One of the larger of the native peoples of South America, the Araucanians include different ethnic subgroups, some of which are now extinct. Once geographically spread extensively over the southern cone of South America, at present they are reduced to only two closely related groups: (1) the Mapuche of southern Chile, the largest one; and (2) the…

Xingu National Park was officially set up in 1961 on the initiative of the Villas Boas brothers, whose intention was to afford shelter from economic expansion and its consequences in the form of disease and poverty to a certain number of still isolated tribes, and to give them the opportunity of being integrated gradually into the dominant…

Aripuana Park was established in 1969 to give the still isolated Surui and other Broad-Belt Indians a chance of survival at the time when Brazil was launching its "conquest of the Amazon". The Park is situated on both sides of the Upper Aripuana and extends to the Roosevelt and Juruena rivers. The Indians are located at the sources of…

In 1972, the Paraguayan Roman Catholic Church protested against the massacre of Indians in Paraguay. This was followed by further protests from Paraguayan intellectuals. These protests led to the removal of Jesus de Pereira, one of the executors of the official Ache policy. Thus, the critics were appeased. Since the beginning of 1973, new protests…