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The history of contact, between indigenous tribes and the outside world, has always been an unhappy one.

who live a life probably unchanged for more than 10,000 years

Uncontacted tribes are usually discovered when loggers and ranchers encroach on their territories.

The tribe is a subgroup of the Kayapo tribe, and lives on its 4.9-million-hectare (12.1-million-acre) Menkregnoti Indian reservation, Moura said.

The Metyktire tribe, with about 87 members, was found last week in an area that is difficult to reach because of thick jungle and a lack of nearby rivers some 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) northwest of Rio de Janeiro, said Mario Moura, a spokesman for the Federal Indian Bureau, or Funai.

Moura said anthropologists no longer attempt to contact those groups, but instead demarcate the land and wait for them to make contact.

"We regularly receive complaints, and practically every day we hear news about (mistreatment of and discrimination against) Mapuche people," he said during a meeting with the press ahead of Wednesday's release of Amnesty's annual human rights report 2007, which for the fifth year in a row mentions ill-treatment of indigenous people in Chile.

The Mapuche, who number 600,000 in this country of 15.6 million, are the biggest indigenous group in Chile, making up 87 percent of the total native population. One-fifth of them live in the southern region of Araucanía.

In the report, the London-based Amnesty states that Carabineros (militarised police) raided the Mapuche indigenous community of Temucuicui in Araucanía in July 2006, purportedly looking for livestock stolen from local ranchers.

"Police reportedly fired tear gas, rubber bullets and live ammunition at members of the community, who were unarmed. Several people were injured and a number of homes destroyed. Children were affected by the tear gas and several escaped to nearby hills. Women and children were ill-treated," says the report.

Above and beyond such incidents, "the state of economic prostration of certain indigenous communities is not seen by the Chilean state as a situation that should cause concern from a human rights perspective," journalist Nibaldo Mosciatti, press officer for the Bío-Bío radio station, told IPS.

"The power of the logging companies (that have displaced indigenous people from their land in that region) is so strong that in the end you have the sensation and suspicion that part of the state apparatus is placed at their disposal, which is more or less what occurs in the north, where small communities are fighting mining corporations over water rights," said Mosciatti.

The most influential books of the last decade and a half are likely those of Terence McKenna, author of such works as Food of the Gods,The Archaic Revival, and True Hallucinations. Perhaps the most popular of McKenna's books, True Hallucinations is a wild, exciting retelling of his apparently true journeys through Amazonia in the early 1970s, with all the requisite drugs, shamans, shysters, and oddball characters. Many internet accounts of ayahuasca experiences frequently mention McKenna as an inspiration for their physical and mental journeys.

I contend that most who go are seeking novel experiences, perhaps something of a religious or mystical nature, something perceived as lacking in one's own life or culture. Anthropologist Marlene Dobkin de Rios emphasizes "the empty self of the post-World War II period, a self which is soothed and made cohesive by becoming filled up by consuming food, consumer products, and experiences" (1994:16).

With the growing popularity of computers and the subsequent information explosion, they are reaching a wider audience, attracting more people to South America.

Jonathan Ott believes "ayahuasca tourism can only disrupt the evanescent remnant of preliterate religiosity struggling to make a place for itself in the modern world, while attracting the wrong kind of attention to ayahuasca" (1994:12). When asked his opinions on the industry, Terence McKenna stated, perhaps a bit ironically since he is to a great extent responsible for ayahuasca's modern popularity, "I am against exploiting shamans or removing them from their cultural context or exporting Westerners into their cultural areas. The best course is to obtain the plants and the techniques and judiciously adapt them to one's own needs" (1998).

Many Amazonians revere ayahuasca, believing it to be a sacred plant, imbued with a living spirit that speaks to them when they enter into discourse with the brew. Now that it is marketed to the world, at least to Western Europe and the English-speaking world, ayahuasca is in danger of being profaned. As many South Americans realize its money-making potential, they "come to adopt a New Age vocabulary of shamanic healer/spiritual voyager" (Dobkin de Rios 1994:18). Charlatans with little or no training with ayahuasca may now present themselves as curanderos or brujos, risking not only the mental health of their customers, but their bodies as well. Westerners find it difficult to fully integrate traditional models of ayahuasca use, often leading to confusion and inaccurate portrayals in the non-mainstream media. Dobkin de Rios indicates that ayahuasca use is linked in a matrix dealing with moral order, with good and evil, with animals and humans, and with health and illness, which has little correspondence or sympathy with the experiences of people in industrial societies (1994:18).

The industry also has an impact on the environment. Not only are the people of South American placing demands on the supply of ayahuasca, but with the influx of tourists, sources could be in danger of complete exhaustion. The UDV now harvests their plants from church-owned plantations, taking away valuable agricultural land. Not all effects are negative. Organized production of ayahuasca plants ensures that jungle resources are not depleted. The presence of tourist's money might serve to encourage environmental awareness and subsequent preservation among those who would otherwise have to cut down forests for sources of income. Ayahuasca tour groups, a relatively new phenomenon, also add to the income of local economies as they travel, buying food and supplies as they move. The compounds that many tour groups stay in, such as the one owned by Agustín Rivas, insure that the tourists are not out unconsciously trampling plants vital to the jungle's ecosystem. With more tourists and increasing income, these ayahuasca compounds/ecological preserves can purchase ever-increasing amounts of jungle, insuring its preservation whilst simultaneously providing homes for jungle-dwelling indigenous groups. These hubs of activity reduce erosion of trails used by the jungle's original inhabitants, keeping cultural decline and disruption of wildlife in check. With the growth of eco-tourism in places like Brazil and Columbia, controlled programs for such endeavors are especially vital. If ayahuasca tourism is to be sustainable, the people in the industry must work with the environment, rather than operating in a one-way, exploitive manner.