Help from Old Father

The little Army mail plane squealed to a stop on Rio's airport. Out stepped a half-naked Indian. He was Chief Inai Cachirere of Matto Grosso's Javaes Indians. In broken Portuguese he demanded an audience with General Candido Rondon, 80, begetter of Brazil's enlightened Indian policy. Said full-blooded Chief Cachirere to part-Indian General Rondon: "Old Father, I come to tell you that a white man bought 2,986 kilograms of quartz crystal from the Javaes Indians and did not pay for it. The man is Lauro Melo and he lives at Rua Machado de Assis, No. 45."

This was not the first time that Chief Cachirere had called on Old Father for help. Years before, a planeload of prospectors had landed on a wilderness airstrip near the chief's village. With necklaces they had lured his pretty daughter into their plane, flown her away. The Chief had set out on foot in search of his kidnapped daughter. Months later, in the distant State of Paraiba, he had found the princess. Rondon, advised of the reunion, had Chief and princess flown back to the grateful tribe.

In Rio, last week, Indian Service officials had tricked out Chief Cachirere in white man's clothes. But he was unhappy. He considered clothes unhealthy, Rio's purified water unsafe for drinking. In far-off Goiaz, federal police were tracking down the supposed quartz swindler. If white man had wronged red man in Brazil, justice would be done.

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