Couldn't load font "Sans 10"

[Larry Evans <jcampbell3 prodigy net>]

I'm getting this error message before anything shows up on screen.
I'm using Mandrake 8.2 with some debian packages (including pango).
I've traced the source of this message to function:

  pango_font_map_real_load_fontset
    (  PangoFontMap*
    ,  PangoContext*
    ,  const PangoFontDescription*
    ,  PangoLanguage*
    )

in pagango-fontmap.c.

This function calls pango_font_map_fontset_add_fonts; however, the
fonts returned have 0 size.  The last few lines of an strace show:

open("/usr/local/etc/pango/pango.aliases", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No 
such file or directory)
open("/home/evansl/.pango.aliases", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file 
or directory)
getpid()                                = 14194
open("/usr/local/lib/charset.alias", O_RDONLY|O_LARGEFILE) = -1 ENOENT 
(No such file or directory)
brk(0x8157000)                          = 0x8157000
write(2, "\n** (dia:14194): WARNING **: Cou"..., 84) = 84

I tried creating the home/evansl/.pango.aliases with:

SANSNORM=Sans-medium-i-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-adobe-standard

but this didn't help, although the file was actually read.

How do I avoid this error?

TIA.