|
Insane
|
A tribe in Brasil.
The Marvelous Piraha
Quote:
The Piraha, a small tribe of hunter-gatherers in Brazil, have resisted, with breathtaking consistency, all the developments in linguistic abstraction, representational art, number, and time described above.
While this tribe has been in contact with other Brazilians for two centuries, for some reason they have maintained an extreme degree of linguistic and cultural integrity, remaining monolingual to this day. Significantly, in not just one but all the areas described in this chapter, they exhibit very little of the separation implicit in modern symbolic culture. They do not impose linearity onto time. They do not abstract the specific into the generic through numbering. They do not usually genericize individual human beings through pronouns. They do not freeze time into representation through drawing. They do not reduce the continuum of color to a discrete finitude by naming colors. They have little independent concept of fingers, the basis for number, grasping, and controlling; nor do they use fingers to point.
|
Quote:
The Piraha language is nearly devoid of any sort of abstraction. There is no semantic embedding, as in locutions like "I think she wants to come." ("She wants to come" is a nominalized phrase embedded in "I think [X]"). The lack of nominalized phrases means that words are not abstracted from reality to be conceived as things-in-themselves. Grammar is not an infinitely extendible template that can generate meaning abstractly through mere syntax. Words are only used in concrete reference to objects of direct experience. There are, for example, no myths of any sort in Piraha, nor do the Piraha tell fictional stories. This absence of abstraction also explains the lack of terms for numbers.
Even colors do not exist in the abstract for Piraha. While they are clearly able to discern colors and to use words like "blood" or "dirt" as modifiers to describe colored objects, these words do not refer to any color in the abstract. One cannot say, for example, "I like red things, " or "Do not eat red things in the jungle" in Piraha.
Even the very idea of abstract representation is apparently impossible to explain to the Piraha.
|
Quote:
The Piraha similarly abstain from projection into the future, sharing with other hunter-gatherers the nonchalance and disdain for food storage described in Chapter One. They are aware of food storage methods such as drying, salting, and so forth, but only use these techniques to make items for barter. For themselves they store no food, explaining to Everett, "I store meat in the belly of my brother". In other words, says Everett, "They share with those who need meat, never storing for the future." A further level of interpretation of this statement is also possible, however: taken literally, it suggests a different conception of self-interest and therefore a different conception of self. To help another is to help oneself. We are not separate.
Like other hunter-gatherers, the Piraha have few material possessions, and those they do possess are very impermanent: baskets that last a day or two, dwellings that last until the next storm. Their material culture makes no provision for security in the future, no provision for progress, betterment, or accumulation.
|
Piraha People and Language - Amazon Tribe of Brazil - Crystalinks
Quote:
The Piraha people have no history, no descriptive words and no subordinate clauses.
That makes their language one of the strangest in the world - and also one of the most hotly debated by linguists. The language is incredibly spare. The Pirahă use only three pronouns.
They hardly use any words associated with time and past tense verb conjugations don't exist. Apparently colors aren't very important to the Pirahăs, either -- they don't describe any of them in their language. But of all the curiosities, the one that bugs linguists the most is that Pirahă is likely the only language in the world that doesn't use subordinate clauses. Instead of saying, "When I have finished eating, I would like to speak with you," the Pirahăs say, "I finish eating, I speak with you."
|
Quote:
|
The principle is that the Piraha see themselves as intrinsically different from, and better than, the people around them; everything they do is to prevent them from being like anyone else or being absorbed into the wider world. One of the ways they do this is by not abstracting anything: numbers, colours, or future events.
|
To mee they seem like a tribe of natural zen masters, avoiding to categorize the world, not caring about what time is it, unable of any abstraction, can't even count to 2, and living always in the here and now.
Labeling the World
Quote:
The destructive potential of language is contained within the very nature of representation. Words, particularly nouns, force an infinity of unique objects and processes into a finite number of categories. Words deny the uniqueness of each moment and each experience, reducing it to a "this" or a "that". They grant us the power to manipulate and control (with logic) the things they refer to, but at the price of immediacy. Something is lost, the essence of a thing. By generalizing particulars into categories, words render invisible the differences among them. By labeling both A and B a tree, and conditioning ourselves to that label, we become blind to the differences between A and B. The label affects our perception of reality and the way we interact with it.
Hunter-gatherers, who were closer to a time before generic labels, were animists who believed in the unique sacred spirit of each animal, plant, object, and process. I can imagine a time when a tree was not a tree, but a distinct individual. If it is just a tree, one among a whole forest of trees, it is no great matter to chop it down. Nothing unique is being removed from the world. But if we see it as a unique individual, sacred and irreplaceable, then we would chop it down only with great circumspection. We might, as many indigenous peoples do, meditate and pray before committing an act of such enormity. It would be an occasion for solemn ritual. Only a very worthy purpose would justify it. Now, having converted all of these unique, divine beings into just so many trees, we level entire forests with hardly a second thought.
|
The "discriminating mind" :
http://www.rosenoire.org/archives/Hagakure.pdf
Quote:
|
When Yamamoto Gorozaemon went to the priest Tetsugyu in Edo wanting to hear something about Buddhism, Tetsugyo said, "Buddhism gets rid of the discriminating mind. It is nothing more than this."
|
And a story :
http://www.ashidakim.com/zenkoans/16notfar...buddhahood.html
Quote:
A university student while visiting Gasan asked him: "Have you ever read the Christian Bible?"
"No, read it to me," said Gasan.
The student opened the Bible and read from St. Matthew: "And why take ye thought for rainment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They toil not, neither do they spin, and yet I say unto you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these... Take therefore no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself."
Gasan said: "Whoever uttered those words I consider an enlightened man."
The student continued reading: "Ask and it shall be given you, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you. For everyone that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth, and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened."
Gasan remarked: "That is excellent. Whoever said that is not far from Buddhahood.
|
__________________
Blog
One day there will be so many houses, that people will be bored and will go live in tents. "Why are you living in tents ? Are there not enough houses ?" "Yes there are, but we play this Economy game"
Last edited by pai mei; 04-01-2009 at 01:17 PM..
|