The group of photojournalists is surrounding a Kayapo woman-- her face painted red--who is holding a young boy. The pose is strikingly like that of a Madonna and Child. Enriching the iconography of the scene, she also holds a machete raised defiantly --a gesture calling to mind images of left-wing revolutionaries from the 1960s: Che riding into Havana on the top of a truck, a heavily armed black Panther on the steps of a government building. The photographers standing in front of her are calling out instructions, telling her to raise the machete a little higher, or tilt it slightly this way or that. Payakan, who had been standing off to the side, begins to insert himself into this scene, working with the journalists to make certain they are able to get the exact pose they desire. He takes the woman gently by the elbow and turns her to face the sun. He suggests that she lift the child up a little higher. I walk about the scene grabbing close-ups of the woman, long shots and profiles of the photographers, and every shot possible of Payakan as he works his mise en scene. The Wolf, following behind me with boom pole extended, is doing an excellent job, careful not to allow any shadows to fall across the images I am gathering. When Payakan steps back, the cameras fire away at their creation perfected with his collaboration: an archetypical New Age icon, an Amazon Woman for a new era. She--or the image they created of her-- is part caring mother, part fearless warrior ready and poised in the new global fight to save the rain forest. But what she really represents is a resurrected icon, a descendant of the original Amazon. This mythological figure of "man-killing" warrior who seduces and then murders her male opponents was made famous by Herodotus in the fifth century B.C., recounted by Virgil in the first century B.C., and then transported to Brazil by the Spanish explorer Francisco de Orellana in 1541. It was Orellana who applied the misnomer to a group of Tapuya Indians with whom he fought with during his 4,000-kilometer expedition up what was thenceforth called the Amazon River. He referred to the Tapuya as Amazons because, he noted, the women fought side by side with the men. Today's reappearance of the woman warrior image attests to the residual power of ancient myths.