Talk:Pirahã people

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[edit] Big Review Needed

I belive this article is far out of date. Anthropologist Marco Antônio Teixeira Gonçalves has studied the Pirahã people, focusing on mythology, cosmology, kinship, and social structure. The main refference is his ethnography, but he has over a dozen published works about the Pirahã.

  • GONÇALVES, Marco Antônio Teixeira. O mundo inacabado : ação e criação em uma cosmologia amazônica. Rio de Janeiro : UFRJ, 2001.

a summary of his findings are on: http://www.socioambiental.org/pib/epi/piraha/piraha.shtm (in portuguese. Maybe someone could re-work it into an article

--Rogeriobwp 19:47, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Talk Merged from Talk:Piraha tribe

This page has similar content and aim as Pirahã. I believe Pirahã (see paper linked from there) is the prefered name for the tribe, not Piraha. I can't find anything saying that exactly, but more sites, including SIL website, (Archive of) U. Pittsburg site and ISA site on Pirahã, appear to use Pirahã instead of Piraha. -- Mairi 22:00, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Agreed, I wasn't aware there was already an article when I worked on this last week. --Zerbey 02:04, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)
According to the source referenced in the article, they do not call themselves Pirahã but Hi'aiti'ihi'. However Pirahã seems to be the name most people know them by. Frankie Roberto 11:07, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Someone has added yet another redundant article Piraha, from which I'm merging material into Pirahã. I suspect the a-tilde is causing people trouble when searching. --Jim Henry 20:47, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The "follow no religous beliefs" seems to be an oversimplification or outright falsehood, based on Everett's article, which mentions in passing several times the Pirahã's belief in a spirit world and particular spirits. Can anyone verify further details? --Jim Henry 20:58, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Would it be better to say they have no organised religion? --Zerbey 21:00, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)
"They have no 'individual or collective memory of more than two generations past', no drawing or other art, no fiction and 'no creation stories or myths'."[1]

The article on "Globe And Mail" is no longer (2004/12/2) available w/o purchase. It should be removed/replaced with equivalent. Pavel Vozenilek

[edit] Lack of written language

The fact that "the [Pirahã] language is unwritten" is not a "unique trait" at all. Among Native American tribes, only the Maya seem to have developed a fully functional writing system. I think we should avoid the tendency (obvious in this article and in certain academic works) to exaggerate the (supposedly) exotic characteristics of this tribe. --Kawina 15:46, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

I agree, and have deleted this statement from the article. Maybe it should be added back in another part of the article, though....) --Jim Henry | Talk 05:14, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
most languages dont have writing systems. this is true of the past as well. a comment such as this reflects an unnecessary bias of the authors. please keep it out of the article. peace – ishwar  (speak) 02:00, 2005 August 3 (UTC)

[edit] Contradiction

I've read these contradictory statements elsewhere and am reading them here too, without reference to the fact that there is a contradiction. Allegedly, the Pirahã do not have any mythology, and according to New Scientist magazine, they don't even have the capacity within the language to describe "tales about imaginary beings"[2], yet their limited artwork is "used primarily to ward off evil spirits." What?

from Daniel Everett's paper "Cultural Constraints on Grammar and Cognition in Pirahã: Another Look at the Design Features of Human Language":
"One morning in 1980, during a nine-month stay among the Pirahã, I awoke to yelling, crying, and whooping near the river's edge, about fifty feet from where I was trying vainly to sleep. I went to the crowd, which included nearly every man, woman, and child in the village. They were all pointing across the river and some were crying, some were yelling, and all were acting as though what they were seeing was very frightening. I looked across the river, but I could see nothing. I asked them what they were fussing about. One man answered increduously, 'Can't you see him there?' 'I see nothing. What are you talking about?' was my response. 'There, on the other bank, on that small strip of beach, is 'igagaí a mean not-blood-one.' There was nothing on the other side. But the people insisted that he was there in full view. This experience has haunted me ever since. It underscored how spirits are not merely fictional characters to the Pirahã, but concrete experiences."
basically I think the distinction is that fiction is not the same thing as believing in spirits. Whatever modern western sensibilities may claim ;)--Krsont 00:47, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
My understanding [3] is that they have no creation myth but do have a complex "demonology" [4] . As I've said this (and an awful lot of other aspects of their culture) springs from their "liminality" - their living for the day. They don't require complex numbers or tenses because it really isn't needed. Equally if you live in the present then you have no need for a creation myth as the world "just is" - it has always been there and will always be there. Equally their belief in spirits emerges from the fact that when things pass out of their immediate experience, they have effectively ceased to exist and their belief in parallel universes explains where they have gone. Equally if, for example, a panther can be heard but not seen it could be a spirit from another world. They don't require the ability to tell tales about such creatures as they "just are" - a natural extension to their world (in the example above they know what they are seeing but cannot really describe it to Everett, who sees nothing). I think the idea that you have ti live with them and learn their culture before you can properly learn their language may also be conncected in here somehow. (Emperor 18:08, 5 April 2006 (UTC))
Read Julian Jaynes' "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind". Truly, the correspondence between his hypothesis and this culture is astounding! -

[edit] Origin of name

Where does the name Pirahã come from? It's apparently not a word in their language, so I assume it must their name from a neighboring group? Which one? Rigadoun 16:44, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Neutrality and Cultural Elitism

Just a note about the language used in this article:

First, the idea that the Pirahã people are "incapable of learning numeracy" is debatable. Prof. Peter Gordon at Columbia U. posits this claim, but Prof. Daniel Everett argues that the Pirahã are capable of counting; they just choose not to do so.

Second, I believe it's unfair and elitist to refer to their artwork as "crude". Definitions of aesthetics vary from culture to culture, so I think that using the word "crude" may be a bit of a judgement or labeling rather than a description. Can we get a picture of some of their artwork to post in the article and simply state that they have little artwork and it's mainly used to ward off evil spirits?

[edit] Format

I am sorry if I am mistaken, or if this is seen as offencive, but I am suggesting that the article be re formatted to appear more like an encyclopedia article rather than a list. It should also include a larger section about the Pirahã's lack of numeric words, or a numeric system at all.--Whytecypress 23:58, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Details about their number-words, or lack thereof, are currently given in the Piraha language article. But five of the eight "unique traits" listed in this article are also about language. I suggest that all the language material should be stripped out of this article, leaving just a very brief summary and pointer to the language article. Brianlucas 00:25, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pronunciation

Could someone "in the know" provide an IPA spelling of "Pirahã"? I'd like to know how to pronounce the name. Simões (talk/contribs) 16:00, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't have an IPA spelling, but the New Yorker says it's pronounced "pee-da-HAN"...? Pfalstad 16:20, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
Based on that, I would propose /pi.ɾaˈhã/ with an alveolar tap and a nasalized /a/, but I'm not certain. Nbc7 18:26, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Another contradiction

This article states near the beginning that (presumably because of the low numbers) the culture is in danger of extinction, but the article on Pirahã language#Miscellaneous states that because of the importance placed on the language and near absence of bilingualism, that the language is in no immediate danger. It seems unlikely that the culture would go extinct but the language thrive, since (at least in this article) it seems most of the unique cultural characteristics are coded in the language. Neither claim has a footnote, how in danger is this cultural/linguistic group of extinction? Rigadoun (talk) 17:39, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Very out of date

This page is unbelievably out of date. Most of the factoids listed are in fact claims of Everett which many people disagree with, and in fact just this March (2007) by Andrew Nevins, David Pesetsky and Cilene Rodrigues provides a counter argument for just about every point in that list (Everett came out with a rebuttal paper about a month later though, and I haven't finished reading it yet). Both papers can be downloaded from the top downloads list at http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/ . —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 76.27.207.27 (talk) 02:49, 4 May 2007 (UTC).

I admit some bias towards Everett (though unlike him I see Pirahã as posing problems that UG needs some (perhaps severe) rethinking to accomodate, rather than problems that invalidate UG), and I have not yet finished reading the aforementioned papers (I am but a lowly undergrad and have recently become interested in Pirahã), but many of Nevins, et al.'s claims are based on data Everett compiled in the 1980s, before his break with UG -- they are using his previous reasearch (biased towards fitting Pirahǎ into UG) to disprove his current research (which is biased against fitting Pirahã into UG). It seems to me that this will be an ongoing debate until more fieldwork is done on Pirahã, and so for the moment, we should report data taken from the most recent credible fieldwork, which I believe to be Everett 2005.

Also, the references section ought to include Everett 2005, which is available from SIL online: http://www.sil.org/americas/brasil/PUBLCNS/ANTHRO/PHGrCult.pdf, and probably also Nevins, Pesetsky, & Rodrigues 2007 and Everett's 2007 response. I will add Everett 2005; what do we think about Nevins et al.'s criticism and Everett's response? Nbc7 20:18, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

I missed that Everett 2005 was in the Further Reading Section, and I apologize for failing to indent my second paragraph. Nonetheless, should we add Nevins's criticism and Everett's response? Nbc7 20:20, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "15 minute naps"

"The Pirahã take short naps of 15 minutes to two hours through the day and night, and rarely sleep through the night. " this is most probably a hoax held up by life improvement coaches also propagating the so-called Uberman's sleep schedule, a form of sleep deprivation which is supposed to decrease the need for sleep on the long run. They often make unsourced claims about great personalities such as Da Vinci to have slept that way and adding this trait to an obscure Amazonian tribe seems to correspond perfectly to these practices. I delete this untill the claim is sources properly.84.167.242.103 (talk) 22:48, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

"And they never sleep through an entire night unless drunk. Pirahã take short naps (15 minutes to two hours at the extremes) during the day and night. Consequently, it is often very difficult for outsiders to sleep well among the Pirahã, because they talk all night long." [1] 128.227.7.2 (talk) 20:40, 10 January 2008 (UTC)