The Quiet Start Of Brazil’s War On The Amazon
SAWRÉ MUYBU, Brazil ― It
was like any other day in this remote corner of the Amazon,
where macaws squawked and coasted on colorful wings overhead and the hot sun
beat down on the gushing Tapajós River. Aboard a dirty, makeshift skiff
belching diesel exhaust, gold prospectors sucked up murky sand from the
riverbed to pan for the glinting metal. This time, though, they brought up
something else: a perfectly intact set of ceramic plates and bowls. It was a
bizarre find. But the prospector figured it might ingratiate him and his fellow
fortune seekers with the Munduruku, a local Indigenous tribe of roughly 12,000.
He chugged the skiff over to a Munduruku village and came ashore.