Don't Sleep, There are Snakes

by Everett, Daniel L.

  I sat with Kóhoi once and he asked me, after hearing about my god, “What else does your god do?”

  And I answered, “Well, he made the stars, and he made the earth.”Then I asked, “What do the Pirahãs say?”

  He answered,“Well, the Pirahãs say that these things were not made.”

  The Pirahãs, I learned, have no concept of a supreme or creator god. They have individual spirits, but they believe that they have seen these spirits, and they believe they see them regularly. When we looked into it, we saw that these aren’t invisible spirits that they’re seeing. They are entities that take on the shape of things in the environment. They’ll call a jaguar a spirit, or a tree a spirit, depending on the kinds of properties that it has. Spirit doesn’t really mean for them what it means for us, and everything they say they have to evaluate empirically.

  As an example of this, consider the following story about an encounter with a jaguar, a story originally recorded by Steve Sheldon. Some Pirahãs interpret the story as about an animal only. But most understand it as an encounter with a spirit jaguar.

  Xipoógi and the Jaguar

  Informant: Kaboibagi

  Recorded and transcribed by Steve Sheldon

  Synopsis: Xitihoixoí, the one who is attacked by the jaguar, is only mentioned once by name, but everyone knows who he is. The jaguar struck and scratched him but otherwise he escaped unharmed.

  1. Xipoógi xahaigá xobabíisaihíai.

  Xipoógi heard a brother call.

  2. Hi gáxaisai Xitahá. Xibigaí sooóxiai xísoi xaítísai.

  He spoke, Xitahá’s parent. What did the parent yell?

  3. Xipoógi gaigói. Hi xáobáopábá.

  Xipoógi spoke. Go see.

  4. Hi gásaihíai Xipoógi. Xi baóhoipaíi xaítisai.

  He spoke, Xipoógi. It is a jaguar.

  5. Hi gásai Xipoógi. Gí hóiiigopápí.

  He spoke, Xipoógi. Throw your bow.

  6. Xí soxoá hí xabáií boáhoipáii Xitihoixoí.

  The jaguar already grabbed Xitihoixoí.

  7. Hi gásaihíai. Boaí gí tipápi.

  She spoke. Boai, you go [too].

  8. Hi xobaaopiíhaí.

  You go see.

  9. Hi baóhoipaíoi aítísai.

  The jaguar roared.

  10. Hi gásai. Xi káopápá baóhoipaíi.

  She spoke. The jaguar went far.

  11. Xi soxoá híabáipí.

  It has already grabbed him.

  12. Xí kagi xohoabá. Hi xaii ísi xioi boiigahápisaihíai.

  Perhaps it ate the partner dog [kagi]. He took the dog with him.

  13. Hi xaigíagáxaisahai xipoíhió. Kaxaó xi baóhoipaíi kagi xaígióiigahápi.

  The woman spoke. Let’s go; the jaguar may get away.

  14. Hi xaigía kagi xáobáha. Kagi xahápi. Hi giopaí oóxiai.

  He may have seen the dog partner. The dog partner left.The dog went into the jungle.

  15. Xísaigía hi xaigía hi gáxaisai. Híaigí xiigapí tagasága. Xií sokaopápaá.

  He spoke. Bring your machete. Sharpen the arrows.

  16. Hi baiaí hí xaagahá xipoíhió.

  The woman was afraid.

  17. Hi xaógaahoisaabai.

  He had become tired.

  18. Xi higí sóibáogíso.

  It hit him in the face then.

  19. Hi xoabahoísaihíai.

  It bit him.

  20. Hi xaigía hi xapiságaitáo.

  It scratched his arm.

  21. Hi boásoa gaitáopáhátaí.

  It scratched his shoulder.

  22. Hi gásaihíai kahiabáobíi.

  He [Itahoixoi] said, the arrows are all gone.

  The claim that the Pirahãs see spirits is no more remarkable than similar claims by many Americans, to take but one example, who believe that prayers are answered, that they talk to God, and that they see visions and spirits. Contacts with the numinous are claimed to occur regularly around the world. For those of us who believe that such spirits do not exist, it is absurd that they can be seen. But that is simply our perspective.

  Throughout history people have claimed to see these supernatural entities. The Pirahãs are not that much different, if at all. In the prologue, I gave one example of how the Pirahãs are eyewitnesses to spirits, and I have suggested that these spiritual encounters fall under the principle of immediacy of experience. But the Pirahãs encounter many kinds of spirits.

  The kind of spirit most commonly spoken of is the kaoáíbógí (fast mouth). This spirit is responsible for a range of good and bad things that happen to the Pirahãs. It can kill them or give them useful advice, depending on its whim. The kaoáíbógí belong to one of the two sets of animate, humanoid creatures that populate the Pirahãs’ world. The first type are the xíbiisi (bloods), entities that have blood—like the Pirahãs themselves, or foreigners, though the Pirahãs are not always sure that all Americans have blood, because they are so white. But all spirits, including the kaoáíbógí, are beings xíbiisihiaba (without blood; literally, “no blood”).

  The other kinds of spirits are known by different terms, but the generic term is kapioxiai (it is other). Again, people with blood in their veins are xíbiisi. You can tell xíbiisi generally by the color of their skin—their blood makes their skin dark. Those without blood, all spirits, are generally light-skinned and blond. So dark-skinned peoples are humans and light-skinned peoples are traditionally not humans, though the Pirahãs will concede that some white people may in fact be xíbiisi—mainly because they have seen me and a couple of other white people bleed.

  But there are lingering doubts that surface occasionally. After I had worked with them for over twenty-five years, one night a group of Pirahã men, sipping coffee with me in the evening, asked out of the blue, “Hey Dan, do Americans die?”

  I answered them in the affirmative and hoped that no one would seek empirical verification. The reason for the question seemed to be that Americans’ life expectancy is much longer than the Pirahãs’. Arlo Heinrichs still sends them pictures of himself and his wife, Vi, from time to time. Both of them look strong, healthy, and vibrant, even though they are in their seventies. This is fascinating to the Pirahãs.

  Pirahãs occasionally talked about me, when I emerged from the river in the evenings after my bath. I heard them ask one another, “Is this the same one who entered the river or is it kapioxiai?”

  When I heard them discuss what was the same and what was different about me after I emerged from the river, I was reminded of Heraclitus, who was concerned about the nature of identities through time. Heraclitus posed the question of whether one could step twice into the same river. The water that we stepped into the first time is no longer there. The banks have been altered by the flow so that they are not exactly the same. So apparently we step into a different river. But that is not a satisfying conclusion. Surely it is the same river. So what does it mean to say that something or someone is the same this instant as they were a minute ago? What does it mean to say that I am the same person I was when I was a toddler? None of my cells are the same. Few if any of my thoughts are. To the Pirahãs, people are not the same in each phase of their lives. When you get a new name from a spirit, something anyone can do anytime they see a spirit, you are not exactly the same person as you were before.

  Once when I arrived in Posto Novo, I went up to Kóhoibiíihíai and asked him to work with me, as he always did. No answer. So I asked again, “Ko Kóhoi, kapiigakagakaísogoxoihí?” (Hey Kóhoi, do you want to mark paper with me?) Still no answer. So I asked him why he wasn’t talking to me. He responded, “Were you talking to me? My name is Tiáapahai. There is no Kóhoi here. Once I was called Kóhoi, but he is gone now and Tiáapahai is here.”

  So, unsurprisingly, they wondered if I had become a different person. But in my case their concern was greater. Because if, in spite of evidence to the contrary, I turned out not to be a xíbiisi, I might really be a different entity altogether and, the
refore, a threat to them. I assured them that I was still Dan. I was not kapioxiai.

  On many rainless nights, a high falsetto voice can be heard from the jungle near a Pirahã village. This falsetto sounds spiritlike to me. Indeed, it is taken by all the Pirahãs in the village to be a kaoáíbógí, or fast mouth. The voice gives the villagers suggestions and advice, as on how to spend the next day, or on possible night dangers (jaguars, other spirits, attacks by other Indians). This kaoáíbógí also likes sex, and he frequently talks about his desire to copulate with village women, with considerable detail provided.

  One night I wanted to see the kaoáíbógí myself. I walked through the brush about a hundred feet to the source of that night’s voice. The man talking in the falsetto was Xagábi, a Pirahã from the village of Pequial and someone known to be very interested in spirits. “Mind if I record you?” I asked, not knowing how he might react, but having a good idea that he would not mind.

  “Sure, go ahead,” he answered immediately in his normal voice. I recorded about ten minutes of his kaoáíbógí speech and then returned to my house.

  The next day, I went to Xagábi’s place and asked, “Say, Xagábi, why were you talking like a kaoáíbógí last night?”

  He acted surprised. “Was there a kaoáíbógí last night? I didn’t hear one. But, then, I wasn’t here.”

  Very puzzling, I thought.

  Peter Gordon and I were among the Pirahãs conducting experiments on Pirahã numerosity (linguistic and psychological expression and control of numerical concepts). Peter wanted to ask the Pirahãs about their spirits because he was interested in trying to situate his findings in his own understanding of Pirahã culture. Xisaóoxoi, the man with whom we were speaking, suggested, “Come tonight after dark. There will be spirits here.” Peter and I said that we would come and then we continued working.

  Afterward we returned to our campsite facing the village on the other side of the Maici. We planned to bathe, then have a dinner of canned meat. But we were pleasantly surprised by a man returning in his canoe from fishing, who rescued us from the canned meat by offering to trade a large peacock bass for a can of sardines, which we agreed to with alacrity.

  Peter rolled the fish in a batter of eggs and oatmeal and roasted it on a rack of green wood over our campfire. After a bath and a nice dinner of burned clumpy oatmeal mixed with fish skin and white bass meat (Peter’s recipe didn’t turn out well), we crossed back over to the village to see the spirits. I wasn’t sure what to expect, because I had never been invited to see a spirit before.

  It was dark, the sky resplendent with stars and a clear view of the Milky Way. Large river frogs were croaking. Some Pirahãs were seated on logs facing the jungle. Peter and I took our seats near them and Peter set up his Sony professional Walkman recorder, with a high-quality external microphone. Several minutes elapsed. Pirahã children were laughing and giggling. Little girls looked at us and again at the jungle, through the slightly spread fingers of their hands clasped across their faces.

  After some delay, which I could not help but ascribe to the spirits’ sense of theatrical timing, Peter and I simultaneously heard a falsetto voice and saw a man dressed as a woman emerge from the jungle. It was Xisaóoxoi dressed as a recently deceased Pirahã woman. He was using a falsetto to indicate that it was the woman talking. He had a cloth on his head to represent the long hair of a woman, hanging back like a Pirahã woman’s long tresses. “She” was wearing a dress.

  Xisaóoxoi’s character talked about how cold and dark it was under the ground where she was buried. She talked about what it felt like to die and about how there were other spirits under the ground. The spirit Xisaóoxoi was “channeling” spoke in a rhythm different from normal Pirahã speech, dividing syllables into groups of two (binary feet) instead of the groups of three (ternary feet) used in everyday talking. I was just thinking how interesting this would be in my eventual analysis of rhythm in Pirahã, when the “woman” rose and left.

  Within a few minutes Peter and I heard Xisaóoxoi again, but this time speaking in a low, gruff voice. Those in the “audience” started laughing. A well-known comical spirit was about to appear. Suddenly, out of the jungle, Xisaóoxoi emerged, naked, and pounding the ground with a heavy section of the trunk of a small tree. As he pounded, he talked about how he would hurt people who got in his way, how he was not afraid, and other testosterone-inspired bits of braggadocio.

  I had discovered, with Peter, a form of Pirahã theater! But this was of course only my classification of what I was seeing. This was not how the Pirahãs would have described it at all, regardless of the fact that it might have had exactly this function for them. To them they were seeing spirits. They never once addressed Xisaóoxoi by his name, but only by the names of the spirits.

  What we had seen was not the same as shamanism, because there was no one man among the Pirahãs who could speak for or to the spirits. Some men did this more frequently than others, but any Pirahã man could, and over the years I was with them most did, speak as a spirit in this way.

  The next morning when Peter and I tried to tell Xisaóoxoi how much we enjoyed seeing the spirits, he, like Xagábi, refused to acknowledge knowing anything about it, saying he wasn’t there.

  This led me to investigate Pirahã beliefs more aggressively. Did the Pirahãs, including Xisaóoxoi, interpret what we had just seen as fiction or as fact, as real spirits or as theater? Everyone, including Pirahãs who listened to the tape later, Pirahãs from other villages, stated categorically that this was a spirit. And as Peter and I were watching the “spirit show,” I was given a running commentary by a young man sitting next to me, who assured me that this was a spirit, not Xisaóoxoi. Moreover, based on previous episodes in which the Pirahãs doubted that I was the same person and their expressed belief that other white people were spirits, changing forms at will, the only conclusion I could come to was that for the Pirahãs these were encounters with spirits—similar to Western culture’s seances and mediums.

  Pirahãs see spirits in their mind, literally. They talk to spirits, literally. Whatever anyone else might think of these claims, all Pirahãs will say that they experience spirits. For this reason, Pirahã spirits exemplify the immediacy of experience principle. And the myths of any other culture must also obey this constraint or there is no appropriate way to talk about them in the Pirahã language.

  One might legitimately ask whether something that is not true to Western minds can be experienced. There is reason to believe that it can. When the Pirahãs claim to experience a spirit they have experienced something, and they label this something a spirit. They attribute properties to this experience, as well as the label spirit. Are all the properties, such as existence and lack of blood, correct? I am sure that they are not. But I am equally sure that we attribute properties to many experiences in our daily lives that are incorrect. A man might claim that the bearded five-foot-nine-inch fellow he saw at the mall was Ringo Starr, when in fact it was just me that he saw. And we talk about the beliefs and desires of our dogs as though we had evidence for them. When my dog sees me rise and go to the laundry room at 4:30 p.m., he gets up and wags his tail. I could say that he knows that I keep his food in there and that he believes I am about to feed him. But this could be little more than a response to a certain stimulus, rather than beliefs and knowledge on the part of my dog (though I believe he knows and believes).

  But if all Pirahã myths must exemplify immediacy of experience, then the scriptures of many world religions, such as the Bible, the Koran, the Vedas, and so on, could not be translated or discussed among the Pirahãs, because they involve stories for which there is no living eyewitness. This is the main reason that no missionary for nearly three hundred years has had any impact on the Pirahãs’ religion. The stories of the Abrahamic religions lack living eyewitnesses, at least as I practiced religion when I was religious.

  8 A Teenager Named Túkaaga:

  Murder and Society

  Joaquim, like th
e other residents of the Apurinã Indian settlement of Ponto Sete on the Maici, had arisen early and gone about his tasks—tending his jungle garden and small manioc field, looking for signs of game for a possible evening hunting trip, and fishing in the clear Maici water upriver from his home. Like others at “Sete,” Joaquim was broader and stronger-looking than the Pirahãs. His Tupi and Apurinã lineage endowed him with a muscularity that contrasted with the Pirahãs’ intense leanness. With broad, strong feet from a lifetime without shoes, his powerful toes could grip the path securely, giving him greater stability than Westerners in expensive hiking footwear. He was a shy man, very quiet, about thirty years old, who smiled frequently, but always held his hand to his mouth when he did so in order to hide his missing front teeth. He purloined cups (plastic, nonbreakable cups are a favorite and hard-to-come-by item) from me from time to time when he thought I would not notice. He laughed at the Pirahãs as inferior. But he was after all a man who had faced the same hardships and environment as they, accumulating much more materially than they have—a fact that, while irrelevant to the Pirahãs, was clearly important to him. But he and the others at Ponto Sete believed that they and the Pirahãs were good friends. The Apurinãs at Sete always treated the Pirahãs well.