This is going on my must read list.

I thought I would pass it along to you all.


By Lynn Harnett
April 12, 2009 6:00 AM

Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle
Daniel L. Everett
Pantheon


The Pirahã are the "Show me!" tribe of the Brazilian Amazon. They don't bother with fiction or tall tales or even oral history. They have little art. They don't have a creation myth and don't want one. If they can't see it, hear it, touch it or taste it, they don't believe in it.

Missionaries have been preaching to the Pirahãs for 200 years and have converted not one. Everett did not know this when he first visited them in 1977 at age 26. A missionary and a linguist, he was sent to learn their language, translate the Bible for them, and ultimately bring them to Christ.

Instead, they brought him to atheism. "The Pirahãs have shown me that there is dignity and deep satisfaction in facing life and death without the comfort of heaven or the fear of hell and in sailing toward the great abyss with a smile."

Not that they have escaped religion entirely. Spirits live everywhere and may even caution or lecture them at times. But these spirits are visible to the Pirahãs, if not to Everett and his family, who spent 30 years, on and off, living with the tribe.

But they don't have marriage or funeral ceremonies. Cohabitation suffices as the wedding announcement and divorce is accomplished just as simply, though there may be more noise involved. Sexual mores are governed by common sense rather than stricture, which means that single people have sex at will while married people are more circumspect.

People are sometimes buried with their possessions, which are few, and larger people are often buried sitting "because this requires less digging." But there is no ritual for each family to follow.

"Perhaps the activity closest to ritual among the Pirahãs is their dancing. Dances bring the village together. They are often marked by promiscuity, fun, laughing, and merriment by the entire village. There are no musical instruments involved, only singing, clapping, and stomping of feet."

Everett's language studies began without benefit of dictionary or primer. None of the Pirahãs spoke any English or more than the most rudimentary Portuguese. (Among their many eccentricities is their total lack of interest in any facet of any other culture including tools or language — not that they won't use tools, like canoes, they just won't make them or absorb them into their culture.)

Amazingly, "Pirahã is not known to be related to any other living human language."

At first it seems rather deprived. There are only 11 phonemes (speech sounds). There are no numbers, no words for colors. No words for please, thank you or sorry. There are, however, tones, whistles and clicks. And the language comes in three forms — regular plus Humming speech and Yelling speech.

Over the years, Everett comes to the conclusion that the Pirahã language reflects and arises from their culture in its directness, immediacy and simplicity. Ultimately he defies Noam Chomsky's theory of Universal Grammar (Pirahã lacks a basic requirement) and starts a firestorm in the linguistics field. Everett alludes mildly to this in the book, but a little Internet browsing will leave readers shocked — shocked! — at the way linguists talk to one another.

There are plenty of anecdotes involving the reader in Everett's adventures, hardships, terrors, epiphanies and the pure strangeness of daily life with a people who live in the immediate present and whose most common "good night" is "Don't sleep, there are snakes." (sound sleep is dangerous and, besides, toughening themselves is a strong cultural value — foodless days are also common).

Fascinating as both anthropological memoir and linguistic study, Everett's book will appeal to those interested in very not-North American cultures and in the ways people shape language and it shapes us.

It's a book that rouses a sense of wonder and gives rise to even more questions than it answers.

Lynn Harnett, of Kittery, Maine, writes book reviews for Seacoast Sunday. She can be reached at lynnharnett@gmail.com.

I lived in the Philippines....I still hate snakes

Sounds like a really good book! Please, once you finish reading it, give us your review.

Wow sounds facinating. Though I know many missionaries do wonderful things, I wish they would quite trying to convert people. It's nice to know there are people out there not indoctrinated and influenced.

I would like to hear your review of it also.

isn;t that what missionaries do???? if they spend the money for it...why not?

Well I think if your spending time and money to help a poor people to learn to grow things etc, that's fine. But to convert them to something they never needed to survive and be happy is another. I think it borders on unethical. Who are they to decide what is right and wrong for others?

At one time I might have said exactly what you just said, but not now. I have come to believe what the missionary in this story has come to believe. We shouldn't assume people who live so much differently than we do are in need of our version of a god, or any god for that matter.

Because we have been taught this stuff since we were very young doesn't mean we should expect others to adopt the same beliefs, or even try to push it on them. I am trying desperately not to make this sound like I am disrespecting religion but I guess there is not getting around how it will sound.

hey if athiests want to do missionary work...they are welcome to preach what they want to....but hello...if whatever belief is coughing up the money....they are entitled

I really was hesitant to say this to you imparticular because you might take it badly.. it was not my intention to slam religion thought it's hard to not slam it and be honest at the same time..

It seems to me that if the goal is to help people than coughing up the money is to achieve the goal of helping people, not converting people. Must we convert them to help them?

Atheists are no missionaries, there's nothing to teach. Atheists could just go and help them and enjoy they company, nothing to convert them to.

It would be nice, though, if people could be doing good work just for the sake of doing good work.


I'm not knocking them though. My church sends missionaries out. The church supports them financially.

true...but they or any other belief can use their money and go.... so they are christian...wtf...if they raised the money....it's their business

sorry but my point is...it's really no ones business if something is preached if it's their money...if you don't like it...raise the money yourself

Yes yes, that actually was a better way to put it, might have saved me that swift kick from Rose. But yes that is what I mean, don't preach to people, just help them. I saw a documentary on a tribe that was expected to convert, they did so to get food and clothing but would come back to their village and not do what the missionaries asked. The missionaries finally left when the realized the people were not going to change. Leaving them in the same condition they found them. Which to me said those christians were not all that christian, if they could leave them in the same state they found them because they simply wanted help not conversion.

I probably didn't say that right but it's late.

That's sad. Then they really didn't help the people in the village.

hey....great idea...raise the money yourself

It's true. It's nobody's business. But..we can talk about it on here.

Who are you talking to?

true but if it is a mute point.....if a church raises the money..come on...their rules...don't like it...raise the money yourself

No one is saying that christians can't do whatever they want to do. And they will not matter what.

I am just saying that you can help with your money with out invading their personal lives with our idea religious morality. I better quite before I get in a circular trap... lol

sorry...i disagree....if a hurch wants to help and give money...then they have every right to preach what they want to ...just as an athiest or any other religion has the right to say and do as they want (as long as legal)

Yes exactly the point. If you want to help the people, help them but don't expect them to give up who they are for your help.

Yellow Rose i don't think you get what I am saying.

So if I want to help you I have ever right to convert you to an atheist? After all it's my money, I can do as I please. If I am going to help you, you had better listen to how I think you should run you personal life?


Oh and atheist once again, is not a religion. So there is nothing for an atheist to teach.