THE HISTORY OF what has happened to Brazil's Indians in the last hundred years is about as exciting and important a tale as any told about the huge global events which have characterised the twentieth century. Those of us who became involved with the Indians a little over halfway through the story saw a disaster unfolding. There seemed to be nothing anyone could do except, perhaps, soften their passing. Extinction loomed.

Then Norman Lewis wrote a celebrated article for the Sunday Times in February 1968. In it he accused the Brazilian Government of genocide and he quoted the anthropologist Darcy Ribiero's prediction that there would not be a single Indian left in the country by 1980. This led a small group