Brazil's Indians already have waged a 500-year war against globalization. So it's no wonder that they have become an international symbol of native peoples' struggle to stave off change. The Karaja, who lived across north-central Brazil, saw their numbers tumble from 45,000 earlier this century to roughly 3,000 today. From campaigns of enslavement to the stripping of their land, the Indians saw their culture shredded by colonizing Portuguese and Brazilian adventurers. There are an estimated 6,000 indigenous groups around the world.
Outsiders decide that indigenous people stand in their way.
Indigenous group gamely fights back, but is overwhelmed and pushed to society's margins. Numerous groups remain isolated or semi-isolated, and Sydney Possuelo, the famed discoverer of Indian tribes, keeps finding new ones. Yet far more Indians have meshed into Brazilian society. Today many Indians speak Portuguese, sometimes at the expense of their tribal tongue. More wear oxfords and khakis than grass skirts and loincloths.