Steve and Megan Dragswolf - thoughts, life, etc.
Contributors
Tags


Filed under

tribe

 
February 6, 2010

The Pirahã of the Amazonian jungles change everything when it comes to language and missions work

via newyorker.com | The Interpreter

A very long and very interesting article concerning the Pirahã Amazonian tribe and their language. The article follows a lapsed American missionary as he continues to work with this tribe's linguistics, hoping to fully understand everything that makes up such a hard to understand language. The problem lies in the tribe's resistance to anything outside of their experience, or anything outside of what they know. As such, they don't follow traditional linguistic patterns that most languages follow. Yet the most interesting parts, to me, were the talk of the tribe's resistance to Christianity as there were several missionaries dispatched to evangelize the tribe.

Everett, the American linguist/ex-missionary, explains that the tribe lives completely in the "now." They don't have any concept of abstract ideas, and it's not that they can't think about abstracts, it's because they don't want to. They stick with what they know and experience instead of philosophy. So when a person walks out of sight of the tribe, that person is deemed "out of experience" instead of gone. Any sort of talk of Christianity and its ideas fall on deaf ears as it's hard to get the Pirahã to understand it as an "experience."

Everett's ex-wife still works with the tribe as a missionary trying to figure out the language enough to translate the gospel. She's found that the key to understanding the language may be in their songs.

Loading mentions Retweet
Filed under  //   Amazon   language   linguistics   missionary   Pirahã   tribe  
Posted by Steve Dragswolf 

Comments [1]

July 3, 2008

Masked Gunmen attack Amazon tribe

The video shows gunmen believed to be working for local farmer and mayor, Paulo César Quartiero, firing assault rifles and throwing homemade bombs at an unarmed group of Makuxi. These graphic images are just the latest in a series of vicious attacks that have left twenty dead and hundreds wounded and despite the discovery of a large cache of weapons and ammunition at Quartiero’s ranch, he has since been released.Raposa-Serra do Sol, which is home to 19, 000 Indians from over five different Makuxi ethnic groups, was created in 2005 after years of campaigning by the Indigenous Council of Roraima (CIR). It is just one of the many sites of conflict between indigenous Indians and farmers across Brazil and despite official recognition of their right to live there, the violence looks set to continue well into the future.

Loading mentions Retweet
Filed under  //   Amazon   attack   Brazil   Makuxi   Survival International   tribe  
Posted by Steve Dragswolf 

Comments [0]

June 21, 2008

Secret of the 'lost' tribe that wasn't | World news | The Observer

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jun/21/amazon

The “lost” Amazonian tribe which made recent headlines had been known about for nearly 100 years.  The tribe was photographed for the sole purpose of proving “uncontacted” tribes in the Amazon still exist today to counter extensive logging in the area which try’s to prove otherwise.  

From the article:

Meirelles, one of only five or so genuine sertanistas, has no regrets, arguing that the pictures and video released to the world were powerful and indisputable evidence to those who say isolated tribes no longer exist. ‘Alan García [the President of Peru] declared recently that the isolated Indians were a creation in the imagination of environmentalists and anthropologists – now we have the pictures.’

Loading mentions Retweet
Filed under  //   Amazon   Brazil   tribe   uncontacted  
Posted by Steve Dragswolf 

Comments [0]

June 17, 2008

Amazon Tribe Photos Cause Uproar : NPR

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91588718

For years, South American governments refuses to acknowledge the existence of these tribes. But, the first morning of the expedition, Possuelo finds human tracks pointing to vast, dark virgin jungle. He knows the language of the jungle and a makeshift gate made of hacked sapling warns them to “keep out.” Exploring the jungle with a team of Matis Indian Scouts, they know they are near the Arrow People, and they maintain a distance — they want to get out alive. Two Indians are seen running past them, scattering and disappearing into the rain forest. The point is not to make contact, but to protect the Arrow People.

Loading mentions Retweet
Filed under  //   Amazon   Brazil   tribe   uncontacted  
Posted by Steve Dragswolf 

Comments [0]

June 9, 2008

The World - Twilight for the Forest People - NYTimes.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/08/weekinreview/08wilford.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

The world is closing in on the few remaining people who live in such remote isolation as to seem not of this world.

They dwell in crude thatched huts in forest depths and subsist by hunting and fishing and gathering plants and berries. They know nothing of television, the Internet or, it is safe to say, the Big Bang. But some have seen airplanes flying over, sometimes swooping low over their settlements.

Geison Miranda/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

INTRUSION Brazilian officials recently discovered this encampment in the Amazon rainforest during an aerial search for indigenous tribes near the border with Peru.

Loading mentions Retweet
Filed under  //   Amazon   Brazil   tribe   uncontacted  
Posted by Steve Dragswolf 

Comments [0]