Die If You Must

'Die if you must, but never kill' was the injunction of the enlightened leader of the Brazilian movement to 'civilize' the Indian population in the first part of the 20th century. Years of exploration and exploitation of the Amazon's resources had revealed that those tribes living in the interior would need somehow to be brought into the modern world. Hemming describes the slow process of exploration, contact, their customs and practices and, disturbingly, their almost immediate decline on meeting modern man. He describes too, the change of heart which has led to a renaissance of tribal culture. It is heartening to learn finally that there are as many as 40 tribes still living in the Amazon forests-protected.