Don't Sleep There are Snakes - book

Don’t Sleep, There are Snakes, by Daniel L. Everett (Pantheon, 2008)

The subtitle of this interesting, and potentially very important book, Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle, is a good encapsulation of what the book in general is about. Part One is mostly about the difficulties of living, especially with a wife and three children, in the Amazonian Jungle. Daniel L. Everett was a missionary, trained by the Summer Institute of Linguistics, whose final goal was to learn the language of the Pirahas, a very small group of natives (about 400 in all), well enough to be able to translate the bible into their language. After a difficult beginning, and an exceedingly traumatic experience with malaria, the Everetts managed to live for extended periods of time among these remarkable people, learning and describing much of their way of life and culture, but also focused primarily on their language. This general ethnographic knowledge proved to be absolutely essential in learning and understanding both the language and the culture. Everett spent approximately seven years with the Pirahas, spread out over a thirty year period, and came to know them intimately.

Although I am not linguistically trained and know little about the subject, I found Part Two, which is about the language and the science of linguistics, absolutely fascinating. Everett claims, for example, that contrary to established linguistic theory, the Pirahas have no numbers, not even the famous one, two, and many, that characterize some languages. Similarly, they have, according to Everett, no specific words for color, another significant aberration from established theory. In his attempt to explain this he ultimately challenges the Noam Chomsky theory that grammar is innate in human nature. Everett suggests that there is no universal grammar a la Chomsky but, rather, grammar is primarily a result of cultural factors. As you might imagine, these claims are unusually dramatic and have not as yet been widely accepted by the linguistic community. They have, however, stimulated a great deal of research, and, if ultimately found to be correct, would bring about a massive change in linguistic theory. Being a non-linguist I confess I found his arguments compelling. In the process I believe I learned a lot about linguistics.

Part Three, by far the shortest portion of the book, was to me perhaps the most fascinating of all, as it deals with Everett’s complete loss of faith and conversion to atheism as a result of his life and research among the Pirahas. This was exceedingly difficult for him and resulted, among other things, in the break-up of his marriage. Reading about this painful experience caused me to reflect upon the aims of the Summer Institute of Linguistics and of Missionaries in general. The SIL linguists, who travel to the farthest corners of the globe to translate languages to facilitate translations of the bible, seem to me to be incredibly naïve for believing that the so-called “truths” in the “good book” are so profound as to be necessarily accepted by anyone exposed to them. This is the SIL belief, and their linguists do not otherwise proselytize (at least formally). This is what Everett believed, but after his years of linguistic study, and years of experience with the natives, he learned this was not at all the case. The Pirahas have resisted conversion for over two hundred years and did not take to his efforts among them. The very idea that Christian Missionaries should travel the globe spreading the gospel of Christianity has always struck me as absurd. And having seen first-hand in New Guinea and elsewhere the results of such attempts, rarely very successful, and often very damaging, I confess I was not surprised by Everett’s failure. It is true that some Missions, especially large ones like the Lutherans and Catholics, have sometimes established schools and hospitals, and in general attempted to do “good,” it is also the case that many Missions, especially smaller ones, have tended to do very “well” while doing “good.” This has certainly been the case in New Guinea.

The history of missionary activity in the U.S. and Australia, and other places, is well-known, and unfortunately not a record of which to proud. For example, forcibly removing native children from their parents and placing them into Christian boarding schools was not a very good or successful procedure. But there is no time or space here to deal with the effects of missionary activity around the world.

If you have any interest in Missionary activity, the Amazon, the study of language, or even in how different people think and perceive the world, you will find this book of more than merely passing interest.