![]() And yet as certain as I was about this, the Pirahãs were equally certain that there was something there. Even I could tell that there was nothing on that white, sandy beach no more than one hundred yards away. My inexperienced eyes just weren’t able to see as theirs did.īut this was different. In the jungle with the Pirahãs I regularly failed to see wildlife they saw. “Right there!” Kóhoi snapped, looking intently toward the middle of the apparently empty beach. “Xigagaí, one of the beings that lives above the clouds, is standing on the beach yelling at us, telling us he will kill us if we go to the jungle.” “Don’t you see him over there?” he asked impatiently. I turned to Kóhoi, my principal language teacher, and asked, “What’s up?” He was standing to my right, his strong, brown, lean body #DONT SLEEP THERE ARE SNAKES PLUS#It was still around seventy- two degrees, though humid, far below the hundred- degree- plus heat of midday. ![]() ![]() Everyone was streaked from ashes and dust accumulated by sleeping and sitting on the ground near the fire. The babies’ bottoms were calloused from scooting across the ground, a mode of locomotion that for some reason they prefer to crawling. #DONT SLEEP THERE ARE SNAKES SKIN#Prepubescent children were naked, their skin leathery from exposure to the elements. None of the men were carrying their bows and arrows. The women wore the same sleeveless, collarless, midlength dresses they worked and slept in, stained a dark brown from dirt and smoke. I could see mothers running down the path, their infants trying to hold breasts in their mouths. The Pirahãs were loosely bunched on the riverbank just to the right of my house. Pulling them on, I slipped into my flip- flops and headed out the door. I picked my gym shorts off the floor and checked to make sure that there were no tarantulas, scorpions, centipedes, or other undesirables in them. I got out of bed to get a better look-and because there was no way to sleep through the noise. Everyone was focused on the beach just across the river from my house. A crowd was gathering about twenty feet from my bed on the high bank of the Maici, and all were energetically gesticulating and yelling. ![]() I was now completely conscious, awakened by the noise and shouts of Pirahãs. Often when I first opened my eyes, groggily coming out of a dream, a Pirahã child or sometimes even an adult would be staring at me from between the paxiuba palm slats that served as siding for my large hut. Children were usually laughing, chasing one another, or noisily crying to nurse, the sounds reverberating through the village. Mornings among the Pirahãs, so many mornings, I picked up the faint smell of smoke drifting from their cook fires, and the warmth of the Brazilian sun on my face, its rays softened by my mosquito net. My dwelling was flanked by two smaller Pirahã huts of similar construction, where lived Xahoábisi, Kóhoibiíihíai, and their families. I opened my eyes and saw the palm thatch above me, its original yellow graying from years of dust and soot. A breeze was blowing up from the Maici River in front of my modest hut in a clearing on the bank. The sun was shining, but not yet too hot. It was 6:30 on a Saturday morning in August, the dry season of 1980. I roused from my deep sleep, not sure if I was dreaming or hearing this conversation. ![]() “Look! There he is, Xigagaí, the spirit.” Everett is the Chair of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at Illinois State University.įrom the Hardcover edition. ![]()
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