S HELTERING ALMOST HALF THE Earth's Living SPECIES, the rain forest and tropical lowlands of South America are also home to indigenous peoples who speak many different languages and have diverse customs. These peoples are quite defined in themselves, yet they have never been pristine units living in complete isolation from each other, as anthropologists have sometimes wanted us to believe. For millennia, they have been in contact with near and distant neighbors. They have always traveled, fought, made and broken treaties, and traded goods, shamanic knowledge, cures, songs, speeches, and narratives. This was certainly the case before the European invasion, and has continued to be since. After the invasion, however, indigenous groups throughout the tropical lowlands, as elsewhere in America, have had to deal with a more concerted and technologically efficient pressure on their lives, cultures, and land. Nobody knows for sure how many native American lives were claimed by disease or assassination in the region during the first two centuries of invasion, but most historical accounts agree that they must amount to millions. In addition to physical violence and expropriation of land, rain forest people were (and continue to be) subject to constant attacks on their culture by religious and secular institutions and individuals convinced of their own cultural and moral superiority. The consequences of these policies, as we know, have been devastating for indigenous peoples throughout the Americas. xiii