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Concept
Pirahã people
Summary
The Pirahã (pronounced piɾaˈhɐ̃) are an indigenous people of the Amazon Rainforest in Brazil. They are the sole surviving subgroup of the Mura people, and are hunter-gatherers. They live mainly on the banks of the Maici River in Humaitá and Manicoré in the state of Amazonas. , they number 800 individuals. The Pirahã people do not call themselves Pirahã but instead the Híaitíihi or Hiáitihí, roughly translated as "the straight ones."
To the linguistic anthropologist and former Christian missionary Daniel Everett, The Pirahã are supremely gifted in all the ways necessary to ensure their continued survival in the jungle: they know the usefulness and location of all important plants in their area; they understand the behavior of local animals and how to catch and avoid them; and they can walk into the jungle naked, with no tools or weapons, and walk out three days later with baskets of fruit, nuts, and small game.
The Pirahã speak the Pirahã language. They call any other language "crooked head". Members of the Pirahã can whistle their language, which is how Pirahã men communicate when hunting in the jungle.
As far as the Pirahã have related to researchers, their culture is concerned solely with matters that fall within direct personal experience, and thus there is no history beyond living memory. Pirahã have a simple kinship system that includes baíxi (parent, grandparent, or elder), xahaigí (sibling, male or female), hoagí or hoísai (son), kai (daughter), and piihí (stepchild, favorite child, child with at least one deceased parent, and more).
Daniel Everett states that one of the strongest Pirahã values is no coercion; one does not tell other people what to do. There appears to be no social hierarchy; the Pirahã have no formal leaders. Their social system is similar to that of many other hunter-gatherer bands in the world, although rare in the Amazon because of a history of horticulture before Western contact (see history of the Amazon).
Official source
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