The Piraha Indians living on the Maisi River in Brazil can be called the happiest people on earth, because they do not grieve about the past, do not think about the future. For them, there is only today. Piraha do not make supplies, almost never sleep, do not believe in anything. And they call themselves the right people.
SLEEPING IN BRAZIL
Former missionary Daniel Everett has lived among the Pirah for 30 years. It was from him in the 1970s that the world learned about this amazing tribe.
Pirah's attitude to sleep is perhaps a whole philosophy. They believe that you shouldn't sleep at all. Firstly, sleep deprives you of strength, and secondly, in a dream, a person dies a little, and wakes up completely different, that is, he loses himself. And it's not a fact that you will like this other person.
But this is not all the causes of forced insomnia. Going to bed, we are used to wish each other: "Good night." But in the Piraha language, such a wish sounds something like this: “Don't sleep! Snakes are everywhere. " And, indeed, snakes are abundant here. Therefore, the pirahah do not sleep at night, but doze for half an hour, where fatigue overcame them.
Sleep is also to blame for the growing up or aging of the body of the Indians. For example, someone who, it would seem, until recently was smaller, drank milk from a woman's breast, did not know how to hunt and have sex, fell asleep and suddenly disappeared. And his place was taken by another, adult. It's a pity, of course, for the old one, but what happened happened, and the new person must be given a new name. Therefore, approximately once every seven years, the people of the tribe change their name: each age should have its own.
Since the Indians do not have a stable night's sleep separating the new day from the old, they have no idea of the past and the future, as well as no calendar. Their category of time is limited to the change of seasons from rain to drought. Therefore, the pirahah do not think about the future, they simply do not understand what it is. They don't stock up. Everything that is caught or collected is immediately eaten. And if the hunt was unsuccessful, then they remain hungry, and this does not bother them at all. They do not know that it is possible to salt or smoke prey for future use. And why do this if someone else wakes up instead of you tomorrow? - Let him work. By the way, Indians are indifferent to food, they do not understand why they eat every day. When visiting Everett, who lived among them, the pirahah, every time they caught him at a meal, exclaimed: “Eating again? You will die!"
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TWO FELLS, THREE FELLS
Many times the missionaries tried to instill their religious concepts in the Pirah. Not that the Indians resisted, no. They warmly greeted the guests, accepted gifts, food and clothes, but further communication did not go. The fact is that none of the missionaries was able to understand the language of the tribe. Neither did any of the pirahah understand the words of the strangers. Then it was decided to send the linguist Everett to the Indians.
It took him a long time to understand the unique language of Pirah. According to Everett, it is unlike any other known language. It has only three vowels and seven consonants. Hence the meager vocabulary. But in the Pirah language you can hum and whistle like a bird.
As for the account, the Indians are very bad with it. They have two quantitative categories: “few” and “many”. For example, four fish is several, and six is already a lot. And if there is only one fish, then there is no need to count it. Fish, it is fish. The number "one" for some reason is so difficult for their perception that it leads to a stupor.
According to this logic, the Piraha do not consider themselves a small people, because there are 400 of them, which is a lot. However, in matters of finance, the Indians are more specific. They perfectly understand what size a pile of bottles of bitter water should be, which can be bought from residents of a neighboring village for one or another bill, although they do not know its denomination.
Accustomed to the meager alphabet and the absence of numerals, the colors of the surrounding world of Pirah also denote very laconically: "light" and "dark". At the same time, the Indians do not suffer from color blindness, as shown by the color separation test. But something in their color perception is wrong, because they do not notice dirty stains on clothes, and therefore they almost never wash them. They also cannot determine by the smell that it is time to wash, since they never sweat.
WITHOUT MORALITY
Indians do not need the external politeness inherent in our world. In their vocabulary there are no words such as "thank you", "sorry", "how are you", they just love each other and others, and are sure that they reciprocate without wasting words.
The people of the tribe are completely alien to the concepts of shame, guilt, resentment. If one of them dropped the fish into the water, then this is undoubtedly bad, because everyone has lost their lunch. And where is the one that dropped? If one child pushed another and he broke his arm, then it must be treated. But there are no guilty ones. What happened happened. If a piraha killed a white man with a bow, it was because he stole the bitter water from him. And if the white family doesn't like it, then let them also kill the culprit. And that's the end of it.
Private property in the tribe, as such, does not exist: everything is common here. The only exceptions are clothing and weapons. But if a person does not use these things, then he does not need them and anyone can take them. True, if the owner is upset because of this, then everything will be returned to him immediately. By the way, the children of the tribe do not have toys: they are used to playing with plants and animals.
As for marriages, Pirah's families are monogamous, although a man and a woman live together as long as they are happy with each other. If the husband is a loser and does not bring booty into the house, the wife has the right to find another spouse. Likewise, the husband has the right to leave his wife if she is not engaged in gardening and fishing, and besides, she has aged or has grown ugly. That is, each of them can do what he wants, while not experiencing any shame or remorse. The piraha does not even scold or punish children. Of course, they will explain to the child that it hurts to grab the hot coals with their hands, or they will pick up the baby playing by the water so that he does not fall there. But nothing more.
Sometimes their reverent attitude towards other people's rights becomes life-threatening. For example, if a baby refuses breast milk, no one will force him. He seems to know when he needs to eat. Or, if a woman gives birth on the bank of the river for the third day and screams heart-rendingly, no one will rush to her help. What if she just wants to die, why interfere and discourage her?
And at the same time, in the tribe there is no theft, murder, suicide - these vices are alien to the nature of pirah. They do not have chronic fatigue syndrome, depression and other mental disorders. The Piraha Indians living today are absolutely happy.
Nechrist
Pirah has almost no myths and legends. The oldest member of the tribe is the keeper of experience and knowledge. But at the same time, each of the piraha has almost encyclopedic knowledge about the flora and fauna of their habitats. The Indians are convinced that they, like all living things (except for white people), are children of the forest in which the spirits of the dead live. They are afraid of the forest, but, paradoxically, they go there with pleasure. One day, Everett saw that the whole tribe was crowding at the edge of the forest around an empty space. The piraha were talking animatedly with an empty space, as if there was something there. The missionary was told that a spirit had come to the Indians, but Everett did not see him, since he had not come to him.
All attempts at missionary activity among the tribe stalled for two reasons. Firstly, the Piraha did not perceive a single god because of problems with understanding the number "one", and secondly, they did not know the word "god" at all. The biblical interpretation of the origin of the man pirah amused: they knew exactly where children come from. They also did not believe in the existence of hell and heaven: after all, they were sure that after death they would become spirits and go to the forest. The Indians were not impressed by the story of Jesus Christ. They only asked if Everett himself saw how bad people nailed a good man to a tree, or maybe he knows those who have seen? And if not, how can he know what exactly happened?
As a result, the missionary realized that the Piraha did not need God: they are already better and cleaner than many believers. And in general - they are the happiest people on Earth. And this is what we should learn from them, not vice versa.
Galina BELYSHEVA