Don\'t Sleep, There are Snakes by Daniel Everett - Summary PDF

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Quick summary of Daniel Everett's book about the Amazonian tribe of the Pirahas people...

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Preface Science is not only about researchers working a lab wearing coats, it can also be pursued by lone individuals putting themselves in strange and unknown situations, feeling lost and over their heads. This book is about scientific work of the latter type as it documents the writer experience living with the Piraha – pidahàs - Indians of Brazil, in the Amazonian jungle. Prologue The writer recalls a scene happened on a Saturday morning in august 1980: he woke up just to find the whole village gathering right at the borders of their camp looking at what they described as Xigagai, one of the beings that lives above the clouds, who was supposedly standing in the middle of an apparently empty beach. The lens of culture and folklore can definitely shape your perception of reality. Then, he explains the title of the book: don’t sleep there are snakes is a Piraha way to say goodnight which is linked to the belief that lack of sleep can harden a person, make him or her stronger, to the point where the narrator recalls rarely hearing the village completely quiet at night: people don’t sleep, but they spend the night talking and joking, meaning that, while life is hard and it requires sacrifices, it doesn’t mean people can’t enjoy it though its length. Part one: life The narrator is a missionary sent there by evangelical churches in the US to change the Pirana’s heart and persuade them to worship the god he believed in. His priority is to translate the bible into the local language. Piraha’s language is one of the hardest in world, not related to any other idiom: he only knows how it sounded on the tapes recorded by previous linguists who quickly gave up. It’s tonal like Chinese since it can place a high or low pitch on any vowel (there are only three of them). It also has no way to compare two things, no direct words for colors and no indication for the past tense. The difficulty also comes from the fact that there’s no middle language because the situation in which the study is conducted is monolingual. Daniel’s method consists of using a notebook and writing down everything he hears as well as carrying flashcards with common words attached to his belt. He quickly realizes piraha’s language completely lacks phatic communications, namely expressions that are used to express social and interpersonal interest or to attest the other speaker - like thanks, hello, goodbye, how are you? Or I’m sorry – and do not add any specific information to the interaction. Gratitude, happiness or penitence are all expressed by actions, not by words. When he arrives, he is warmly welcomed: people look happy and healthy, they smile and touch him just like they would with a pet. The first man he meets is Koxoi, with whom he starts to practice the language. Koxoi – kohòi - is one the best hunters among the Pirahas and is later seen when he is celebrated by his peers as he returns from a hunting session with many preys. At this point Danile is given his Piraha’s name which is assigned based on the resemblance with other members of the tribe. When a name gets old, a new one is given - Daniel’s name changes roughly every 10 years. Daniel then described the daily routine of the villagers, which starts at 5 in the morning – since they sleep so little, it’s hard to say when the old day ends and the new one begins – with people – mostly women - speaking loudly about the day’s events and whatnot. Men go fishing alone or with a few friends mainly using bow and arrow while at least one male remains in the village to watch over their

belongings. Women and children spend their days cooking or pulling a local specie of tuber from the ground. In the late afternoon people eat together the fish that was captured during the day. After overcoming some legal problems by applying for a graduate linguistics program at the University of Campina – Unicamp – Daniel is able to get back to the Pirahas with his family which is composed by his wife and 3 children. They first gathered medicines and food supplies, as well as school books so that the children could be home-schooled in the village. The family is warmly welcomed and introduced to their new home, which has been prepared for them by Daniel. Later that night, Daniel kills a tarantula he saw in his house, only to be scolded by one of the villagers: we don’t kill those, they eat bugs and cockroaches. They feel safe and protected for the first time. Part 2: the Amazon As expected, heat is a huge problem in the jungle, but the latter provides many shady places. Humidity is ever harder to tolerate because it doesn’t allow any kind of physical transpiration. Insects and mosquitoes are also incredibly annoying. The Amazon is huge, accounting for 2% of the world land. 1/3 of all known species live there. A physical description of the forest and its rivers follows, with a focus on the Maici river, which flows between the village’s huts. The Amazon has been the source of countless books: the author’s favorites are the ones from Mark Twain and William James. Nearly no one in Brazil has been in the Amazonian forest and yet they feel it belongs to them and fear any kind of foreign intervention that affects the area. The origins of Amazonians are object of discussion: some says that the forest is so thick it does not offer enough arable land for a large human community to prosper, hence the little tribes such as the Pidahas, while others think that the forest does provide sufficient land for agriculture citing many cultures as examples. The theory when it comes to Pidaha is that they have been separated for so long from the other human groups that resided in the area that their language lost any kind of connection that would make it possible for it to be linked to other local idioms. Part 3: the cost of discipleship Karen – wife – and Shannon – oldest daughter – both fall ill: they begin to exhibit symptoms such as high fever, diarrhea and dreadful headaches. It’s malaria, even though Daniel mistakes it for typhoid fever – and starts treating it as such, thus giving them useless medications. They soon start to experience hallucinations followed by nearly comatose sleep sessions. The situation is critical since they don’t have two-way radios – not allowed by the Brazilian government – and no chance to get help by calling a plane. Daniel doesn’t have enough gas to make a river trip, so he asks Vicenzo, a catholic missionary, to lend him his boat, a humble canoe with a gasoline-powered engine. Vicenzo gives Daniel directions to Humaità where they could be able to get some help: he mispronounced Santa Luzia as Santa Lucia, a mistake that will impact Daniel’s future. While he tries to gather his family on the boat, Karen, in a semi-unconscious state, accuses him of being faithless, of not trusting God enough to remain in the village and ask him through prayers to help them. Daniel is morally torn but, in the end, despite risking being accused of being a faithless coward, decides to make the trip. Strangely enough, Pirahas ask Daniel to bring back matches, canned meat and blankets, a request so selfish that Daniel gets angry at them immediately, shouting to them hoping they understand the seriousness of the situation.

Through the duration of the river trip, Karen keeps hallucinating and slapping her children and husband while occasionally making mean comments on everyone. During the trip, Daniel stops to ask for directions to a lady living on the river bank: he questions her about Santa Lucia just like Vicenzo instructed him to, so she does not understand he’s referring to Santa Luzia. Anyway, Daniel notices how these people, who own literally nothing except their clothes, are so welcoming and caring to stranger, more so than himself, which is so much richer when it comes to material possessions. Worried for the fate of his family, he prays asking God for help, but he’s soon captured by the beauty of the environment, with which he feels as one, in the eternal struggle every living thing must endure to survive. Even though this experience feels like something straight out of the bible, God seems distant. Once he arrives to Santa Luzia, Daniel starts seeking help: many men from the village offer their assistance. They carry Keren and Shannon to Auxiliadora where a local wealthy family offer them a place where to lay and rest for the night. The boat to Humaità – where they could see a doctor – arrives the following morning. Daniel tries to get Fernando, the ship’s captain, to skip the remaining stops and go straight to Humaità: it was a matter of life or death for his family. Not only Fernando refuses, but he and his crew stop along the way to play soccer against a local rival team. Daniel angrily watches them as they get off the boat to reach the football field. Seeing how helpful locals have been up to this point, Daniel begins to wonder why those people seem to be completely devoid of any human sentiment: he finds an answer to this question only a few years later as he realizes that what he was experiencing was nothing more than daily life for those people. Brazilian are more than willing to help you with small things, but can’t take the pain of life away from you, you have to face it by yourself as anyone else does. Eventually he manages to get to the hospital in Humaità: there, the staff is rude to him, assuming that as a gringo and a protestant he must feel superior to them, Brazilian Catholics. He is, for the first time, victim of prejudice. Daniel decides to leave his wife and daughter there, where they were taken care of, to reach Porto Velho for his two remaining children to be seen by a doctor in a more efficient structure. The plan is to get to Porto Velho and then come back to pick the rest of the family. He gets to a missionary center and with the help of John and Betty he flies back to Humaità, gets Keren and Shannon on a plane and takes them both to Porto Velho where Betty immediately begins treating their malaria. She soon realizes that her condition is critical, she might not make it through the night if she didn’t receive a blood donation in a hospital. She is taken to a local private clinic and her parents are called in order for them to give her their last goodbye. Surprisingly, her health starts to recover. As soon as she and Shannon are able to walk, Daniel ask them to spend the following months at Karen’s parents house in Bèlem while he goes back to the Pirahas. Keren and the children spend 6 months of rest and recuperation, away from Daniel, after which they reach Daniel once again.

Part 4: Sometimes you make mistake Daniel realizes the reason why Pirahas did not show any empathy when he and his family were looking for help is because they have to cope with this kind of situations on a daily basis without having access to even the most basic medical help. For them, it’s daily routine: when a relative falls ill, they can’t mourn, they have to continue gathering food in order for them not to starve. It’s not like they’re so stoic they don’t ‘even look for help during times of need, it’s just that they don’t feel entitled to any form of support by other individuals like we do. Sometimes people from the outskirts of the jungle would stop by the village during their search for tropical fruits, flowers and other valuable goods they could sell to the local market. Daniel is bothered by those men, not only because they hired some always his most useful language instructors - in order for them to guide those merchants through the forest – for months at a time, but also because they all wanted to speak to him, since he was known as a semi-celebrity for his white skin and red hair and beard, in order to gain access to his medicines and influence over the Pirahas. They were also incredibly racist as they thought of the Pirahas as sub-humans, creatures of the forest akin to monkeys speaking a language that sounded like chicken noises to their ears. One night, one of these men approaches Daniel in the middle of the night asking him to let him take 8 men in order for them to help the merchant picking nuts in the jungle. Daniel denies having the power to allow such operation and just instruct the man to offer the Pirahas trade goods as a wage for their work. Food or any kind of supply would have been fine, everything except alcohol, which cannot be used as retribution for indigenous tribes according to the law. Some time later, during the night, Daniel hears people talking in the jungle about killing the Americans: the merchant had been providing alcohol to the Pirahas in order to get them drunk and had asked them to kill Daniel and his family in exchange for a brand new shotgun. Daniel tries to reduce the tension by reaching those who were plotting his murder, greeting them in the most enthusiastic way and then causally grabbing the weapons they had around, but when he is trying to make his way back to the hut he meets Kokoi, who threatens to kill him. According to Kokoi, who has been manipulated by the Brazilian merchant, Daniel was trying to sabotage their work by declining the merchant’s offer. In the calmest way possible, Daniel explains to him that the foreign only wanted to give them cheap alcohol as payment, which was unfair and illegal. If Daniel didn’t know how to speak Piraha’s language, he and his family would have been dead. Kokoi understands the situation and they both reach the merchant’s boat, from which the man is observing the situation. Once he sees Daniel approaching him with the Pirahas at his side, he gets scared and quickly takes off with his boat. That night is spent by Daniel guarding his house with a shotgun in his hands, observing drunk Pirahas confusingly fighting each while mumbling sometimes apologetic, sometimes threatening words. With blood everywhere in the house, last night’s fights leftovers, the following morning Pirahas apologize for their behavior through Kokoi’s words, who cites alcohol as the reason of their actions. Wanting to really understand why the Pirahas were even thinking about killing him, Daniel decides to speak with the one who looked the angriest during the previous night happenings. With coffee and biscuits, he visits him at his hut, asking him why they were so furious at him and if they wanted him

to stay. The man explains that the reason why they were so angry was because Daniel spoke as if he has authority over the Pirahas by declining the merchant’s alcohol offer: this wasn’t his jungle, he had no right to decide for the Pirahas, which is precisely why they were so mad at him. Even though the women of the tribe told Daniel that previous missionaries didn’t let the men drink – which is not true, they probably said it in order to keep their husbands away from booze – Daniel understands his mistake: he had no authority to decide what’s best for the Pirahas. Not too long after, in fact, Pirahas are given alcohol by a merchant and Daniel and his family are forced to temporarily leave the village to avoid the usual troubles. At the end of the chapter, Daniel stops to consider what he knew about the Pirahas so far: from a certain standpoint, he was kind of let down by their lack of spectacular cultural expressions – many other tribes had intricate rituals or amazing costumes – mainly because their life looked very dull and repetitive from the outside. Men spent their days hunting, joking and farting while women looked after the harvest and their children; they’re village weren’t even well kept, with weeds and trash everywhere. He wanted to look deeper into their social structure and habits, but with no anthropology knowledge, he had a rough patch ahead of him. 5: Material culture and the absence of ritual Pirahas, only having two kinds of huts – palm thing, smaller and only useful for its shade, daughter thing, slightly bigger and more resistant to the elements – don’t use them for protection since neither of them has walls. They don’t serve as social status symbols or privacy tools either: houses are just places to sleep in or to keep dogs or the few belongings families have. For sex or relieving themselves they use the jungle. They’re material culture is just as simple: they produce very few tools and artifacts such as their large powerful bows and arrows, which are the result of the combined efforts of both men and women working together. Many of the things they make are not permanent, meaning that if they need a basket to carry thing they just produce one on the spot and then throw them away after two or three uses. Necklaces are used to look more desirable (secondary purpose) or to protect from spirits (primary purpose): they rarely show symmetry and are not very attractive since they use a random combination of feathers, teeth, rocks and leaves to manufacture them. They can make canoes out of bark but they rarely do because they would rather use the sturdier ones provided by the Brazilians. Canoes are shared, but they still belong to a single person: if a canoe is borrowed, the borrower has to donate a part of the fish to the owner. Daniel wonder why they don’t create their own canoes more often and tries to get Pirahas to learn a more effective method to do so by inviting Semplicio, a local canoe maker: even though Pirahas looks enthusiastic when he’s there, they refuse to put what they learn in practice once he left. Daniel understand that Pirahas rarely import knowledge from the outside, no matter how useful it is. Pirahas consume everything as soon as it is gathered, they don’t store and conserve anything. They consider hunger as a way to strengthen themselves, so they go as long as 3 days without eating: they’re fit and strong. Their diet is 70% fish, often mixed with flour. They’re no differentiation when it comes to fishing between day and night: they’ll do it at night or during the day, and as soon as the fish is caught it will be eaten, doesn’t matter if it’s 3 A.M. They’ll also eat maniac tubers but they won’t grow them in an organized way nor take care of the tools that are needed to make their job easier.

It’s clear that they lack even the most basic notion of the future: they’re not lazy, they work hard, but they just consider the present as the important dimension. They enjoy each day as it comes without planning ahead of the times. We define success as something that have to be achieved over a long time by planning and sticking to a tight schedule, but the Pirahas just seem to enjoy their days with no worry for tomorrow. Some people think that this is because of the trauma caused by meeting the European in the XIIIX: the often led to culture shock, loss of culture and habits disintegration, but early European accounts about the Pirahas describes a culture that is very similar to the one of today, so it looks like this is not the case. They were defined as the least acculturated tribe of the area. Pirahas village are as close to the river as they can build them and, in the summer, they’ll sleep directly on the sand with no protection. Houses are built in a line along the river and house a single family each. They dry season is the most prosperous time of the year since it’s easier to catch fish. Pirahas culture lacks rituals: when someone dies he or she is buried immediately, but there’s very little ritual apart from the fact they they’re buried in a sitting position if they’re large – it requires less digging –. They don’t use coffins, they just wrap the dead in banana leaves and bury him or her very close the surface, so much so that during the rainy season corpses often resurface. Sometimes they will imitate Brazilian burial by placing a cross on the ground. Sex and marriage also requires no rituals: their sexual lexicon uses a lot of animal language. Sex is practiced among married or non-married couples with a very liberal mindset. Sexual aggression is pretty rare but it happens: they’re always persecuted. Dancing bring the village together: there are no musical instruments involved, only singing clapping and stomping while moving in circle. Sometimes spirits appear during dances through someone who wears specific clothes and speak the singing variant of the language (more on that later). Pirahas use personal accounts to transmit values, meaning that a person might recall a time when he or she met a spirit and tell everyone how it looks and what it wa...