The power of speech | World news | The Guardian

Daniel Everett

The interview 'Godless Tribe Deconverts. .." is interesting.

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1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
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His viewpoint makes me wonder if belief in God is linguistically and conceptually just a means of giving cultural significance to the past and the future? In other words, the real issue behind theism, isn't whether or not there existing 'a being called god' but whether or not the past and future are real. To speak of God is to speak of the past and future as constituent components of culture. Buddhist is another example of the kind of culture that values 'nowness' like the Piraha. I didn't hear Everett state it, but it seems his missionary work would have given the Piraha a past and future and he was troubled by this because he found their life in the present adequate.

__________________
1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

A Reporter at Large: The Interpreter : The New Yorker

__________________
1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

I've spent 25 years trying to pick up my wife's language. While it is recursive to an extent, there are very few time markers present. The best way I can describe it is not living in the present, for the moment as we normally understand those terms, but rather in a sort of timelessness. Her culture are farmers, and so planning and marking seasons is of course required. When something happened or will happen is expressed only contextually. At my level of understanding when listening to bits of conversation around the dinner table I don't know if I'm hearing about something that happened a thousand years ago or yesterday.
Her culture has not only a belief in a creator, but also in a pantheon of other gods and important spiritual entities. Personally, I'm ambivalent about the connection between language and religion. I'd like to know what, if any belief system these people hold traditionally.
Not unlike Everett, my wife's grandfather became friends with the last Mennonite missionary in her village. These were Swiss Mennonites, not the American variety. After living in the village for a number of years he was befriended by many people and was given a field of his own and taught to farm in the indigenous fashion, growing native crops of corn, squash, chiles, beans etc. He was distinctly unsuccessful at making conversions. By and by the church sent inspectors to his mission to look into his conversion activities. My wife's grandfather stood along side him while he told the church overlords "I have nothing to teach these people."
He was ex-communicated and the mission closed, but lived on with the people for many years full time, eventually retiring to a little farm not far from here. His grand daughter and my wife are now pretty good friends.

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