Don't Sleep, There are Snakes

by Everett, Daniel L.

  Suddenly they began to lose interest in us, arguing with each other. Xahóápati, another one of my main language teachers, came to me to say that he was sorry that people had threatened us. He spoke in slurred, drunken Pirahã: “Ko Xoo. Hiaitíihí hi xaaapapaaaaí baááááábikoí. Baía . . . baía . . . baía . . . baía, baíaisahaxá. Ti xaaóó píhíabiiiiigá” (Hey Dan. The Pirahãs have baaad headssss now. Don’t, uh, don’t, uh, don’t fear. I am not maaaad).

  His shorts were oozing diarrhea, much of which was running down his legs. The right side of his face was coated in wet snot. Xabagi was now trying to start a fight with a teenager, just outside our house, brandishing a machete.

  I saw an arrow streak by the front of my house as one unknown Pirahã shot at another Pirahã whose face I did not recognize in the dark, missing him. He was standing just at the corner of Kóhoi’s house, about twenty feet upriver from my house. No one shot arrows at me.

  I finally got too tired. In spite of the danger, at about 4 a.m., I retreated to the storeroom, where I hoped to sleep for an hour or two. I could hear Pirahãs coming into our house and fighting, in the back of the house, in the front of the house, and in front of the storeroom door. But I was too tired to react usefully. I just wanted to sleep.

  At dawn we emerged cautiously from the storeroom. We were all aching and stiff from sleeping on boards. In the early morning light we saw blood spattered on the walls and little pools of blood on the floors in every room of the house. The white sheets on our bed had blood smears in various places. I saw men walking by with soiled shorts, bloody faces, bruises on their cheeks, black eyes, and other testosterone-alcohol prizes. Shannon and Kristene were afraid when they saw the blood; Caleb was too young to understand what was going on. But no one came toward us. Men wobbled by, purposely steering wide of our house.

  Later in the day, after they had slept off most of their drunkenness, the Pirahã men came into our house to apologize, most of the women standing outside, shouting out suggestions for what the men should say to us.

  Kóhoi spoke for the men: “We’re sorry. Our heads get really bad when we drink and we do things that are bad.”

  No kidding, I thought.

  After what we had been through, I wasn’t sure whether to believe them. But they did seem sincere. And the women were shouting to Keren and me now, saying, “Don’t leave us. Our children need medicine. Stay here with us. There are lots of fish and game to eat here and the Maici has beautiful water.”

  In the end we all agreed with their sensible view that they should not kill us, because we were their friends.

  “Look, you guys can drink or do anything you want,” I said. “This is Pirahã land. This is not my jungle. I am not the boss here. The Pirahãs are the bosses here. This is their land. But you scared my children. If you want me here, you cannot threaten to kill me and scare my children. OK?”

  “OK!” they replied as a chorus. “We will not scare you or kill you.”

  In spite of the Pirahãs’ apology and assurances that this would never happen again, I knew that I had to get to the bottom of what had transpired the night before. I needed to understand why they would have even talked about killing my family. I was a guest of the Pirahãs. If I had done something to offend them to the point that they would contemplate killing me, then I would have to figure out what the offense was and avoid committing it in the future.

  I decided to talk to a few of the men about this incident in more detail. Xahoábisi seemed angry with me and grew sullen each time I approached his house. I needed to talk to him, to find out what I had done wrong.

  One day I took a thermos of sweet coffee, a couple of cups, and some cookies to Xahoábisi’s hut.

  “Hey, tell the dogs not to be mad at me!” I called to him in the traditional Pirahã way of approaching someone else’s home. “Would you like some coffee? I put a lot of sugar in it! And I have some cookies.”

  Xahoábisi smiled and told me I could come to his hut. He grunted to his dogs, about six ratlike little curs that were nonetheless ferocious and fearless (I have seen these fifteen-pound dogs attack wildcats and boars to protect their masters), and they sat at his feet. Snarling and growling, they made no move to eat me just yet. I gave him some coffee and a cookie.

  “Are you mad at me?” I asked.

  “No,” he replied, after he sipped his coffee. “The Pirahãs are not angry with you.” (It is common for individual Pirahãs to phrase their opinions as coming from the group, even if this is just their own opinion.)

  “Well, the other night you seemed really angry.”

  “I was angry. I am not angry now.”

  “Why were you angry?”

  “You told Brazilians not to sell us whiskey.”

  “Yes,” I admitted. “The FUNAI said no one should sell whiskey here. Your women told me not to let anyone sell whiskey to you.” (The Pirahãs knew the FUNAI somewhat, from different representatives who came by occasionally. They had observed that the FUNAI exerted some sort of vague authority over Brazilians in the region.)

  “You are not a Pirahã,” he declared. “You do not tell me that I cannot drink. I am a Pirahã. This is the Pirahãs’ jungle. This is not your jungle.”Xahoábisi’s emotions were rising a bit now.

  “OK,” I responded, wishing that the Pirahãs had an expression that literally meant “I’m sorry.” I continued, “I will not tell you what to do. This is not my jungle. But my children were afraid when the Pirahãs got drunk. I was afraid too. I won’t stay here if you want me to leave.”

  “I want you to stay,” Xahoábisi replied. “The Pirahãs want you to stay. But don’t tell us what to do!”

  “I won’t tell you what to do,” I promised, ashamed that I had given this impression to him.

  We talked a bit more about lighter topics, such as fishing, hunting, children, and river traders. Then I got up and returned with my coffee cups and empty thermos to my house, about fifty feet away. I felt chastened and embarrassed. I realized that I had nearly disastrously misinterpreted the Pirahãs’ perception of my role among them. I had thought that they saw me, the missionary, as a protector and authority figure. The wives of the men who drank the most, Xíbaihóíxoi (wife of Kóhoibiíihíai), Xiabikabikabi (wife of Kaaboogí), Báígipóhoái (wife of Xahoábisi), and Xiako (wife of Xaikáibaí), had told me that the previous missionaries, Arlo Heinrichs and Steve Sheldon, would not allow whiskey to be sold.

  Later, when I checked with Arlo and Steve, they chuckled and told me that they never told the Pirahãs or Brazilian river traders in the area what they could or couldn’t do. Apparently the women had told me this because they didn’t want their husbands to drink and they believed that I was their only hope of preventing this. But of course this was ultimately none of my business. I wasn’t the village constable. By glibly going along with the women’s request, I had put my life and my family’s lives in danger. And I had jeopardized my good relationship with the Pirahã men. I didn’t understand these people well.

  A few weeks later, another river trader gave them a large quantity of cachaça. I discovered this after the trader left the village, because all the men disappeared. A couple of hours later I started hearing the men laughing, then yelling and talking about how brave and tough they were, one Pirahã saying to another the equivalent of “I can kick your ass.” They talked pretty much like drinking men anywhere in the world. My cowboy dad’s behavior when he was drunk was largely indistinguishable from the Pirahãs’.

  This wasn’t much comfort, though. I just didn’t have it in me to endure another round of being the target of drunken bravado. Since it was early afternoon, Keren and I decided to pack overnight supplies in our boat and spend the night upriver at Aprígio’s house, about a fifteen-minute motorboat trip away. Aprígio and his family were Apurinã Indians. Their parents had been brought to the Maici more than sixty years before by the Brazilian government to help contact the Pirahãs. While we were packing, Kóhoi suddenly walked into our house with
an armful of shotguns, bows, and arrows.

  “Here,” he said with a smile, alcohol slurring his speech. “Now you don’t need to be afraid. You have the guns.”

  I appreciated the gesture in one sense. But the Pirahãs were clearly conflicted by our being there when they were drinking. We decided to go to Aprígio’s anyway to reduce the tension for the Pirahãs and the danger for us. The Pirahãs’ drinking and violence were problems for us that we had not anticipated, and they seemed recent in Pirahã history—the previous missionaries told us later that they had never noticed a severe drinking or violence problem among the Pirahãs. But the village had been “missionary free” for nearly three years before our arrival, almost four if we didn’t count my family’s first abortive stay in 1979 or my ten-day stay a couple of years prior. So things had changed without the missionaries’ inhibiting presence.

  I had avoided thinking much about their culture, I suppose, because of my initial disappointment with it. The Pirahãs didn’t wear feathers, enact elaborate rituals, paint their bodies, or show other exotic outward cultural manifestations like so many other Amazonian groups. I had not yet realized how unusual the Pirahãs were culturally, as well as linguistically. Their culture was subtle but powerful in its conservative values and in the way that it shaped their language. But because I still hadn’t recognized this, I indulged in self-pity, thinking that I could have been working with “interesting people.” On many days, the men didn’t do anything I could see but sit around the graying embers of a fire, talking, laughing, farting, and pulling baked sweet potatoes out of the coals. Occasionally, they supplemented this routine by pulling one another’s genitals and laughing as though they were the first earthlings to engage in something so clever. I had hoped to see villages like those that I had studied in anthropology classes, such as Yanomami villages with their open huts built around a village clearing and Gê villages arranged like a wagon wheel, with houses at the ends of the spokes. It seemed to me that Pirahã villages had no organization. They were overgrown with grass, which attracted bugs and snakes. Why couldn’t they at least clear the brush and garbage out of their villages? I have seen Pirahãs sleep while covered with hundreds of migrating cockroaches and I have heard them snore contentedly with tarantulas crawling over them.

  There had to be more to this way of life than what my superficial observations were revealing. I determined to proceed with my analysis of their culture as professionally as I was able. I went about this by observation and questioning. First, I observed their daily lives, family relations, house construction, village plan, children’s enculturation, socialization, and so on, following what anthropological field guides I could get my hands on. Next, I decided to look more deeply into their beliefs in the spirit world, their myths, and their religion. Then I wanted to look at their social power structures. Finally, I wanted to come up with a theory of Pirahã identity based on my observations. At this time I had only minimal training in anthropology, so I was largely groping in the dark.

  5 Material Culture and

  the Absence of Ritual

  From the time I first met the Pirahãs I wanted to understand their culture better. I thought I would begin simple, with their material culture, rather than, say, with their beliefs and moral values. Since the majority of their time in the village was spent in their huts, I wanted to see one built. I got my chance one day when Xaikáibí decided to build a new hut. The hut he was building is the more substantial of two types of hut that the Pirahãs make, called kaíi-ií (daughter-thing).

  Pirahã homes are remarkably simple. In addition to the “daughter-thing” they also make a xaitaíi-ií (palm-thing), a less substantial construction. The “palm-thing,” used mainly for shade on the beach, consists simply of sticks to support a roof covered with just about any kind of broad leaves, though palm leaves are most commonly used. These are made only to provide shade for children. Adults will just sleep on the sand and sit in the bright sun all day, occasionally putting some branches vertically in the sand in front of themselves for shade. The “daughter-thing” is sturdier, even though both types of houses blow over in storms. Although it takes a strong storm to blow over a “daughter-thing,” a gust of wind is sufficient to topple some “palm-things.”

  Pirahã houses reveal important distinctions between their culture and ours. When I think of Pirahã houses, I am often reminded of Henry David Thoreau’s suggestion in Walden that all a person really needs is a large box that he can carry around to protect himself from the elements. The Pirahãs don’t need walls for defense, because the village is the defense—every member of the village will come to the aid of every other member. They don’t need houses to display wealth, because all Pirahãs are equal in wealth. They don’t need houses for privacy, because privacy is not a strong value—though if privacy is needed for sex, relieving oneself, or anything else, the entire jungle is around, or one can leave the village in a canoe. Houses don’t need heating or cooling, because the jungle provides a nearly perfect climate for lightly clothed human bodies. Houses are just a place to sleep with moderate protection from the rain and sun. They are places to keep one’s dogs and the few belongings that a family has. Each house is a rectangle formed by three rows of three poles each, with the center row higher to allow for the roof to be raised in the middle.

  Xaikáibaí began constructing the kaíi-ií with the supports that hold the roof and the sleeping platform. He first cut six poles of rot-resistant wood approximately ten feet long. The Pirahãs know many tree species; this one is called quariquara in Portuguese and xibobiihi kohoaihiabisi (ants don’t eat) in Pirahã. He laid the poles out near the place he wanted to build on, then dug a hole with his machete and hands and worked each pole by hand about two feet into the ground. He then joined the poles at the top with other poles laid across the width of the house, to bind the vertical poles together. The horizontal poles were tied to the vertical poles with vines that had been split for greater flexibility.

  The vertical poles in the ground were of two lengths. Four of the poles were roughly of equal length. The poles in the center of each end of the structure were one to two yards taller than the other poles. All poles were spaced two or three feet apart. The end poles were notched at their tops to support longer horizontal poles that spanned the length of the house.

  Next Xaikáibaí began to put on the thatch roof. He gathered the thatch at groves several miles away on the other side of the river. The thatch comes from the young, yellow sprouts of a species of palm the Pirahãs call xabíisi. Several tiring trips were necessary to cut, bundle, and transport the thatch to canoes and the village. When the thatch was collected together near his hut-in-progress, he “opened” it. In this process the young palm leaves, about three yards in length, are pulled to one side of the shoot. These are then laid across the upper perpendicular poles in bundles of three or four and fastened to the poles by vine or bark. Xaikáibaí next placed these palm leaf bundles every six inches ascending from the bottom of the roof structure to the central shaft at the top. The result of his labor was a rainproof and cool roof. Thatch also muffles the sound of the rain. Thatch has disadvantages, however. When dry, it is very flammable. And it provides an excellent home for varmints. It also needs to be replaced every few years.

  Xaikáibaí was almost done with his hut. To complete it, he built a small raised platform at one end inside the hut. The frame for the platform was built from sturdy wood poles. The platform itself was made from the trunks of small paxiuba palm trees, each split in half, laid inner side down on the frame, and tied into place with vines.

  This was to be his sleeping platform and was four feet wide or so. Pirahã huts are cool, relatively sturdy, and—when the embers of a fire are glowing at one end—homey. I often sat on the sleeping platform beside a Pirahã, talking about the day’s fishing or other work, as I listened for new words and grammar in this relaxing environment. It is hard not to nod off while the Pirahãs are talking, they are so laid-back, even w
hen the conversation is about things like the jaguar someone saw the last time they went hunting.

  I knew already that their material culture is among the simplest known. They produce very few tools, almost no art, and very few artifacts. Perhaps their most outstanding tools are their large, powerful bows (over two yards in length) and arrows (two to three yards long). A bow takes about three days to make—one day to find one of the half-dozen types of acceptable bow wood and two days to shape and scrape the bow. While the man is working on the bow itself, his wife, mother, or sister makes the bowstring from soft tree bark, rolled tightly along her outer thigh. Then each arrow takes approximately three hours to make—finding the arrow shaft material, heating it in the fire and straightening it, and making the proper tip from bamboo (for shooting big game), sharpened hardwood (for monkeys), or a long, narrow piece of wood with a sharpened nail or bone on the end (for fish). The feathers and tip are tied on with homespun cotton. I have seen wild pigs skewered by these arrows—entering near the rectum and protruding out the throat.

  Of the few artifacts they make, none are permanent. For example, if they need to carry something in a basket, they will weave a basket on the spot from wet palm leaves. After one or two uses these baskets become dried out and fragile, and they are abandoned. Using the same skills they already demonstrated in making these disposable baskets, they could make longer-lasting baskets, simply by selecting more durable material (such as wicker). But they don’t, I concluded, because they don’t want them. This is interesting. It indicates an interest in making things as you go.

  Other material artifacts include necklaces. The Pirahãs make them to ward off spirits and to look more attractive. Women, girls, and babies of both genders wear necklaces. Women make these necklaces from seeds and homespun cotton string, decorating them further with teeth, feathers, beads, beer-can pull tabs, and other objects. The necklaces rarely show symmetry and are very crude and unattractive compared to the artifacts of other groups in the region, such as the Tenharim and Parintintin, known for beautiful feather headdresses, jaguar-tooth necklaces, fine woven baskets and strainers, and tools for manioc processing. And for the Pirahãs, necklaces are decorative only secondarily, their primary purpose being to ward off the evil spirits the Pirahãs see almost daily. They also like feathers and bright colors on the necklaces to make them visible to spirits so that the spirits are not startled—like wild animals, spirits are more likely to attack when startled. Pirahã adornment has an immediate function and involves little planning or concern for classical aesthetic values such as symmetry. Clearly, they could make lasting ornamentation but they choose not to.