In Beijing, the Square of Heavenly Peace does not yet blush to be called Tienanmen. Berlin is finally getting ready to free itself of the wall of shame. In England, Sheffield is falling asleep, lying in wait for the tide of Liverpool FC supporters, whose frontline - about a hundred - will die three days later, crushed against the gates of the soccer stadium. Vienna is quickly forgetting the death of Zita, who ruled the Austro-Hungarian empire. And Tokyo, that of Hirohito, the last Emperor of age-old Japan.

There is worldwide indignation about the fatwas recently launched by Ayatollah Khomeini against the iconoclastic author of "The Satanic Verses." In France, another author, Simenon, is really about to smoke his last pipe. The radio brings us news of Olivier de Kersauson sailing towards a world record. Of course, there is an oil spill as always, but it is in far-away Alaska. And Paris is dazzled by the lights of the Eiffel Tower that adorn its now centenary iron dress.

Thus goes the world from one week to the next. Nothing new then, on that pre-Easter evening rocked by a lascivious rhythm pointing to a future summer hit: the lambada just landed from Brazil. It's not the only one.

So it's April 12. The martial jingle of French television channel TF1 at last sounds the three knocks of the eight o'clock news. Three hundred days - and more - a year, for ten years now, the curtain opens on Patrick d'Arvor (a.k.a. PPDA), messenger of cathodic confessions, always halfway between smile and sternness. Coup de theatre, or rather, coup de television: the kokar, corolla of red and blue macaw feathers, invades the screen. They dance like flames around a face blackened with ashes and jemipapo, a pigment made from wild berries in the Amazonian rainforest. Piercing eyes fascinate the camera. And above all, pinned on his lower lip, a red balsa-wood disk cuts his face, under the stunned eyes of PPDA. The man is a Native American Indian. A labert-wearing Indian. A warrior, he is the chief of a remote tribe at the wild heart of Brazil's Matto Grosso. This is a far cry from the lambada and the golden beaches of Copacabana. This is the first time that this tall cacique has set foot outside of Xingu, an enclave six times the size of Belgium and twice as big as Ireland.

He has traveled to Paris across the 'large salted lagoon' - the Atlantic - and is starting a world tour on which is to meet with Paris Mayor Jacques Chirac, French President Francois Mitterand, Prince Charles of England, King Juan Carlos of Spain, and Pope John Paul II. His message is an S.O.S. "My name is Raoni, I am the chief of the Kayapo. People are destroying the rainforest, exterminating wild animals, mortally injuring my people, killing the Earth. Help me, before it's too late!"

The camera pulls back to frame Raoni's bust. His body is covered with war paint. His wearing pearl bracelets around his arms and a heavy necklace. On his left side is a young European. Jean-Pierre Dutilleux was born in Malmedy Belgium, at the gates of the Walloon forest. The forest, already. In his colorful field Portuguese, he translates snatches of Kayapo acquired in the bush between rio Tapajos and Zingu river.

Dutilleux is 'Kritako,' the man with the hatchet nose. The friend, the brother. His hair is slightly curly and classically long, Woodstock style. Yet, this dreamer harboring fraternal illusions and clear utopianism is no new-age hippy. The Indians: he knows them well. The rainforest: he's just been there. Raoni saved his life.

In 1973, Jean-Pierre Dutilleux made his first contact with the hostile tribe of the Txuccaramaes (those who hit blows with clubs), a branch of the Kayapo. Events took a bad turn. His dugout ran aground in the night. Suddenly, coming out of nowhere, a double row of torches towers up above him and his few guides from the neighboring Juruna tribe. He can make out bodies covered with war paint, shining in the moonlight. They are all holding blood-colored bludgeons. They are all wearing the balsa plates of the braves on their lips. In a flash of lightening, Minh the witch doctor defies him, electrifying him with his fiery eyes, beating the ground with his club, chanting imprecations: "We must kill all White people! Otherwise we will loose our land."

Jean-Pierre's life was saved by the mystery inspired by his camera. Raoni foresaw he had a 'strange ally with a magic box' in Kritako, who could help him save his territory.

Then, one day, Raoni decided to go and visit Kritako. Jean-Pierre, foiling a thousand traps, kept his word as far as to bring him, this evening of April 12, before an audience of ten million French viewers. As far as to take him around the world in sixty days, a trip worthy of cultural and romantic fiction.

Jean-Pierre Dutilleux's life as an indigenist is made of a wealth of stories like Raoni's. He has extensively traveled to the most remote corners of the five continents. He has obstinately gone in search of unknown tribes. These survivors of the Stone Age have made it through the ages and are holding out on the fringe of civilizations which have become predatory.

Jean-Pierre's publications are not the work of an ethnologist, snatched from dusty atlases. It is the intimate treasure of a candid adventurer turned conscience awakener. I have known him for twenty years. His pictures have made the cover and dozens of pages in Paris Match. Jean-Pierre Dutilleux does not hold forth on the color of seashells used by the Korowai in Irian Jaya, nor on the chalky masks worn by Mikea women, nor the reclusion of young Kamiura. When he established a first contact with the Toulambi in Papua New Guinea, he shares this experience with us through the emotion of truthful images. When he spends time with the Mursi in Ethiopia, he recognizes in the women with labrets certain Amazonian rites that add to the mysteries of the first world.

At the crossroads of the millenniums, while the world is languishing under the aggression of over-industrialization, he reminds us of vanished times, trying to draw the virtues of ancestral wisdom from them. He is like a universal legatee of the first world. We are heirs entitled to certain portions.

What we save and pass on ?

In the year 2000 Jean-Piere Dutilleux authors Raoni's return to Paris.

Sad return, despite the emotion of their reunion. The Great Kayapo Reservation in Xingu is once again threatened. Native South Americans seem condemned to restless roaming. The forest is burning, here and everywhere from the Amazon to Borneo. And the planet is on fire. Kosovo, Rwanda, Chechnya and Tibet still. The OPEC is juggling with oil prices, while southern Brittany is barely emerging from the stains of yet another oil slick. As in Amazonia, ravaged by fire, in France, storms have devasted our forests. Raoni comes to us again, like a king without a crown, but not his corolla. He has again donned his macaw feathers and his war paint. His message is unchanged. It is a last call for a final call: "By helping the Indians, by helping me, you can save the future of the planet. Yes, help me. For us. For you. For your children. Before it is too late."