Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle
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Arrived in early May 2017 from Better World Books.
A fascinating story about a remote tribe in the Amazonian jungle in Brazil.
A linguist and a missionary, Everett went to stay with the Pidahas with his family in 1977. It was to be the first of many trips that made up his life's work and that changed his life significantly. Everett's mission was to translate the bible into the Pidaha language. However, the language had never been written down so that too was part of the job. His first job was to learn it by listening and, as he gained skills, asking questions of certain members of the tribe who were willing to help.
He soon learned that the Pidahas are very different from many other "primitive" people who have been studied over the years. They have no myths, for example, and no history to speak of. They do not consider or find important anything that happened to anyone who is no longer alive. Only the present matters. They do not prepare for "hard times" but instead live for today, proud of their ability to survive tough times. In that sense they do prepare: the title refers to their ability to live on little sleep so that they are always aware and able to respond to dangers.
They are also a happy people. Many who have visited them found them to the the "happiest people" they had ever seen.
What this all adds up to is the strong belief among this group that they have it all. They feel superior to others and have no need of material things of knowledge that others have. While they are willing to adopt new tools for things they already do they are not interested in "advancing" in the common sense of the word.
Yet they are not immune to disasters and tragedy. They are knocked down by diseases and can die from what is easily cured by means they do not have. Instead of wanting these things, though, they readily accept death as part of life, and have no strange rituals for burying the deceased.
It may sound like I am saying too much here, but I don't think so. Reading the book gave me a gradual sense of the people that you cannot get from a synopsis. It also introduced me to linguistic techniques and schools of thought that I knew nothing about. The result of Everett's study over many years is that he now takes the position that language is borne of culture, not innate at birth. Following how he comes to this conclusion and what it means is the heart of this amazing story. But there is more than linguistics, as you might expect. There are human connections and significant changes of belief here as well.
A linguist and a missionary, Everett went to stay with the Pidahas with his family in 1977. It was to be the first of many trips that made up his life's work and that changed his life significantly. Everett's mission was to translate the bible into the Pidaha language. However, the language had never been written down so that too was part of the job. His first job was to learn it by listening and, as he gained skills, asking questions of certain members of the tribe who were willing to help.
He soon learned that the Pidahas are very different from many other "primitive" people who have been studied over the years. They have no myths, for example, and no history to speak of. They do not consider or find important anything that happened to anyone who is no longer alive. Only the present matters. They do not prepare for "hard times" but instead live for today, proud of their ability to survive tough times. In that sense they do prepare: the title refers to their ability to live on little sleep so that they are always aware and able to respond to dangers.
They are also a happy people. Many who have visited them found them to the the "happiest people" they had ever seen.
What this all adds up to is the strong belief among this group that they have it all. They feel superior to others and have no need of material things of knowledge that others have. While they are willing to adopt new tools for things they already do they are not interested in "advancing" in the common sense of the word.
Yet they are not immune to disasters and tragedy. They are knocked down by diseases and can die from what is easily cured by means they do not have. Instead of wanting these things, though, they readily accept death as part of life, and have no strange rituals for burying the deceased.
It may sound like I am saying too much here, but I don't think so. Reading the book gave me a gradual sense of the people that you cannot get from a synopsis. It also introduced me to linguistic techniques and schools of thought that I knew nothing about. The result of Everett's study over many years is that he now takes the position that language is borne of culture, not innate at birth. Following how he comes to this conclusion and what it means is the heart of this amazing story. But there is more than linguistics, as you might expect. There are human connections and significant changes of belief here as well.
Posted on paperbackswap.
