-to-the-minute art can encompass everything from Matthew Barney's sculpture to robotic toys to Issey Miyake's knife-pleated dresses. Even so, the current exhibition, "Yanomami: Spirit of the Forest," is quite a reach.

Earnest and God-fearing, jungle missionary Gary Greenwood may not look like a spy for the CIA. But Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez says the lanky young man from central Michigan is no less than an advance scout for an imminent U.S. invasion of this South American country. Last month, Chavez ordered the expulsion of about 200 evangelical Baptist missionaries from the country's Amazon rain forest.

The Cartier Foundation for Contemporary Art can't be accused of being an ordinary place with a predictable program. Ensconced in a modern glass jewel box of a building on Raspail Boulevard, it's an institution where up-to-the-minute art can encompass everything from Matthew Barney's sculpture to robotic toys to Issey Miyake's knife-pleated dresses. Even so, the current exhibition, "Yanomami: Spirit of the Forest," is quite a reach.

The Yanomami forest people cremate the bones of their dead and grind them into dust, which they sometimes eat in a plantain gruel as they wail and weep in mourning. They observe a strict taboo against mentioning Yanomamis who have died, except during this funeral ritual.

Although novice filmmaker Leslie Baer-Brown recently won an award for her documentary about the Yanomami, an indigenous people of South America, her trip to their small Venezuelan settlement did not have a happy ending. The village of Ashetoeateri lies within a biosphere reserve, a 45,000-square-mile area of rain forest meant to protect all Yanomami from outsiders. Gold miners have brought diseases that have already killed scores and that continue to spread.

Hours after the jet helicopter delivered her expedition into a settlement deep within the Amazon jungle, Leslie Baer-Brown fell victim to uncontrollable fear. She had come to study the Yanomami, an indigenous South American people once reported to be fiercely violent murderers, primitives who gang-raped women for fun. This particular Venezuelan Yanomami village, Ashetoeateri, about which she was making a documentary had previously never been contacted by outsiders.

The dwindling Indians of Brazil implored Pope John Paul II on Wednesday to help awaken international awareness of dire threats to their survival. The Pope met with 150 Indian representatives on the sweltering back patio of a Roman Catholic social agency in this western Brazilian city, a gateway to the vast Amazon forest.

Delays in government help for Brazil's beleaguered Yanomami Indians have permitted thousands of invading gold prospectors to remain on Indian homelands, exposing the Yanomamis to disease and ravaging their traditional hunting grounds. On Sept. 5, armed prospectors entered a Yanomami village and killed two Indians, including a chieftain known as Lourenco. Indians killed two prospectors in the clash, which reflected the deadly nature of the struggle over Yanomami lands.

Heavy tropical rains are stalling a government effort to relocate thousands of gold prospectors who have illegally invaded tribal lands of Brazil's Yanomami Indians and endangered their pristine society, a Justice Ministry spokesman said Wednesday. A gold rush that began in 1987 has lured the prospectors to large areas of Yanomami land, exposing the previously isolated Indians to diseases and disrupting their traditional means of livelihood.

Bitter disputes over gold and diamonds involving miners, priests and soldiers are endangering the lives of the Yanomami Indians, the largest primitive tribe in existence. The Indians are threatened by a gold rush atmosphere in the remote northern Brazilian territory of Roraima, a region about the size of Minnesota, where a statue of a gold miner is the only monument gracing the tiny of capital of Boa Vista.