But while the first encounter between native South Americans and Europeans began with an exchange of gifts, this time the Indians are bearing protest banners. Our ancestors have known this land forever. The only thing the whites did was to steal the lands from the peoples of the forest and destroy them. Destitute When the Portuguese arrived, there were some five million Indians in Brazil, comprising 1,000 tribes. Now there are only about 350,000 people, in 210 tribes, according to the government's Indian agency.
Analysts say their population is only now starting to recover.
Most of the Indians are destitute and live in strips of land, usually allocated by the government. They have minimum sanitary, health and educational facilities. Along with Suriname, Brazil is the only Latin American country not to recognise the right, enshrined in international law, of tribal peoples to own their land. Suicide Mr Mazower says there is still wide-scale persecution and a great deal of violence directed against Indians. They have suffered 500 years of victimisation and racism and exploitation and they feel the situation isn't getting much better.