|
The Pirahã people (pronounced ) are an indigenous hunter-gatherer group of the Amazon Rainforest. The Pirahã are a subgroup of the Mura, who live mainly on the banks of the Maici River in Brazil's Amazonas state, in the territory on Humaitá and Manicoré municipality. (See GPS: S 7°21.642′ W 62°16.313) , they number 420 individuals. The Pirahã people do not call themselves ''Pirahã'' but instead the Hi'aiti'ihi, roughly translated as "the straight ones." Their culture and language have a number of unusual features, and are sometimes described as "primitive."〔(Environmental Graffiti )〕 However, anthropological linguist Daniel Everett said: The Pirahã are supremely gifted in all the ways necessary to ensure their continued survival in the jungle: they know the usefulness and location of all important plants in their area; they understand the behavior of local animals and how to catch and avoid them; and they can walk into the jungle naked, with no tools or weapons, and walk out three days later with baskets of fruit, nuts, and small game.〔 The Pirahã speak the Pirahã language. They call any other language “crooked head.”〔 Members of the Pirahã can whistle their language, which is how Pirahã men communicate when hunting in the jungle. == Culture == As far as the Pirahã have related to researchers, their culture is concerned solely with matters that fall within direct personal experience, and thus there is no history beyond living memory. Pirahã have a simple kinship system that includes ''baíxi'' (parent, grandparent, or elder), ''xahaigí'' (sibling, male or female), ''hoagí'' or ''hoísai'' (son), ''kai'' (daughter), and ''piihí'' (stepchild, favorite child, child with at least one deceased parent, and more). Daniel Everett states that one of the strongest Pirahã values is no coercion; you simply don't tell other people what to do.〔 There appears to be no social hierarchy; the Pirahã have no formal leaders. Their social system can thus be labeled as primitive communism, in common with many other hunter-gatherer bands in the world, although rare in the Amazon because of a history of agriculture before Western contact (see history of the Amazon). Although the Pirahã use canoes every day for fishing and for crossing the river that they live beside, when their canoes wear out, they simply use pieces of bark as temporary canoes. Everett brought in a master builder who taught and supervised the Pirahã in making a canoe, so that they could make their own. But when they needed another canoe, they said that "Pirahã do not make canoes" and told Everett he should buy them a canoe. The Pirahã rely on neighboring communities' canoe work, and use those canoes for themselves.〔 Pirahã build simple huts where they keep a few pots, pans, knives, and machetes. They make only scraping implements (for making arrowheads), loosely woven palm-leaf bags, bows, and arrows.〔 They take naps of 15 minutes to, at the most, two hours throughout the day and night, and rarely sleep through the night.〔 They often go hungry, not for want of food, but from a desire to be ''tigisái'' (hard).〔 They do not store food in any quantity, but generally eat it when they get it.〔 Pirahã have ignored lessons in preserving meats by salting or smoking.〔 They cultivate manioc plants that grow from spit-out seeds and make only a few days' worth of manioc flour at a time.〔 They trade Brazil nuts and sex for consumables or tools, e.g. machetes, gunpowder, powdered milk, sugar, whiskey. Chastity is not a cultural value.〔 They trade Brazil nuts, wood, and ''sorva'' (rubbery sap used in chewing gum) for soda-can pull-tabs, which are used for necklaces.〔 Men wear T-shirts and shorts that they get from traders; women sew their own plain cotton dresses.〔 Their decoration is mostly necklaces, used primarily to ward off spirits.〔 The concept of drawing is alien to them and when asked to draw a person, animal, tree, or river, the result is simple lines.〔Gordon, Peter. (Numerical Cognition Without Words: Evidence from Amazonia, Supporting Online Materials ), p. 5. Science, 2004.〕 However, on seeing a novelty such as an airplane, a child may make a model of it, which may be soon discarded.〔John Colapinto (2007), ''(The Interpreter )''. New Yorker, 2007-04-16〕 According to Everett, the Pirahã have no concept of a supreme spirit or god,〔Everett, Daniel. ("Endangered Languages and Lost Knowledge" ), ''The Long Now Foundation'', San Francisco, March 20, 2009. For the relevant info, see transcript of the talk or play chapter 8 of the video at 33:40.〕 and they lost interest in Jesus when they discovered that Everett had never seen him. They require evidence based on personal experience for every claim made.〔 However, they do believe in spirits that can sometimes take on the shape of things in the environment. These spirits can be jaguars, trees, or other visible, tangible things including people.〔 Everett reported one incident where the Pirahã said that “''Xigagaí'', one of the beings that lives above the clouds, was standing on a beach yelling at us, telling us that he would kill us if we go into the jungle.” Everett and his daughter could see nothing and yet the Pirahã insisted that ''Xigagaí'' was still on the beach.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Pirahã people」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|