The Kayapó live in villages dispersed along the upper course of the Iriri, Bacajá and Fresco rivers, as well as affluents of the voluminous Xingu river, outlining a territory almost as large as Austria in Central Brazil and almost entirely covered in equatorial rainforest, with the exception of the eastern section, filled by some areas of scrubland. Their cosmology, ritual life and social organization are extremely rich and complex, while their relations with non-Indian society and environmentalists from the world over are marked by their intensity and ambivalence.