WEBVTT 1 00:00:04.120 --> 00:00:05.780 The Joe Rogan Experience. 2 00:00:06.219 --> 00:00:09.560 Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. 3 00:00:13.820 --> 00:00:14.419 Good to see you, sir. 4 00:00:14.939 --> 00:00:15.460 Good to be here. 5 00:00:15.480 --> 00:00:17.399 Thank you very much for doing this. I'm really excited 6 00:00:17.420 --> 00:00:18.820 to talk to you. I've been looking forward to this 7 00:00:18.859 --> 00:00:19.120 a lot. 8 00:00:19.859 --> 00:00:20.859 Thanks very much for having me. 9 00:00:21.190 --> 00:00:26.089 You have a very, very unique life story. So I 10 00:00:27.230 --> 00:00:30.690 want to start with how did you– you became– let's 11 00:00:30.789 --> 00:00:33.329 lay it out for people– What got me interested in 12 00:00:33.369 --> 00:00:39.030 you is you became a Christian missionary and then went 13 00:00:39.090 --> 00:00:42.450 to the jungle and met these people. Let me say 14 00:00:42.469 --> 00:00:43.549 this right. The Pidahai? 15 00:00:43.869 --> 00:00:44.310 Pidahai. 16 00:00:44.390 --> 00:00:49.280 Pidahai. Pidahai. And stopped being a missionary and lived with 17 00:00:49.320 --> 00:00:50.679 them for how long? 18 00:00:51.659 --> 00:00:53.880 Well, the total time that I lived with them is 19 00:00:53.920 --> 00:00:56.920 about eight years in the jungle with them over a period. 20 00:00:57.020 --> 00:00:59.250 But I've been working with them for 40 years. I 21 00:00:59.289 --> 00:01:01.219 go back a lot. Wow. 22 00:01:01.820 --> 00:01:04.340 But you lived with them for eight years, and during 23 00:01:04.359 --> 00:01:09.120 that eight-year time period, you kind of— is it safe to 24 00:01:09.140 --> 00:01:09.939 say you're an atheist? 25 00:01:10.239 --> 00:01:11.530 Yes, it's safe to say that. 26 00:01:12.000 --> 00:01:14.250 And so let's take it back to the beginning. How 27 00:01:14.269 --> 00:01:16.349 did you become a missionary? Did you come from a 28 00:01:16.430 --> 00:01:17.189 religious family? 29 00:01:17.829 --> 00:01:22.609 No, I came from a very unreligious family. I was— in fact, 30 00:01:22.670 --> 00:01:24.730 I was standing out in front of a Jimi Hendrix 31 00:01:24.790 --> 00:01:28.019 concert in 1968 trying to sell LSD to get in. 32 00:01:28.739 --> 00:01:31.689 And— And this guy that I knew from high school 33 00:01:31.709 --> 00:01:34.370 that was really straight-laced came up with his sister. She 34 00:01:34.409 --> 00:01:36.409 was very cute. And so I went up to try 35 00:01:36.430 --> 00:01:39.250 to sell them some LSD. They didn't use drugs. And 36 00:01:39.269 --> 00:01:40.849 so I said, well, you got any change? I need 37 00:01:40.870 --> 00:01:43.390 to get some money to get into the concert. And 38 00:01:43.790 --> 00:01:45.890 I saw that she went to the same high school 39 00:01:45.939 --> 00:01:49.299 that I did. So after the concert, which she didn't 40 00:01:49.340 --> 00:01:51.939 like but I loved, I went to see her in 41 00:01:51.980 --> 00:01:54.120 high school. I went to sit by her during lunchtime 42 00:01:54.959 --> 00:01:57.239 and found out that she was a missionary and had 43 00:01:57.340 --> 00:02:01.680 been raised in Brazil. Wow. that really intrigued me because 44 00:02:01.799 --> 00:02:05.250 it was the sixties and I was, you know, didn't 45 00:02:05.269 --> 00:02:09.150 want to have just the typical us life and living 46 00:02:09.210 --> 00:02:12.389 in the Amazon sounded really cool. But then I became, 47 00:02:12.669 --> 00:02:16.340 you know, a genuine, strong, believing Christian, uh, went to 48 00:02:16.379 --> 00:02:19.539 Bible school. I did my undergraduate degree in Bible and 49 00:02:19.580 --> 00:02:23.199 theology and I was an ordained minister in the Wesleyan 50 00:02:23.240 --> 00:02:27.979 church and very active in church. And, um, was preached 51 00:02:28.080 --> 00:02:30.199 on street corners and did all that kind of thing. 52 00:02:30.860 --> 00:02:34.139 How did you make this transition from being a guy 53 00:02:34.159 --> 00:02:36.000 with a bag of acid in front of a Jimi 54 00:02:36.020 --> 00:02:37.430 Hendrix concert to. 55 00:02:38.870 --> 00:02:41.569 Well, her father, who had been a missionary now for 56 00:02:41.569 --> 00:02:45.830 20 years, was the most influential person outside my family 57 00:02:46.370 --> 00:02:48.199 in my life. And he and I would sit up 58 00:02:48.300 --> 00:02:51.990 late at night talking. And, you know, I was 17, 59 00:02:51.990 --> 00:02:54.789 and I found everything he said to be very convincing 60 00:02:54.870 --> 00:02:58.169 and very interesting. But mainly I loved his stories of 61 00:02:58.189 --> 00:03:00.229 the jungle and what it was like to live in 62 00:03:00.270 --> 00:03:03.530 the jungle, and I wanted to do that. And I 63 00:03:03.870 --> 00:03:07.490 became a believer. It was a gradual process. Well, actually, no, 64 00:03:07.530 --> 00:03:11.469 it wasn't that gradual. My father was just astounded. He said, 65 00:03:11.629 --> 00:03:14.060 you know, from one minute I'm worrying about you getting arrested, 66 00:03:14.560 --> 00:03:16.659 and now you're going to church every Sunday with these 67 00:03:16.719 --> 00:03:19.360 people I don't even know. He wasn't that happy about it. 68 00:03:20.370 --> 00:03:22.090 He'd rather you just get loaded in front of the 69 00:03:22.129 --> 00:03:22.870 Hendrix concert? 70 00:03:23.449 --> 00:03:25.550 Yeah, he would have actually because he was a heavy 71 00:03:25.610 --> 00:03:28.629 drinker and a construction worker and he considered that to 72 00:03:28.650 --> 00:03:30.840 be part of the masculine experience. 73 00:03:31.180 --> 00:03:33.219 But acid? Was acid okay with him? 74 00:03:33.360 --> 00:03:35.759 I don't think he knew I was doing acid. But 75 00:03:35.840 --> 00:03:38.900 he knew I was doing weed and things like that. 76 00:03:39.039 --> 00:03:40.699 And he didn't mind that? 77 00:03:40.840 --> 00:03:42.879 No. He didn't want me doing it in the house, 78 00:03:43.139 --> 00:03:43.680 which I did. 79 00:03:44.479 --> 00:03:48.389 So your rebellion was to become an outstanding citizen and 80 00:03:48.509 --> 00:03:50.129 a Christian missionary? Right. 81 00:03:50.210 --> 00:03:52.590 That was my greatest form of rebellion against the life 82 00:03:52.650 --> 00:03:53.389 I had been leading. 83 00:03:53.849 --> 00:03:57.169 Interesting. Yeah, that's what happens when parents push their kids 84 00:03:57.210 --> 00:03:58.129 into a certain direction. 85 00:03:59.030 --> 00:03:59.430 Right, right. 86 00:03:59.469 --> 00:04:04.120 Little people don't like being told what to do. Yeah. 87 00:04:04.159 --> 00:04:08.599 So you immediately, it seems like, go become a Christian. 88 00:04:08.879 --> 00:04:12.240 And then how long before you are actually doing missionary 89 00:04:12.280 --> 00:04:12.979 work in the jungles? 90 00:04:13.699 --> 00:04:15.259 Well, there's a lot of training you have to do. 91 00:04:15.340 --> 00:04:17.240 So first I had to do four years of college, 92 00:04:17.860 --> 00:04:20.259 Bible and theology, and then I had to do some 93 00:04:20.279 --> 00:04:25.939 linguistics training. And then not a graduate degree or anything 94 00:04:25.980 --> 00:04:29.060 like that, just some linguistics training from the missionary organization 95 00:04:29.100 --> 00:04:32.220 because I wanted to be a Bible translator. And then 96 00:04:32.259 --> 00:04:34.939 we did jungle training in southern Mexico. So we went 97 00:04:34.980 --> 00:04:37.660 to the jungles of Chiapas and had to do survival 98 00:04:37.720 --> 00:04:38.839 training and all of this. 99 00:04:38.860 --> 00:04:40.439 Whoa. What did you have to do there? 100 00:04:41.430 --> 00:04:44.029 Well, there are several phases to it. The family goes 101 00:04:44.129 --> 00:04:45.889 and the family is part of it. But the hardest 102 00:04:45.930 --> 00:04:49.310 thing is to really see how much you've learned. They 103 00:04:49.389 --> 00:04:51.629 take you on what's called survival hike and they leave 104 00:04:51.649 --> 00:04:53.829 you alone for about a week in the jungle. You're 105 00:04:53.870 --> 00:04:57.329 not allowed to take any food or any supplies of 106 00:04:57.389 --> 00:04:57.949 any kind. 107 00:04:58.040 --> 00:04:58.540 For a week? 108 00:04:58.829 --> 00:05:01.060 Yeah, for a week or more. You don't know. It's 109 00:05:01.100 --> 00:05:03.500 going to be at least a week. In my case, 110 00:05:03.600 --> 00:05:08.310 it was about 10 days. And you've got to set up. 111 00:05:08.870 --> 00:05:10.910 Your camp, how best you can figure out how to 112 00:05:10.949 --> 00:05:11.750 get a fire going. 113 00:05:11.769 --> 00:05:13.790 Do they teach you how to do all this stuff? 114 00:05:13.829 --> 00:05:15.389 They don't just like figure it out. 115 00:05:15.550 --> 00:05:18.790 This is like the final exam. So you've had almost 116 00:05:18.870 --> 00:05:22.199 four months of training before they finally take you out 117 00:05:22.240 --> 00:05:22.920 on this survival. 118 00:05:22.939 --> 00:05:23.779 Do you have water? 119 00:05:25.620 --> 00:05:28.339 You have maybe a quart of water when you leave, 120 00:05:29.040 --> 00:05:30.339 but you're going to be out there for 10 days. 121 00:05:30.360 --> 00:05:32.139 So you've got to find water. So we learned which 122 00:05:32.220 --> 00:05:34.850 vines have water and how to cut the vines. We 123 00:05:34.879 --> 00:05:37.389 did have a machete. So I was able to jump 124 00:05:37.509 --> 00:05:40.009 up and cut a vine out. At the top first 125 00:05:40.439 --> 00:05:41.279 and then at the bottom. 126 00:05:41.600 --> 00:05:44.279 And no one's monitoring you? They're just leaving you out 127 00:05:44.319 --> 00:05:46.019 there and they're not making sure you're okay? 128 00:05:46.240 --> 00:05:48.180 No, they just come along when the time's up. And 129 00:05:48.480 --> 00:05:49.300 if you're there, you're there. 130 00:05:49.699 --> 00:05:51.939 Oh, boy. And if you're not, you're dead? 131 00:05:52.600 --> 00:05:53.100 You could be. 132 00:05:53.920 --> 00:05:56.060 So that's insane. 133 00:05:56.660 --> 00:05:59.779 Yeah, well, this is what happens when you live by faith. 134 00:05:59.839 --> 00:06:03.730 You're out there praying. And God is supposed to be 135 00:06:03.829 --> 00:06:06.970 supervising your training, but it's really rigorous training. So by 136 00:06:07.009 --> 00:06:09.189 the time I actually got to the Amazon, which was 137 00:06:09.290 --> 00:06:14.310 eight years after I converted, it took that long, it 138 00:06:14.329 --> 00:06:17.100 felt like I was coming home. I wasn't surprised by things. 139 00:06:17.360 --> 00:06:19.459 Well, the training was good then. I mean I would 140 00:06:19.500 --> 00:06:21.540 imagine if you really want someone to be able to 141 00:06:21.579 --> 00:06:24.000 survive alone in the jungle, the best way to do 142 00:06:24.019 --> 00:06:26.670 it is to test them by making them survive alone 143 00:06:26.689 --> 00:06:28.750 in the jungle so that you get an actual hope. 144 00:06:29.370 --> 00:06:32.540 Version of the experience. It's not simulated. You actually are 145 00:06:32.569 --> 00:06:35.160 getting water from vines. What were you eating? 146 00:06:36.360 --> 00:06:38.860 Well, I learned different kinds of plants that you could eat. 147 00:06:39.459 --> 00:06:43.019 And then I learned how to make with a stick, 148 00:06:43.399 --> 00:06:47.180 you know, make a stick the size of a toothpick 149 00:06:47.220 --> 00:06:50.490 sharpened on both ends. And I did have some fishing line. 150 00:06:50.500 --> 00:06:53.529 I would attach that to that. And I was so 151 00:06:53.610 --> 00:06:56.170 proud of myself because I brought up two fish that 152 00:06:56.209 --> 00:07:00.069 were about three inches long. And I ate those– most 153 00:07:00.089 --> 00:07:02.810 of the time I ate plants and went hungry. So 154 00:07:02.829 --> 00:07:08.610 when I see the programs like Alone, that wouldn't bother me. 155 00:07:08.930 --> 00:07:10.430 That's the kind of stuff we had to do. 156 00:07:12.029 --> 00:07:13.949 They didn't even give you fish hooks? No. 157 00:07:14.209 --> 00:07:16.350 You can't have that kind of stuff. You have to 158 00:07:16.389 --> 00:07:17.889 learn to cope on your own. You've got to make 159 00:07:17.910 --> 00:07:20.370 your own. You've got to be able to recognize the plants, 160 00:07:20.430 --> 00:07:22.709 which ones are poisonous, which ones are not poisonous. 161 00:07:22.930 --> 00:07:24.470 Did you try to make like a bow and arrow 162 00:07:24.550 --> 00:07:26.949 or anything? Yeah, yeah. You did? I did. 163 00:07:26.970 --> 00:07:27.889 I made a bow and arrow. 164 00:07:28.240 --> 00:07:28.899 How did you do that? 165 00:07:30.220 --> 00:07:33.139 Well, I had a machete and that's what I had. 166 00:07:33.579 --> 00:07:35.060 It's crazy to give you a machete. They won't give 167 00:07:35.100 --> 00:07:35.740 you fish hooks. 168 00:07:35.759 --> 00:07:37.139 Like, come on, guys. Yeah, yeah. 169 00:07:37.160 --> 00:07:39.439 Fish hooks are so much easier to carry. Right. 170 00:07:39.759 --> 00:07:42.410 But the machete you need for firewood. You need for 171 00:07:42.449 --> 00:07:45.910 lots of things. You know, when I got to the Amazon. 172 00:07:46.170 --> 00:07:48.699 What? Do you have a lighter? No. No. How are 173 00:07:48.730 --> 00:07:49.389 you making fires? 174 00:07:49.689 --> 00:07:52.449 Well, I had just– they let me take just a 175 00:07:52.490 --> 00:07:53.110 few matches. 176 00:07:53.949 --> 00:07:54.949 Oh, Lord. 177 00:07:55.290 --> 00:07:57.970 And so no lighter, but a few matches, which you 178 00:07:58.110 --> 00:08:01.649 kept in a 35-millimeter film cartridge. 179 00:08:01.680 --> 00:08:04.300 People don't know about those things, those little containers. 180 00:08:04.540 --> 00:08:04.759 Yeah. 181 00:08:05.040 --> 00:08:07.139 How many matches did they give you for 10 days? 182 00:08:07.879 --> 00:08:11.209 Well, you had one of those little containers with about 10, 183 00:08:11.209 --> 00:08:13.240 15 matches in it at the most. Oh, boy. 184 00:08:13.990 --> 00:08:14.970 So you've got to match a day. 185 00:08:15.170 --> 00:08:16.970 You've got to keep your fire going all the time. 186 00:08:17.110 --> 00:08:19.110 You always have to keep that fire going. So before 187 00:08:19.129 --> 00:08:22.410 you start it, you spend half the day just cutting firewood. 188 00:08:22.790 --> 00:08:25.949 And I would imagine it's very wet. It's all wet. 189 00:08:26.730 --> 00:08:29.629 So you've got to find something dry to get it going. 190 00:08:30.509 --> 00:08:32.700 And you've got to keep it going. 191 00:08:32.779 --> 00:08:32.980 Yeah. 192 00:08:33.019 --> 00:08:34.980 They said once it's hot enough, it will burn anything. 193 00:08:35.480 --> 00:08:37.639 But until it gets hot, you can't just throw that 194 00:08:37.679 --> 00:08:40.970 wet wood on there. It will put it out. So– 195 00:08:41.309 --> 00:08:43.330 You have to spend a lot of time exploring, trying 196 00:08:43.350 --> 00:08:46.509 to find dry, crackly wood and leaves and things and 197 00:08:46.529 --> 00:08:49.370 get it going and then slowly introduce the thinner pieces 198 00:08:49.450 --> 00:08:51.879 of wet wood until finally you can throw on a 199 00:08:52.539 --> 00:08:53.710 sopping log onto it. 200 00:08:53.720 --> 00:08:55.720 So a big part of your day essentially is making 201 00:08:55.740 --> 00:08:58.519 sure that fire stays lit. Yeah. That's a big part 202 00:08:58.539 --> 00:09:00.840 of your day and you can't get too far from it. No. 203 00:09:01.179 --> 00:09:03.200 You have to stay fairly close to it and at 204 00:09:03.279 --> 00:09:05.059 night you definitely want to keep it going. So I 205 00:09:05.080 --> 00:09:08.850 remember one night waking up and hearing heavy steps around 206 00:09:08.870 --> 00:09:09.870 my camp. 207 00:09:09.889 --> 00:09:10.169 Oh, yeah. 208 00:09:10.549 --> 00:09:14.539 And– I was up immediately blowing on that fire for 209 00:09:14.580 --> 00:09:16.190 everything I was worth to get that thing up. 210 00:09:16.720 --> 00:09:18.740 Yeah. Was it Jaguars? 211 00:09:20.419 --> 00:09:22.840 I suspect that it could have been, although I didn't 212 00:09:22.919 --> 00:09:25.740 see it. I had my machete, which when I got 213 00:09:25.759 --> 00:09:28.980 to the Amazon and actually saw Jaguars, I realized that 214 00:09:29.000 --> 00:09:31.500 would have been a pretty pathetic thing to try to 215 00:09:32.039 --> 00:09:34.990 go against a Jaguar with a machete. They would rip 216 00:09:35.000 --> 00:09:35.470 your head off. 217 00:09:35.570 --> 00:09:37.529 Everybody likes to think they have a chance, though. 218 00:09:37.889 --> 00:09:40.710 Yeah, yeah. What I found out is jaguars, you know, 219 00:09:40.750 --> 00:09:43.480 they get up to 400 pounds. And they're the third 220 00:09:43.509 --> 00:09:45.720 biggest cat in the world after the lion and the tiger. 221 00:09:46.320 --> 00:09:50.740 And they often hunt in pairs. And so you wouldn't 222 00:09:50.759 --> 00:09:54.039 have a chance against a jaguar unless you were one 223 00:09:54.070 --> 00:09:57.399 of the pitahas. I know that guys alone by themselves 224 00:09:57.419 --> 00:09:58.360 have killed jaguars. 225 00:09:58.919 --> 00:10:01.139 Really? Yeah. What are they using to kill a jaguar? 226 00:10:02.100 --> 00:10:03.919 Well, they're always with their bows and arrows. 227 00:10:04.720 --> 00:10:08.379 A bow and arrow range for a jaguar. That's crazy. 228 00:10:08.399 --> 00:10:10.710 Well, you better have it ready because it sneaks up 229 00:10:10.799 --> 00:10:12.850 on you. There's another group that I worked with for 230 00:10:12.909 --> 00:10:16.549 quite a while, several months, called the Bonowah, and they 231 00:10:16.649 --> 00:10:20.539 use poison darts and poisoned arrows. So there's a story 232 00:10:20.559 --> 00:10:25.559 of this guy who went out hunting and he reached 233 00:10:25.620 --> 00:10:27.799 a clearing in the jungle and he saw a deer 234 00:10:27.870 --> 00:10:30.379 come out running straight for him. And at first he 235 00:10:30.419 --> 00:10:32.289 was happy and he was going to kill the deer. 236 00:10:32.330 --> 00:10:34.350 Then he realized deers don't just come running out of 237 00:10:34.370 --> 00:10:36.990 the jungle towards people. And then right behind the deer 238 00:10:37.049 --> 00:10:41.470 came a jaguar. And the jaguar saw him, the guy, 239 00:10:41.629 --> 00:10:43.549 and he was bigger than the deer. So the jaguar 240 00:10:43.590 --> 00:10:46.350 just took off straight for him and jumped up. And 241 00:10:46.509 --> 00:10:49.429 the guy got his blowgun. Out in front of him, 242 00:10:50.289 --> 00:10:52.610 they're about seven or eight feet long, these big blowguns, 243 00:10:53.210 --> 00:10:57.129 and they're very sturdy. And the jaguar, he holds it away. 244 00:10:57.649 --> 00:11:00.659 The jaguar's back legs are tearing the meat off of 245 00:11:00.720 --> 00:11:03.759 his legs, and the jaguar's head just keeps snapping at 246 00:11:03.779 --> 00:11:06.340 his face, trying to get his face. And what saved 247 00:11:06.379 --> 00:11:09.240 his life was the jaguar jumped off to go around 248 00:11:09.279 --> 00:11:10.940 the back and try to get him from the back. 249 00:11:11.580 --> 00:11:13.440 But he had a poisoned arrow, and he stabbed the 250 00:11:13.480 --> 00:11:16.019 jaguar with it, and that hurts. And the jaguar started 251 00:11:16.039 --> 00:11:17.360 to run off, and then he shot it with a 252 00:11:17.399 --> 00:11:23.970 poisoned arrow. But he passed out and his family found 253 00:11:24.009 --> 00:11:27.970 him a couple of days later with his legs just 254 00:11:28.049 --> 00:11:30.830 infected and torn to pieces. But he survived. 255 00:11:33.710 --> 00:11:36.960 And so these Pidahad, would they go hunt the jaguars? 256 00:11:37.940 --> 00:11:40.919 If they saw that it was a danger, if a 257 00:11:40.980 --> 00:11:44.220 woman went out and a jaguar or a mountain lion 258 00:11:45.419 --> 00:11:47.539 scared her, the men would go out to kill it. 259 00:11:48.370 --> 00:11:49.389 So I've eaten jaguar. 260 00:11:49.409 --> 00:11:52.190 What does it taste like? 261 00:11:52.250 --> 00:11:56.909 Well, this one was sort of– this was a sick jaguar. 262 00:11:56.970 --> 00:11:59.210 But it's stringy meat. I mean it's very muscly meat. 263 00:11:59.250 --> 00:12:01.539 Is it a sick one? Yeah. 264 00:12:01.779 --> 00:12:04.539 That's how they wound up killing it. I found out later. 265 00:12:04.559 --> 00:12:07.200 I was really impressed. They killed a jaguar. And they 266 00:12:07.220 --> 00:12:09.220 have killed many jaguars. But this one turned out to 267 00:12:09.240 --> 00:12:11.779 be a sick jaguar, which is why he attacked the woman. 268 00:12:12.490 --> 00:12:14.409 Like he was starving to death or something? Yeah, he 269 00:12:14.429 --> 00:12:16.720 was starving. So the men killed it. And ate it. 270 00:12:16.750 --> 00:12:18.950 But I did– my children were with me this whole time. 271 00:12:19.049 --> 00:12:22.009 So I told my children, I said, just remember who's 272 00:12:22.110 --> 00:12:24.889 eating whom out here. 273 00:12:24.929 --> 00:12:26.220 So do you remember what it tastes like? 274 00:12:27.419 --> 00:12:30.440 Well, it's a stringy meat. It's really hard to describe 275 00:12:30.519 --> 00:12:31.580 all the taste. 276 00:12:32.259 --> 00:12:33.500 Like very sinewy? 277 00:12:33.519 --> 00:12:38.610 It's tough. Yeah, sinewy and very tough. And my general 278 00:12:38.639 --> 00:12:41.350 rule of thumb– I eat anything that they kill. But 279 00:12:41.470 --> 00:12:43.289 my general rule of thumb is I usually have a 280 00:12:43.450 --> 00:12:46.809 bottle of Tabasco sauce and If you put Tabasco sauce 281 00:12:46.850 --> 00:12:47.570 on it, it's okay. 282 00:12:48.210 --> 00:12:51.370 And so these pitahas, am I saying it right? 283 00:12:51.450 --> 00:12:52.750 Yeah, that's right. 284 00:12:53.570 --> 00:12:57.049 They don't preserve anything, right? No. They just kill things 285 00:12:57.129 --> 00:12:57.570 and cook them. 286 00:12:58.129 --> 00:13:01.529 Yeah, they don't, you know, many, many different groups smoke 287 00:13:01.570 --> 00:13:04.110 the meat or salt the meat if they have salt 288 00:13:05.029 --> 00:13:08.289 or dry it. And the pitahas know how to do that. 289 00:13:08.389 --> 00:13:09.690 I don't know where they learn how to do it 290 00:13:09.730 --> 00:13:11.929 because they never do it except if they want to 291 00:13:11.990 --> 00:13:14.879 trade the meat with Brazilian boats who come up. But 292 00:13:14.919 --> 00:13:17.419 among themselves, they don't preserve any meat. You know, I 293 00:13:17.450 --> 00:13:20.289 was talking to a guy one time and, you know, 294 00:13:20.309 --> 00:13:22.370 why don't you preserve your meat? And he says, oh, 295 00:13:22.429 --> 00:13:25.769 I preserve it in the belly of my brother. So 296 00:13:25.929 --> 00:13:28.269 they share it. And if I get meat, I give 297 00:13:28.289 --> 00:13:30.029 you some. And if you get meat, you give me some. 298 00:13:30.090 --> 00:13:30.730 So why would I? 299 00:13:31.090 --> 00:13:33.639 Right. So there's no need to store. And also, I 300 00:13:33.899 --> 00:13:36.720 guess it's very abundant. There's a lot of life where 301 00:13:36.759 --> 00:13:39.919 they live, like in terms of fish and game. There 302 00:13:39.960 --> 00:13:40.500 have been. Yeah. 303 00:13:40.539 --> 00:13:43.039 I mean, they live on this river, the Micey River. 304 00:13:43.830 --> 00:13:46.769 And they're the only humans that live along the river 305 00:13:47.269 --> 00:13:51.320 for almost 300 miles of the curvy river. And it's 306 00:13:51.379 --> 00:13:54.440 a relatively large river by U.S. standards. In Brazil, it 307 00:13:54.480 --> 00:13:56.840 doesn't even make many of the maps. But it's a 308 00:13:56.879 --> 00:14:00.320 couple of hundred yards across. And in the rainy season, 309 00:14:00.360 --> 00:14:04.500 it can be as much as 75 feet deep, 100 310 00:14:04.500 --> 00:14:08.259 feet deep. So there's plenty of fish for them. In 311 00:14:08.320 --> 00:14:12.100 recent years, that's changed because the Brazilian … Government has 312 00:14:12.159 --> 00:14:16.340 allowed the construction of dams across various rivers. Not their river, 313 00:14:16.399 --> 00:14:19.539 but they affect the water level so much that it's 314 00:14:19.620 --> 00:14:21.610 taken all the fish, most of the fish out of 315 00:14:21.620 --> 00:14:24.629 their river. So now they're starving. And this has led 316 00:14:24.730 --> 00:14:28.850 to conflict with Brazilians who live not too far away. 317 00:14:28.929 --> 00:14:31.730 And they've killed a few people stealing food from their 318 00:14:31.830 --> 00:14:32.710 farms and things. 319 00:14:33.370 --> 00:14:37.950 Oh, man. Can you imagine? You just have this... kind 320 00:14:37.990 --> 00:14:41.129 of harmonious existence with nature and someone just decides to 321 00:14:41.149 --> 00:14:44.029 make a dam. Like you've got it so dialed in 322 00:14:44.070 --> 00:14:46.250 that you don't need to preserve your food. Right. Because 323 00:14:46.330 --> 00:14:48.889 everyone's just like happy and eating fish right out of 324 00:14:48.929 --> 00:14:50.769 the river. Right. 325 00:14:51.360 --> 00:14:55.139 And, you know, that's, they don't know where the dam is. 326 00:14:55.179 --> 00:14:57.519 They've never seen the dam. I told them that they 327 00:14:57.539 --> 00:15:00.620 built something that crosses the river like a wall. And 328 00:15:01.639 --> 00:15:03.840 they say, why do they do that? And I said, well, 329 00:15:03.860 --> 00:15:07.289 they want electricity, which they barely understand. They've seen I 330 00:15:07.330 --> 00:15:09.970 have a generator. I never had one for the first 331 00:15:09.970 --> 00:15:13.029 20 years I was working with them. But I eventually 332 00:15:13.070 --> 00:15:15.200 got a generator and they could see what electricity was. 333 00:15:15.259 --> 00:15:17.740 And I said, so that's where they get the lights. 334 00:15:19.179 --> 00:15:22.679 But they don't understand it. And it's for the first 335 00:15:22.759 --> 00:15:24.799 time in their history, and they've been living there as 336 00:15:24.840 --> 00:15:28.129 far as I can tell for almost 300 years on 337 00:15:28.169 --> 00:15:31.750 this one river. For the first time in their history, 338 00:15:31.809 --> 00:15:36.529 they can't be self-sufficient in proteins. 339 00:15:38.100 --> 00:15:40.919 That's crazy. And how long ago did they build this dam? 340 00:15:42.539 --> 00:15:45.559 I think it was about 10 years ago. But they 341 00:15:45.639 --> 00:15:49.700 didn't– when it first went into operation, then it flooded 342 00:15:50.100 --> 00:15:54.059 the entire– lots of farmland, lots of settlements and things 343 00:15:54.120 --> 00:15:56.320 up on the Madeira. But what was shocking was that 344 00:15:56.940 --> 00:16:01.299 way downriver from the dam, it affected the water level 345 00:16:01.399 --> 00:16:06.279 so much that when their river, the Maise, goes to 346 00:16:06.330 --> 00:16:12.269 its lowest point, in the dry season, there's still only 347 00:16:12.309 --> 00:16:14.789 a few places where you can see the bottom of 348 00:16:14.830 --> 00:16:16.669 the river. Most of the places, even when it's at 349 00:16:16.710 --> 00:16:18.610 its lowest, you can't see the bottom of the river. 350 00:16:19.649 --> 00:16:21.730 But in the last couple of years, it's gotten so 351 00:16:21.750 --> 00:16:22.809 low you can walk across. 352 00:16:23.629 --> 00:16:24.570 Oh, wow. 353 00:16:24.730 --> 00:16:25.870 And the fish don't stay there. 354 00:16:28.149 --> 00:16:29.210 So what are these people eating? 355 00:16:30.269 --> 00:16:33.470 Well, they go hunting, which they don't like to do. But, 356 00:16:33.490 --> 00:16:35.980 of course, when the fish are gone and when the 357 00:16:36.029 --> 00:16:38.669 river is gone, You lose a lot of the game 358 00:16:38.710 --> 00:16:40.690 from the jungle. So they have to go– instead of 359 00:16:40.730 --> 00:16:43.590 going a mile into the jungle, they have to go 360 00:16:43.669 --> 00:16:46.750 many miles into the jungle and they're still not successful. 361 00:16:46.850 --> 00:16:50.710 So it's busting up communities. Some people are moving out 362 00:16:50.750 --> 00:16:54.360 of their normal area to other areas to try to– 363 00:16:54.610 --> 00:16:57.610 back on bigger rivers. But then that means they're surrounded 364 00:16:57.669 --> 00:17:01.190 by Brazilians and they're no longer leading the life that 365 00:17:01.210 --> 00:17:01.909 they used to lead. 366 00:17:04.059 --> 00:17:08.339 So– When they move into these civilization areas, are they 367 00:17:08.539 --> 00:17:11.940 integrating or are they trying to like stay as a 368 00:17:12.019 --> 00:17:15.839 tribe removed from urban society? Like how are they doing it? 369 00:17:16.329 --> 00:17:20.549 Well, up until about five years ago, they would never 370 00:17:20.589 --> 00:17:24.309 have thought about integrating. They would live in like ghettos. 371 00:17:24.430 --> 00:17:27.390 If they were out near some town, they would live 372 00:17:27.430 --> 00:17:29.609 in the jungle away from the town because that whole 373 00:17:29.650 --> 00:17:32.170 part of Brazil is covered in jungle. Even the cities 374 00:17:32.250 --> 00:17:36.960 are bordered by jungle. Right. But nowadays, because there's no 375 00:17:37.039 --> 00:17:39.549 food anywhere, they're trying to integrate more. They're trying to 376 00:17:39.589 --> 00:17:47.349 learn Portuguese. And it's a very unfortunate situation for them 377 00:17:47.390 --> 00:17:47.769 right now. 378 00:17:48.210 --> 00:17:52.819 That's such a bummer. That sucks so hard. So when 379 00:17:52.980 --> 00:17:58.480 you first got there, your aim was to try to 380 00:17:58.519 --> 00:17:59.660 convert them to Christianity. 381 00:17:59.900 --> 00:18:02.460 That's right. I went there to translate the Bible and 382 00:18:02.480 --> 00:18:04.500 to plant a church and get everybody believing. 383 00:18:04.579 --> 00:18:07.000 And why Pirahá? Why did you go to those people? 384 00:18:07.480 --> 00:18:10.539 Well, we were in our training, and the missionary organization, 385 00:18:10.599 --> 00:18:14.789 the Wycliffe Bible Translators, offered us three areas. They said 386 00:18:14.809 --> 00:18:16.509 you can go to New Guinea. We need people in 387 00:18:16.549 --> 00:18:19.890 New Guinea. You can go to Mexico, or you can 388 00:18:19.910 --> 00:18:22.710 go to Brazil. And in Brazil, there's this tribe called 389 00:18:22.730 --> 00:18:26.000 the Pirahá. that we've had two teams assigned to, and 390 00:18:26.059 --> 00:18:28.240 nobody's been able to figure out the language because it's 391 00:18:28.289 --> 00:18:31.910 not related to any other known living language. And so 392 00:18:31.970 --> 00:18:33.710 they said, if you're up for that challenge, and we 393 00:18:33.750 --> 00:18:36.589 know you did well in linguistics, we'd be happy to 394 00:18:36.630 --> 00:18:39.910 have you take that group. So I thought, well, sure, 395 00:18:39.930 --> 00:18:41.539 I'm up for a challenge. So we took that. 396 00:18:42.359 --> 00:18:43.039 And so this was 1977? 397 00:18:43.009 --> 00:18:43.069 1977. 398 00:18:43.039 --> 00:18:45.119 We were assigned there in 76, and I made my 399 00:18:45.140 --> 00:18:53.839 first trip in in December of 1977. And so how 400 00:18:53.859 --> 00:18:59.059 much of the language did you know before you got there? Nothing. Nothing? No. 401 00:18:59.140 --> 00:19:02.089 What do we know in terms of like before you 402 00:19:02.119 --> 00:19:05.450 got there? Was it recorded? Was it something that people understood? 403 00:19:06.250 --> 00:19:09.559 Take your training to the next level with AG1' s new product, 404 00:19:09.900 --> 00:19:13.339 AG1 Pro. It's back, and it's already sold out once, 405 00:19:13.539 --> 00:19:18.140 so get it now. 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Go to drinkag1. com slash Joe Rogan to get 415 00:19:56.759 --> 00:20:00.630 a free AG1 Pro shaker in your pro welcome kit. 416 00:20:00.910 --> 00:20:05.009 That's drinkag1. com slash Joe Rogan. 417 00:20:05.609 --> 00:20:11.950 Yeah. In 1784, Portuguese explorers made contact and they didn't 418 00:20:12.039 --> 00:20:15.920 take lists of words. They wrote a few descriptive things 419 00:20:16.019 --> 00:20:19.519 about the language and about the people. And those things 420 00:20:19.579 --> 00:20:24.660 still fit them today. And then in 1821, a German 421 00:20:24.700 --> 00:20:27.019 explorer went there and he took a long list of words, 422 00:20:27.200 --> 00:20:30.299 which was amazing because he didn't have linguistics or anything 423 00:20:30.339 --> 00:20:35.150 like that. And his list of words is pretty good. 424 00:20:36.269 --> 00:20:42.460 And then in 1920– Another German who naturalized Brazilian– the 425 00:20:42.500 --> 00:20:46.299 founder of Brazilian anthropology went there and took a much 426 00:20:46.400 --> 00:20:50.279 larger word list and that one is very good. So 427 00:20:50.319 --> 00:20:52.269 I had those little word lists. They're not much and 428 00:20:52.289 --> 00:20:55.170 there's no how does the grammar work or anything like that. 429 00:20:55.710 --> 00:20:57.990 It's just a list of words. So I had looked 430 00:20:58.029 --> 00:21:01.930 at those but it's a tone language and so they 431 00:21:01.970 --> 00:21:03.779 hadn't written the tone. So I had no idea how 432 00:21:03.799 --> 00:21:06.910 to pronounce the words. To give you an example of 433 00:21:06.950 --> 00:21:10.569 what a tone language is, so if I want to 434 00:21:10.609 --> 00:21:14.089 say friend, I say magiai. And if I want to 435 00:21:14.130 --> 00:21:17.579 say enemy, it's magiai. 436 00:21:18.680 --> 00:21:19.420 What's the difference? 437 00:21:19.599 --> 00:21:21.960 So if I whistle it, friend is whoop, whoop, whoop. 438 00:21:22.880 --> 00:21:26.400 And if I whistle enemy, it's whoop, whoop, whoop. If 439 00:21:26.440 --> 00:21:29.289 you can't hear the tones, you don't know what's going on. 440 00:21:29.730 --> 00:21:35.380 So the word for me is chie. And the word 441 00:21:35.400 --> 00:21:39.680 for shit is je. So you can be talking about 442 00:21:39.720 --> 00:21:43.980 yourself and everybody starts laughing because you've called yourself shit. 443 00:21:44.920 --> 00:21:46.019 Because you have the wrong tone. 444 00:21:46.140 --> 00:21:48.420 Because you have the wrong tone. So there are a 445 00:21:48.420 --> 00:21:51.339 lot of tone languages in the world, Mandarin, tonal, Korean, 446 00:21:51.740 --> 00:21:54.740 somewhat tonal, and many languages of Africa are tonal. But 447 00:21:55.480 --> 00:21:58.579 for those of us who speak European languages, this is 448 00:21:58.619 --> 00:22:01.259 just really weird and it's hard to hear. 449 00:22:01.279 --> 00:22:03.940 A complete mind shift. Yeah. 450 00:22:04.839 --> 00:22:07.460 So you've got to be able to pay attention to 451 00:22:07.500 --> 00:22:11.990 those tones. But the first thing you have to do 452 00:22:12.069 --> 00:22:14.309 is start just collecting words. So I would point at 453 00:22:14.369 --> 00:22:17.150 things my first day, my first hour. I was pointing 454 00:22:17.210 --> 00:22:19.150 at things and writing down what they said, and that 455 00:22:19.190 --> 00:22:22.140 was the basic linguistics I had had, phonetics, how to 456 00:22:22.180 --> 00:22:24.900 write down sounds of the world's languages. 457 00:22:25.859 --> 00:22:29.440 And when you got there, so on day one, how 458 00:22:29.480 --> 00:22:32.089 do you make a connection? Do you just show up? Hey, 459 00:22:32.170 --> 00:22:34.670 brought you the Bible. Everyone have a seat. How do 460 00:22:34.690 --> 00:22:35.269 you do this? 461 00:22:35.450 --> 00:22:39.109 Well, I got off and I started handing candy to 462 00:22:39.130 --> 00:22:39.529 the kids. 463 00:22:40.250 --> 00:22:41.170 Good move. That works. 464 00:22:42.109 --> 00:22:46.680 And the people were very curious because I'm this white 465 00:22:46.740 --> 00:22:49.640 guy with red hair. At that time, I had bright 466 00:22:49.700 --> 00:22:52.339 red hair and they found me curious to look at. 467 00:22:52.539 --> 00:22:55.910 And so they came around. They could tell, you know, 468 00:22:55.950 --> 00:22:57.890 at least I think they thought they could tell that 469 00:22:57.930 --> 00:23:00.910 I was no danger to them. They know how to 470 00:23:00.930 --> 00:23:03.200 deal with that very quickly if they sense danger. But 471 00:23:04.700 --> 00:23:06.660 so then I would just start pointing at things. I 472 00:23:07.140 --> 00:23:10.640 had my pen and paper and I would get a 473 00:23:10.740 --> 00:23:13.880 stick and I would say in English, you know, stick. 474 00:23:14.720 --> 00:23:16.660 And they know that I'm trying to communicate something. So 475 00:23:16.680 --> 00:23:20.000 they would say back, eh. And I thought it probably 476 00:23:20.019 --> 00:23:21.960 means stick. And I would write that down. And then 477 00:23:21.980 --> 00:23:24.049 I would take the stick and drop it. And they 478 00:23:24.089 --> 00:23:28.109 would say, eh. And that means stick fell to the ground. 479 00:23:28.349 --> 00:23:30.990 And that's what I thought it meant. So that's how 480 00:23:31.029 --> 00:23:31.390 I started. 481 00:23:32.450 --> 00:23:35.529 That's what you thought it meant. What is the reaction 482 00:23:35.589 --> 00:23:38.890 to this person coming in and demanding that they teach 483 00:23:39.099 --> 00:23:39.730 the language? 484 00:23:41.019 --> 00:23:42.180 Well, I didn't demand. 485 00:23:42.400 --> 00:23:46.680 Well, you have a requirement. You can't communicate, but you're there. 486 00:23:47.259 --> 00:23:48.759 So they're kind enough to welcome you. 487 00:23:48.960 --> 00:23:49.200 Yes. 488 00:23:49.640 --> 00:23:52.250 Are you in the actual camp with all these people? 489 00:23:52.269 --> 00:23:53.890 Yeah, I'm in the middle of their village. The plane 490 00:23:53.910 --> 00:23:57.089 let me off on– landed on the river. I got out. 491 00:23:57.109 --> 00:24:00.160 You don't even ask? You just like– wander into their camp. 492 00:24:00.259 --> 00:24:01.839 There's no way to contact them ahead of time. 493 00:24:01.980 --> 00:24:04.680 This is crazy. Yeah. And you're just assuming they're not 494 00:24:04.700 --> 00:24:05.759 going to kill you. Is this you? 495 00:24:06.339 --> 00:24:08.319 This is the Pitaha. This is a Pitaha village. 496 00:24:08.339 --> 00:24:10.200 Yep. And so this is what it looked like when 497 00:24:10.220 --> 00:24:13.069 you showed up. You're like, hi, what's a stick? Yeah. Yeah. 498 00:24:13.109 --> 00:24:15.710 You land, you land on the river and, and you 499 00:24:15.730 --> 00:24:18.490 get there and that is, uh, that's the Pitaha. 500 00:24:18.569 --> 00:24:19.049 Wow. 501 00:24:19.289 --> 00:24:25.619 And, um, wow. So they're very friendly and they start talking. Um, But, 502 00:24:25.660 --> 00:24:27.130 of course, I don't know what they say. They just 503 00:24:27.190 --> 00:24:27.910 see me as. 504 00:24:27.849 --> 00:24:29.569 A very— Guy's got a Ferrari t-shirt on. 505 00:24:29.789 --> 00:24:35.029 What's up? Yeah, they— riverboats go in and give clothes. If 506 00:24:35.089 --> 00:24:37.109 a riverboat hasn't been there in a long time, they'll 507 00:24:37.130 --> 00:24:37.710 all be naked. 508 00:24:38.369 --> 00:24:44.819 Oh, wow. So— And so, like, day one, they just 509 00:24:45.579 --> 00:24:49.160 accept the fact that this redheaded dude just showed up 510 00:24:49.240 --> 00:24:50.220 and is hanging out with us now? 511 00:24:51.039 --> 00:24:52.700 Yeah, there were a couple of things that counted in 512 00:24:52.740 --> 00:24:55.829 my favor. I was all by myself, and so— Giving 513 00:24:55.869 --> 00:25:00.049 out candy was a big factor. They like to chew tobacco. 514 00:25:00.990 --> 00:25:03.089 And I had been told this by somebody who had 515 00:25:03.109 --> 00:25:05.970 been there. So I took in a big, long horn 516 00:25:06.049 --> 00:25:07.579 of tobacco. I don't know if it was a really 517 00:25:07.619 --> 00:25:09.190 old-fashioned way to– A horn? 518 00:25:09.420 --> 00:25:10.920 Yes. Like an animal horn? 519 00:25:11.220 --> 00:25:14.980 No. It looks like an animal horn. But it's probably 520 00:25:15.319 --> 00:25:18.480 eight feet, nine feet long, just rolled up tight tobacco 521 00:25:18.539 --> 00:25:20.880 wrapped in latex. Really? 522 00:25:21.200 --> 00:25:21.420 Yeah. 523 00:25:21.480 --> 00:25:23.099 And you just cut it off for them and they 524 00:25:23.140 --> 00:25:27.849 chew it and they like it. So– I would, you know, 525 00:25:27.890 --> 00:25:30.170 the ones who would help me, I would give them 526 00:25:30.210 --> 00:25:33.750 a little bit of tobacco or candy. And I also 527 00:25:33.789 --> 00:25:38.670 brought canned food for me. And I would trade that 528 00:25:38.730 --> 00:25:41.390 to them for fish and other things that they got. 529 00:25:42.309 --> 00:25:42.930 And they liked that. 530 00:25:43.210 --> 00:25:44.589 How long did you stay initially? 531 00:25:45.450 --> 00:25:47.809 The first time was just to see what it was 532 00:25:47.869 --> 00:25:50.390 like before I brought my family. So I stayed 10 days. 533 00:25:51.109 --> 00:25:53.119 And then I came back with my family and we 534 00:25:53.190 --> 00:25:55.680 stayed a year at that time. We just stayed there 535 00:25:55.720 --> 00:25:56.180 the whole year. 536 00:25:56.769 --> 00:25:59.769 When you say family, so your wife and how many kids? 537 00:25:59.950 --> 00:26:00.869 Three kids. There they are. 538 00:26:00.910 --> 00:26:02.250 How old were the kids when you got there? 539 00:26:02.390 --> 00:26:06.130 Well, my oldest daughter, who there was about 12, was nine, 540 00:26:06.490 --> 00:26:09.490 and the middle daughter was six, and then my son 541 00:26:09.549 --> 00:26:14.460 was three years old. So this is around that time. 542 00:26:16.160 --> 00:26:19.319 And so my kids grew up among the Pitahon. Both 543 00:26:19.400 --> 00:26:22.039 my older daughters learned to speak the language fairly quickly. 544 00:26:22.500 --> 00:26:27.470 Wow. That's a risky move. You brought your little kids 545 00:26:27.529 --> 00:26:31.329 to the jungle. What is that decision like? Was that 546 00:26:31.349 --> 00:26:32.190 a difficult decision? 547 00:26:32.849 --> 00:26:34.890 Well, today it would be, but I was a Christian 548 00:26:35.210 --> 00:26:37.519 and I believed in miracles and I believed God would 549 00:26:37.559 --> 00:26:40.240 take care of us. And so I went there and 550 00:26:40.339 --> 00:26:42.589 figured he was in charge. He would take care of us. 551 00:26:42.640 --> 00:26:47.920 So my son got meningitis. My two daughters got malaria. 552 00:26:49.359 --> 00:26:52.059 I got malaria. In fact, after a few years, I 553 00:26:52.099 --> 00:26:54.769 went to San Diego and I I came down with 554 00:26:54.809 --> 00:26:59.720 malaria in University Hospital San Diego. They were thrilled because 555 00:26:59.759 --> 00:27:01.559 I was the only person they'd ever seen with all 556 00:27:01.599 --> 00:27:04.700 three strains of South American malaria at the same time. 557 00:27:05.140 --> 00:27:09.579 Did you have a relapse of malaria? Because I have 558 00:27:09.619 --> 00:27:13.069 a friend who got malaria in the Congo, and it 559 00:27:13.119 --> 00:27:13.809 came back. 560 00:27:14.849 --> 00:27:17.029 It can come back, and I've had relapses, but it's 561 00:27:17.089 --> 00:27:19.390 been a long time now that I haven't had relapses. 562 00:27:20.009 --> 00:27:23.789 I've taken so much medicine that supposedly— It won't come 563 00:27:23.829 --> 00:27:25.970 back anymore. But I can never give blood because it's 564 00:27:26.029 --> 00:27:26.849 always in my blood. 565 00:27:27.630 --> 00:27:29.509 What do they give you? Like what medicine do they 566 00:27:29.529 --> 00:27:29.789 give you? 567 00:27:29.809 --> 00:27:35.970 Well, Daraprim, Primaquin, straight quinine. When my wife almost died, 568 00:27:37.309 --> 00:27:42.750 she weighed 115 pounds and then she got malaria and 569 00:27:42.769 --> 00:27:47.029 almost died. She got down to 76 pounds. And the 570 00:27:47.069 --> 00:27:48.930 doctor told me she's going to die tonight. We don't 571 00:27:48.950 --> 00:27:49.589 have any way to. 572 00:27:49.569 --> 00:27:50.890 Keep her alive. Oh, my God. Yeah. 573 00:27:52.009 --> 00:27:54.650 They put her on blood transfusions because you lose a 574 00:27:54.690 --> 00:27:57.750 lot of blood. It kills the blood cells. And they 575 00:27:57.789 --> 00:28:01.410 put her on blood transfusions and also straight quinine, which 576 00:28:01.490 --> 00:28:05.109 caused her to be in agony for several days of 577 00:28:05.329 --> 00:28:09.410 just constant retching. And quinine is a really bad experience. 578 00:28:10.210 --> 00:28:11.380 But at the end of it, she pulled through. 579 00:28:11.490 --> 00:28:12.119 She pulled through. 580 00:28:12.130 --> 00:28:13.279 Oh, my God. Yeah. 581 00:28:13.900 --> 00:28:15.279 We all pulled through. 582 00:28:15.400 --> 00:28:18.460 You had to be like questioning your decisions. I mean 583 00:28:18.700 --> 00:28:22.059 this has to be a trialing process. a very difficult 584 00:28:22.720 --> 00:28:25.220 time because you chose to be there. 585 00:28:26.160 --> 00:28:29.690 Yeah. And so we were leaving the village to find 586 00:28:29.750 --> 00:28:32.690 help because my wife and daughter were dying of malaria 587 00:28:32.809 --> 00:28:34.849 at this time where she got down to 76 pounds. 588 00:28:34.890 --> 00:28:37.329 And my daughter lost a lot of weight too. She 589 00:28:37.349 --> 00:28:42.299 was just skin and bones. And I'm getting my boat 590 00:28:42.359 --> 00:28:43.839 out of there. And I had never been out by boat. 591 00:28:43.859 --> 00:28:46.099 In fact, I didn't have a boat. I had no 592 00:28:46.220 --> 00:28:48.019 idea how to get out of there. So this Catholic 593 00:28:48.099 --> 00:28:51.319 priest came up. to see what the Protestant missionaries were doing. 594 00:28:52.119 --> 00:28:53.799 And I said, can I borrow your boat? I've got 595 00:28:53.819 --> 00:28:55.269 to get my family out of here. He had this 596 00:28:55.440 --> 00:29:00.509 very narrow aluminum canoe with a six-horsepower Johnson. And I 597 00:29:00.529 --> 00:29:02.430 got my whole family in there, and he just stayed 598 00:29:02.450 --> 00:29:04.829 there in the jungle and let my family take off 599 00:29:04.869 --> 00:29:08.680 in his boat. And I didn't know where we were, 600 00:29:08.720 --> 00:29:10.160 but I was thinking, you know, I've read all these 601 00:29:10.200 --> 00:29:13.940 books about missionaries, and now I'm having a missionary experience. 602 00:29:14.039 --> 00:29:18.359 But it wasn't fun. It was really– It sounds horrific. 603 00:29:18.559 --> 00:29:20.720 It was a horrific experience and I just didn't know 604 00:29:20.759 --> 00:29:21.519 what was going to happen. 605 00:29:23.099 --> 00:29:26.640 So your goal was to convert these people and how 606 00:29:26.700 --> 00:29:27.619 long were you there for? 607 00:29:29.180 --> 00:29:32.769 Well, I was there– in 1980, I spent the whole 608 00:29:32.829 --> 00:29:36.309 year there. In all the other years from 1977 to 2013, 609 00:29:36.289 --> 00:29:40.779 I was there for three to six months every year. 610 00:29:41.940 --> 00:29:46.240 So I was there a lot and got sick every 611 00:29:46.279 --> 00:29:49.039 time I went. I had typhoid fever and all this stuff. 612 00:29:49.519 --> 00:29:57.299 But– attacked by snakes and stuff like that. But– It 613 00:29:58.019 --> 00:30:01.019 was just a mind-altering experience. Things didn't go the way 614 00:30:01.099 --> 00:30:07.329 I thought, and the people started questioning me. They started 615 00:30:07.420 --> 00:30:09.869 asking me about, why do you believe in this Jesus 616 00:30:09.890 --> 00:30:11.589 you keep telling us about? What's he like? 617 00:30:12.609 --> 00:30:17.109 And you're doing this also, you're translating these concepts from 618 00:30:17.309 --> 00:30:18.529 English to Pidaha. 619 00:30:18.910 --> 00:30:22.519 From Greek to Pidaha. Going from the Greek New Testament, 620 00:30:22.539 --> 00:30:24.619 because I was translating the New Testament, so going from 621 00:30:24.680 --> 00:30:29.059 Greek To Pitahum, but I'm referencing English and Portuguese at 622 00:30:29.099 --> 00:30:29.779 the same time. 623 00:30:29.880 --> 00:30:30.539 Oh, my goodness. 624 00:30:30.920 --> 00:30:31.700 I'm staying in there. 625 00:30:31.880 --> 00:30:33.980 And you expect these people to understand what you're saying. 626 00:30:35.000 --> 00:30:36.769 Yeah. So, you know, if you're in the middle of 627 00:30:36.789 --> 00:30:39.710 the jungle and Jesus does something out in a desert, 628 00:30:41.150 --> 00:30:42.269 how do you describe desert? 629 00:30:42.650 --> 00:30:46.490 Isn't their language a completely different language than ours? Like 630 00:30:46.569 --> 00:30:50.210 in terms of like they have no words for color. Right. 631 00:30:50.259 --> 00:30:52.019 They have no words for direction. They don't have a 632 00:30:52.079 --> 00:30:53.140 left or a right. Right. 633 00:30:54.019 --> 00:30:56.599 So– And this all takes time to find out because 634 00:30:56.619 --> 00:30:58.920 when I went there, I thought everybody had words for colors. 635 00:30:59.000 --> 00:31:02.619 Everybody had words for numbers. Everybody had a concept of God. Right. 636 00:31:02.799 --> 00:31:05.240 They don't have words for numbers. That's so crazy. 637 00:31:05.259 --> 00:31:05.880 Yeah, they don't have. 638 00:31:06.400 --> 00:31:07.339 Do they have numbers? 639 00:31:07.809 --> 00:31:08.930 No, no numbers. 640 00:31:09.190 --> 00:31:11.569 So how many fish did you catch today, Mike? 641 00:31:12.730 --> 00:31:13.049 A lot. 642 00:31:13.509 --> 00:31:13.789 That's it. 643 00:31:14.130 --> 00:31:14.410 That's it. 644 00:31:14.410 --> 00:31:15.289 A lot or a little. 645 00:31:15.369 --> 00:31:16.029 A lot or a little. 646 00:31:17.170 --> 00:31:18.630 Or a good amount. Yeah, yeah. 647 00:31:19.170 --> 00:31:23.440 So, in fact, that claim was really controversial. I've had. 648 00:31:24.509 --> 00:31:28.450 psycholinguists and cognitive scientists come down with me to do experiments. 649 00:31:28.490 --> 00:31:30.289 Didn't you get into it with Chomsky about that? 650 00:31:31.170 --> 00:31:34.490 Well, I got into it with Chomsky about their grammar. 651 00:31:35.109 --> 00:31:36.269 Yes. Oh, that's right. 652 00:31:36.369 --> 00:31:39.900 Chomsky made this claim. I've gotten other people. There are 653 00:31:40.259 --> 00:31:42.779 people who find every claim controversial. So there's some people 654 00:31:42.799 --> 00:31:45.119 can't believe they don't have numbers. Some people who don't 655 00:31:45.160 --> 00:31:47.720 believe they don't have a concept of God. Other people 656 00:31:47.759 --> 00:31:52.750 who believe they don't, who don't believe they don't have colors. Um, but, um, 657 00:31:53.259 --> 00:31:56.740 Chomsky claimed that all languages are built on a common 658 00:31:57.160 --> 00:32:02.599 property called recursion. And recursion is this, English has it 659 00:32:02.640 --> 00:32:05.079 all over the place. So it's the ability to put 660 00:32:05.769 --> 00:32:09.309 one unit inside another unit of the same type. So 661 00:32:09.329 --> 00:32:12.849 take a noun. If I take the noun truck and 662 00:32:12.869 --> 00:32:15.849 the noun driver and I put them together, I can 663 00:32:15.890 --> 00:32:19.509 form a third word, truck driver. And so that's recursion. 664 00:32:19.529 --> 00:32:21.210 I put one noun inside another and I get a 665 00:32:21.230 --> 00:32:24.859 third noun. Or with a sentence, I can say John spoke. 666 00:32:25.059 --> 00:32:28.660 There's no recursion there. I can say John said that 667 00:32:28.740 --> 00:32:32.849 Bill spoke. And now that's got recursion because Bill spoke 668 00:32:33.200 --> 00:32:38.630 is a sentence inside John said that. And so Chomsky claimed, 669 00:32:38.670 --> 00:32:41.589 and in my opinion, without doing a lot of homework 670 00:32:41.650 --> 00:32:44.049 on this, I mean, he just was basing it on 671 00:32:44.109 --> 00:32:48.559 languages that he happened to know, which aren't many, that 672 00:32:48.599 --> 00:32:50.759 all languages were built on this. It made sense. And 673 00:32:50.799 --> 00:32:53.859 he had a, principles built into his theory that required this. 674 00:32:54.440 --> 00:32:56.799 So when I came along and said they don't have it, 675 00:32:57.599 --> 00:32:59.980 and now I know there are other languages that don't 676 00:33:00.019 --> 00:33:06.019 have it, this was like saying you're wrong. And for me, 677 00:33:06.039 --> 00:33:10.740 a relative nobody, to tell the most famous linguist in history, 678 00:33:11.099 --> 00:33:13.640 somebody that Chomsky was called by the New York Times 679 00:33:13.660 --> 00:33:18.140 the most important intellectual alive, to tell him that he's wrong, 680 00:33:19.759 --> 00:33:25.740 a lot of people found that very Weird. Unbelievable. Problematic. 681 00:33:26.119 --> 00:33:28.759 But facts are facts. Yeah. I mean it should be 682 00:33:28.799 --> 00:33:32.039 exciting for a linguist to look at something that violates 683 00:33:32.160 --> 00:33:33.759 all the laws of other known languages. 684 00:33:33.940 --> 00:33:38.069 It was exciting for some linguists and really off-pissing for 685 00:33:38.109 --> 00:33:39.089 a lot of other linguists. 686 00:33:39.119 --> 00:33:42.230 Isn't that gross? That's so gross. Yeah. That is one 687 00:33:42.250 --> 00:33:46.529 of the grossest things about intellectuals, this gatekeeping of information 688 00:33:46.569 --> 00:33:49.170 and this appeal to authority that they're the only person 689 00:33:49.210 --> 00:33:52.829 who could possibly know. Especially when you're talking about languages. 690 00:33:53.369 --> 00:33:54.930 Like how many languages are there? 691 00:33:55.150 --> 00:33:57.950 There are about 8,000 separate languages in the world. 692 00:33:58.069 --> 00:34:02.630 Okay. How the fuck could you know all the rules 693 00:34:03.329 --> 00:34:04.410 to 8,000 languages? 694 00:34:04.690 --> 00:34:07.099 We don't have data on more than about 1,200 or so. 695 00:34:07.160 --> 00:34:10.539 Well, isn't there also an issue with the aboriginal tribes 696 00:34:10.900 --> 00:34:15.480 of Australia? My good friend Adam Greentree, he's from Australia 697 00:34:15.699 --> 00:34:18.039 and he was running a mine there for a while 698 00:34:18.219 --> 00:34:21.380 and worked with a lot of aboriginal people and really 699 00:34:21.420 --> 00:34:25.559 learned a lot about their cultures and they're called mobs. 700 00:34:25.860 --> 00:34:29.019 Like their tribe, they call it a mob. And there 701 00:34:29.039 --> 00:34:32.059 could be a mob that's just like 30 kilometers over 702 00:34:32.139 --> 00:34:34.599 that way. They have no idea what they're saying. They 703 00:34:34.659 --> 00:34:36.739 don't know the language and it's not written anywhere. And 704 00:34:36.780 --> 00:34:39.659 there's hundreds of these. They're all over the place. Right. 705 00:34:40.719 --> 00:34:42.530 And the bit of fieldwork that has been done, there 706 00:34:42.550 --> 00:34:44.849 are some really good Australian linguists trying to figure out 707 00:34:44.889 --> 00:34:47.610 these things. But the fieldwork that has been done has 708 00:34:47.650 --> 00:34:51.070 found properties in that aren't like anything else we know about. 709 00:34:52.070 --> 00:34:56.610 So languages can vary so much that it's really premature, 710 00:34:56.869 --> 00:35:00.980 in my opinion, to be writing laws that languages are 711 00:35:01.019 --> 00:35:03.940 supposed to follow, all 8,000 of these languages. 712 00:35:04.079 --> 00:35:06.380 Well, all you'd have to do is say, as far 713 00:35:06.519 --> 00:35:09.840 as we've observed, and then you're okay. But as soon 714 00:35:09.880 --> 00:35:12.239 as you say it has to have this, and if 715 00:35:12.260 --> 00:35:15.199 someone says actually a language that doesn't have this, And 716 00:35:15.260 --> 00:35:18.170 then there's a controversy. You're a bad guy for pointing 717 00:35:18.210 --> 00:35:18.690 this out. 718 00:35:19.210 --> 00:35:24.190 You're a heretic. I had one of Chomsky's followers who 719 00:35:24.230 --> 00:35:27.619 was Brazilian write to the Brazilian Indian Agency, which is 720 00:35:27.780 --> 00:35:31.380 where I get my authorization to visit these tribes, and say, 721 00:35:31.400 --> 00:35:35.360 this Dan Everett guy, he's a racist. That's what they 722 00:35:35.400 --> 00:35:35.739 always say. 723 00:35:35.989 --> 00:35:37.530 Yeah. Isn't that the fun one? 724 00:35:37.739 --> 00:35:38.460 Yeah. 725 00:35:38.739 --> 00:35:40.340 The moment they want to get rid of you, you're 726 00:35:40.360 --> 00:35:41.159 a racist. Yeah. 727 00:35:41.320 --> 00:35:43.300 Well, she was silly because she said he's trying to 728 00:35:43.360 --> 00:35:46.420 reduce the pitahas to primates. And I said, well, in fact, 729 00:35:46.480 --> 00:35:47.679 I am because we're all primates. 730 00:35:48.139 --> 00:35:48.699 I'm a primate. 731 00:35:48.719 --> 00:35:52.179 You're a primate. But it's the thing. If Chomsky says 732 00:35:52.239 --> 00:35:55.960 that all languages have X and I say here's a 733 00:35:55.980 --> 00:35:58.920 language that doesn't have X, then either A, Chomsky's wrong 734 00:35:59.360 --> 00:36:01.659 or B, these aren't humans. And so the only person 735 00:36:01.679 --> 00:36:04.179 who would claim they're not humans is a racist. 736 00:36:04.739 --> 00:36:06.949 That's such a crazy way to put it. 737 00:36:07.199 --> 00:36:07.460 Yeah. 738 00:36:07.619 --> 00:36:09.559 It's so stupid. Yeah. God. 739 00:36:09.579 --> 00:36:11.639 But this is typical in science. As I got more 740 00:36:11.659 --> 00:36:14.789 and more into science, it's very unfortunate. 741 00:36:14.869 --> 00:36:18.590 It's men. It's men and their egos. That's what it is. 742 00:36:18.929 --> 00:36:22.010 And I'm sure women as well, but primarily men. 743 00:36:22.909 --> 00:36:25.250 Well, you don't get a lot of money when you're 744 00:36:25.269 --> 00:36:28.210 a scientist. It's not a money-making profession. You go into 745 00:36:28.329 --> 00:36:32.539 what is the biggest rate of exchange among scientists? It's ego. 746 00:36:33.219 --> 00:36:35.119 But it's just so crazy to think that if it 747 00:36:35.179 --> 00:36:39.019 doesn't have this one characteristic of language that you're calling 748 00:36:39.059 --> 00:36:41.639 them primates. There's not a value judgment. You're saying it's 749 00:36:41.679 --> 00:36:43.739 a different kind of language and this is fascinating. 750 00:36:43.960 --> 00:36:50.099 Exactly. That's my take and many anthropologists took that. This– 751 00:36:50.960 --> 00:36:55.989 so for example, they originally said that Homo erectus had 752 00:36:56.050 --> 00:36:58.489 no capability for human speech and I thought that was 753 00:36:58.550 --> 00:37:02.269 kind of a questionable statement since– I've read a lot 754 00:37:02.329 --> 00:37:04.429 on Homo erectus. I read a book about it. And 755 00:37:04.710 --> 00:37:11.800 they don't– all their accomplishments, they had to have pretty 756 00:37:11.820 --> 00:37:14.480 advanced language to account for the fact that the ocean 757 00:37:14.519 --> 00:37:18.039 was never a barrier for them. And so I said 758 00:37:18.079 --> 00:37:20.619 that Homo erectus had language and I think the evidence 759 00:37:20.639 --> 00:37:23.349 supports that. But they don't have the kind of language 760 00:37:23.409 --> 00:37:29.110 Chomsky says necessarily. And– So an archaeologist at the University 761 00:37:29.159 --> 00:37:31.659 of Liverpool wrote me, and he says, my specialty is 762 00:37:31.699 --> 00:37:34.039 Homo erectus, and I think you're right. So we wrote 763 00:37:34.059 --> 00:37:36.960 a paper together. And then after we wrote the paper, 764 00:37:37.599 --> 00:37:42.500 he discovered last year the oldest wooden structure known in 765 00:37:42.579 --> 00:37:47.360 all of human history, 500,000-year-old structure built by Homo erectus 766 00:37:47.420 --> 00:37:51.460 in Zambia. And he showed that it has interlocking pieces 767 00:37:52.079 --> 00:37:56.360 and parts that, Nobody ever expected Homo erectus to be 768 00:37:56.400 --> 00:37:58.400 able to do, and their brains weren't that much smaller 769 00:37:58.440 --> 00:38:02.869 than ours. The average size of a modern human's brain 770 00:38:02.929 --> 00:38:09.050 is about 1,200 cc for men and about 950 to 1,100 771 00:38:09.050 --> 00:38:11.840 cc for women. And since we know that men aren't 772 00:38:11.880 --> 00:38:14.199 more intelligent than women, the size of the brain can't 773 00:38:14.300 --> 00:38:18.119 be what's determining that. Homo erectus had brains of 950 774 00:38:18.119 --> 00:38:23.659 to 1,000 cc, cubic centimeters. You measure that by taking 775 00:38:23.880 --> 00:38:26.119 the skull and filling it full of sand and seeing 776 00:38:26.179 --> 00:38:31.000 how much sand fits in there. And so they were 777 00:38:31.039 --> 00:38:33.260 able to make these complex structures and they were able 778 00:38:33.280 --> 00:38:35.000 to make boats and they were able to do all 779 00:38:35.059 --> 00:38:39.440 these things. Yeah, that's what Larry Barham from the University 780 00:38:39.460 --> 00:38:43.179 of Liverpool discovered. This structure, you see the cross piece. 781 00:38:43.619 --> 00:38:48.639 And he recently gave a talk to a world association 782 00:38:48.659 --> 00:38:51.920 of archaeologists. to get their judgment on what this could be. 783 00:38:52.300 --> 00:38:56.920 Not archaeologists, but architects, to get their professional judgment. And 784 00:38:56.940 --> 00:38:59.300 they were really impressed by this. They said that's actually 785 00:38:59.340 --> 00:39:04.119 a pretty advanced structure for building a walkway or a house. 786 00:39:04.739 --> 00:39:07.679 We actually discussed this yesterday. I had a guy on 787 00:39:07.739 --> 00:39:10.840 named Michael Button. He's got a fantastic YouTube channel. It's 788 00:39:10.860 --> 00:39:14.019 all about sort of the mysteries of human history. And 789 00:39:14.760 --> 00:39:17.840 we talked about the seafaring aspect and how much evidence 790 00:39:17.880 --> 00:39:20.739 there is that these people were seafaring As much as 791 00:39:20.800 --> 00:39:21.599 a million years ago. 792 00:39:21.780 --> 00:39:24.929 Yeah, yeah. And in my book, How Language Began, I 793 00:39:24.969 --> 00:39:28.429 have– They had to be communicated. Yeah, you can't– there's 794 00:39:28.449 --> 00:39:33.500 an archaeologist in Australia, Bednarik is his name, and he 795 00:39:34.860 --> 00:39:39.650 showed by... He did experiments, and they're not exact because 796 00:39:39.690 --> 00:39:42.250 you can't find humans today that don't have any language, 797 00:39:42.369 --> 00:39:46.550 normal humans. But he got humans from different languages who 798 00:39:46.590 --> 00:39:49.010 couldn't communicate with each other that well to see if 799 00:39:49.030 --> 00:39:52.250 they could build a boat. And And then another linguist 800 00:39:52.309 --> 00:39:54.449 wrote a paper based on some of this called How 801 00:39:54.489 --> 00:39:57.050 Much Language Does It Take to Build a Boat? And 802 00:39:57.090 --> 00:39:59.170 it turns out you've got to have language to build 803 00:39:59.210 --> 00:40:01.809 a boat. And so if they were building these boats 804 00:40:02.250 --> 00:40:04.409 that could carry water and could carry as many as 805 00:40:04.409 --> 00:40:06.920 20 people because you've got to have enough to– if 806 00:40:06.960 --> 00:40:09.500 you find a colony of Homo erectus on an island 807 00:40:10.159 --> 00:40:12.920 that was always an island, it was never connected by land, 808 00:40:15.099 --> 00:40:17.099 there had to be more than one person that washed 809 00:40:17.179 --> 00:40:19.480 up there on some vegetation. There has to have been 810 00:40:19.500 --> 00:40:20.039 a community. 811 00:40:20.530 --> 00:40:25.280 Yeah, Michael brought up that the– what was it? What 812 00:40:25.320 --> 00:40:28.880 organization did it? Was it NASA? NASA did a study 813 00:40:28.920 --> 00:40:30.340 because they were trying to figure out how many people 814 00:40:30.380 --> 00:40:35.320 you need to colonize another planet. And they came up 815 00:40:35.340 --> 00:40:38.079 with the number 500. You need a minimum of 500 816 00:40:38.079 --> 00:40:42.079 to begin a colony. Right. In order to have genetic diversity, 817 00:40:42.199 --> 00:40:44.099 make sure you're not having sex with your cousin, that 818 00:40:44.960 --> 00:40:45.480 kind of jazz. 819 00:40:45.820 --> 00:40:48.489 Yeah. So you can't. just sent a couple over there, 820 00:40:48.590 --> 00:40:49.110 Adam and Eve. 821 00:40:49.369 --> 00:40:49.510 Right. 822 00:40:49.710 --> 00:40:50.949 And expect this to happen. 823 00:40:51.110 --> 00:40:53.170 Yeah. How did you feel about that story when you 824 00:40:53.190 --> 00:40:53.710 first heard it? 825 00:40:53.929 --> 00:40:54.550 Adam and Eve? Yeah. 826 00:40:54.570 --> 00:40:57.889 When you, when you were converting, you're 17, you're doing acid. 827 00:40:58.190 --> 00:41:00.050 I mean, I was one of these guys who I 828 00:41:00.090 --> 00:41:02.230 believe the Bible cover to cover and even the covers. 829 00:41:02.989 --> 00:41:04.889 Uh, so we'll get to that in a minute. Yeah. So, 830 00:41:04.949 --> 00:41:07.739 but go back to how this is all going down. 831 00:41:08.780 --> 00:41:10.360 With, uh, the, the controversy. 832 00:41:10.500 --> 00:41:10.820 Yes. 833 00:41:10.900 --> 00:41:14.949 So I started getting hate mail and then, um, uh, 834 00:41:15.840 --> 00:41:19.070 The article came out when I first proposed this in 835 00:41:19.110 --> 00:41:23.650 the major journal of anthropology, Current Anthropology. I was in 836 00:41:23.690 --> 00:41:26.309 Germany at the time at the Max Planck Institute for 837 00:41:26.369 --> 00:41:30.610 Evolutionary Anthropology. And right down the hall from me was 838 00:41:30.630 --> 00:41:33.630 Svante Pebo, who just won the Nobel Prize for decoding 839 00:41:33.670 --> 00:41:38.190 the genome of Neanderthals. And there was a reporter, a 840 00:41:38.230 --> 00:41:42.369 German reporter from Der Spiegel, to talk to him. And 841 00:41:42.510 --> 00:41:44.389 she found out about my article, so she walked down 842 00:41:44.429 --> 00:41:46.369 the hall after she interviewed him and interviewed me. And 843 00:41:46.389 --> 00:41:48.289 this came out, and it started to get picked up 844 00:41:48.809 --> 00:41:51.750 in the press in a lot of places. And so 845 00:41:51.809 --> 00:41:55.239 the New Yorker did a big profile. But then the 846 00:41:55.260 --> 00:41:58.719 reaction came, and it wasn't what I expected. I expected 847 00:41:58.760 --> 00:42:01.940 that if you make a proposal that other scientists, if 848 00:42:01.960 --> 00:42:04.199 they're skeptical, which they have every right to be, are 849 00:42:04.219 --> 00:42:07.619 going to propose experiments to test what you're saying. And 850 00:42:07.639 --> 00:42:09.679 they're going to say, well, if they don't have recursion, 851 00:42:09.719 --> 00:42:11.659 you should find this and you should not find that. 852 00:42:11.719 --> 00:42:14.239 You should get this and this and this. And I 853 00:42:14.300 --> 00:42:17.039 tried to anticipate that. But that's the kind of objection 854 00:42:17.079 --> 00:42:20.360 I expected. But instead they said, I'm a liar. I'm 855 00:42:20.400 --> 00:42:23.940 trying to get publicity. I had a New York Times reporter. 856 00:42:23.980 --> 00:42:26.219 She called me and she said, do you try to 857 00:42:26.260 --> 00:42:29.119 get publicity? I said, did I ask you to call me? 858 00:42:29.800 --> 00:42:33.769 I said, you called me. I said, it's an interesting story. 859 00:42:33.789 --> 00:42:35.230 If people want to talk to me, I'm here to 860 00:42:35.269 --> 00:42:35.690 talk to them. 861 00:42:35.710 --> 00:42:36.250 But I'm not. 862 00:42:36.989 --> 00:42:38.409 I said if I wrote you at the New York 863 00:42:38.429 --> 00:42:40.889 Times and said I'm an interesting person, interview me, would 864 00:42:40.909 --> 00:42:42.369 you– would that make any difference? 865 00:42:43.050 --> 00:42:45.610 They're not mutually exclusive. Like you could be trying to 866 00:42:45.690 --> 00:42:49.530 get attention and publicity because you've discovered something that's very important. 867 00:42:49.969 --> 00:42:52.320 The idea that you're just trying to get attention. Are 868 00:42:52.340 --> 00:42:54.980 you trying to get attention? What are you talking about? 869 00:42:56.800 --> 00:43:02.429 That's such a– it's so weird that the– intellectuals, the 870 00:43:02.469 --> 00:43:06.389 people who are literally professional thinkers, would fall into these 871 00:43:06.429 --> 00:43:09.329 like common human traps of ego. Yeah. 872 00:43:10.630 --> 00:43:17.539 Well, it was a mind-blowing, mind-expanding experience for me to 873 00:43:17.599 --> 00:43:21.780 see that intellectuals that I otherwise admired as deep thinkers 874 00:43:21.840 --> 00:43:25.739 about their subject would not think otherwise. And, you know, 875 00:43:25.760 --> 00:43:28.090 I mean, Did they. 876 00:43:28.230 --> 00:43:31.139 Ever gauge you on the actual information? 877 00:43:31.920 --> 00:43:36.320 Yeah. I had people from MIT, Department of Brain and 878 00:43:36.340 --> 00:43:42.010 Cognitive Sciences, from Stanford, Department of Psychology, from Columbia University 879 00:43:42.070 --> 00:43:44.949 came down at separate times to run experiments. And they 880 00:43:44.969 --> 00:43:49.550 were well-designed experiments to test what I said. And they 881 00:43:49.590 --> 00:43:52.489 all came away saying, you know, it looks like Dan's right. 882 00:43:52.510 --> 00:43:57.880 Right. So where's the reaction then? And what is– what 883 00:43:57.920 --> 00:44:00.440 do they say about that? Like the people that are 884 00:44:00.500 --> 00:44:02.760 negative about this and the people that are calling you 885 00:44:02.780 --> 00:44:05.960 a racist and all this saying you're trying to get attention. 886 00:44:06.059 --> 00:44:07.699 What are they saying about these results? 887 00:44:08.630 --> 00:44:12.389 They don't refer to them directly. But if asked, they 888 00:44:12.530 --> 00:44:15.150 often say that these people don't like Chomsky. 889 00:44:15.170 --> 00:44:20.349 So– All of them? Yeah. All of those individual scientists 890 00:44:20.409 --> 00:44:22.429 that are running these studies for you don't like Chomsky, 891 00:44:22.469 --> 00:44:24.090 and that's why they have these skewed results? 892 00:44:24.550 --> 00:44:27.269 That is one of the many objections that people raise. 893 00:44:27.289 --> 00:44:29.010 But by and large, they ignore it. 894 00:44:29.730 --> 00:44:32.050 They ignore it? Yeah. So they ignore the studies? 895 00:44:32.429 --> 00:44:35.510 Yeah, I had Chomsky write me some really nasty emails. 896 00:44:35.889 --> 00:44:37.190 Do you have them? Do you have them still? 897 00:44:37.389 --> 00:44:40.969 I have them. Yeah, I do have them. And I 898 00:44:41.070 --> 00:44:43.650 asked him, I said, why don't we debate at the 899 00:44:43.690 --> 00:44:46.929 Linguistic Society of America? I said, you think I'm an idiot, 900 00:44:46.989 --> 00:44:48.969 so here's your chance. You can show that I'm an idiot. 901 00:44:49.469 --> 00:44:51.510 Just we'll debate, and you'll make a fool of me 902 00:44:51.550 --> 00:44:52.150 in five minutes. 903 00:44:52.170 --> 00:44:54.570 Is he saying he thinks you're an idiot when you're 904 00:44:54.590 --> 00:44:56.239 explaining a language that he doesn't know? 905 00:44:56.559 --> 00:44:57.820 I'm an idiot or I'm a liar. 906 00:44:58.679 --> 00:44:59.920 Oh, my God. 907 00:45:00.039 --> 00:45:02.900 He gave an interview to a Brazilian newspaper, and he said, 908 00:45:03.539 --> 00:45:07.349 Dan used to be a fairly good linguist, but he 909 00:45:07.449 --> 00:45:10.619 is a charlatan. He's just a 100% charlatan. And he 910 00:45:10.639 --> 00:45:13.570 was interviewed on a Spanish station and they said, what 911 00:45:13.590 --> 00:45:15.530 do you think of the contributions of Dan Everett? And 912 00:45:15.550 --> 00:45:20.510 he said, they're nothing, nothing, nothing. And he's really popular. 913 00:45:21.090 --> 00:45:24.050 I used to really admire him. I used to really 914 00:45:24.070 --> 00:45:26.289 admire him. Then I found out I was close homies 915 00:45:26.309 --> 00:45:28.949 with Jeffrey Epstein. That kind of threw a lot of 916 00:45:29.010 --> 00:45:29.409 water on that. 917 00:45:29.429 --> 00:45:29.989 I was like, what? 918 00:45:30.280 --> 00:45:33.250 Yeah. But then it was the stance during the vaccines 919 00:45:33.269 --> 00:45:35.190 when it was like people that weren't vaccinated should be 920 00:45:35.250 --> 00:45:36.949 round up and put into camps. So he had some 921 00:45:37.110 --> 00:45:43.599 crazy positions on the unvaccinated people and very just misinformed, 922 00:45:43.840 --> 00:45:49.340 just completely misinformed about whether it was natural immunity or 923 00:45:49.380 --> 00:45:52.409 there was other medications that were– that you could use 924 00:45:52.449 --> 00:45:57.269 to treat COVID-19 or even the– the efficacy of the vaccine. 925 00:45:57.289 --> 00:46:00.070 It was crazy. That was just one thing about him. 926 00:46:00.139 --> 00:46:03.280 There's just like his earlier debates, like he's got these 927 00:46:03.400 --> 00:46:06.960 fantastic debates. I think it's him and William F. Buckley. 928 00:46:06.980 --> 00:46:10.260 Have you ever seen those? He's so good in those. 929 00:46:10.699 --> 00:46:13.760 He's so brilliant in those. It was a young Chomsky 930 00:46:14.320 --> 00:46:18.559 and like his intellect and his reason, it was like 931 00:46:18.599 --> 00:46:22.130 a breath of fresh air. It was like Super well-informed. 932 00:46:22.389 --> 00:46:25.869 Every time Buckley tried to catch him on something, he 933 00:46:25.969 --> 00:46:28.170 judoed him. It was amazing. Yeah. 934 00:46:28.190 --> 00:46:30.190 Well, the first two books of Chomsky I read when 935 00:46:30.250 --> 00:46:33.610 I started doing graduate work in linguistics. 936 00:46:33.929 --> 00:46:34.849 I read the media one. 937 00:46:36.070 --> 00:46:40.000 What is it? Oh, A Manufacturer of Consent. 938 00:46:40.039 --> 00:46:40.519 That's right. 939 00:46:40.639 --> 00:46:43.920 Yeah. But he had– the first book of his I read, 940 00:46:44.260 --> 00:46:47.260 it was in linguistics, Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. 941 00:46:47.920 --> 00:46:50.099 And if you're a linguist and you're studying linguistics, that's 942 00:46:50.179 --> 00:46:53.679 just genius. It is just brilliant. And then the next 943 00:46:53.719 --> 00:46:57.639 book that he published the same year was American Power 944 00:46:57.739 --> 00:47:00.929 and the New Mandarins, which was about Vietnam. And that 945 00:47:00.969 --> 00:47:03.929 was also brilliant. And, you know, for one person to 946 00:47:03.969 --> 00:47:06.809 publish two books like that in one year, I mean, 947 00:47:07.090 --> 00:47:10.329 that's just first-order genius. So I admired him. 948 00:47:10.570 --> 00:47:12.429 What goes wrong with a guy like that, though? If 949 00:47:12.510 --> 00:47:15.090 a guy can be that smart, how can he not 950 00:47:15.190 --> 00:47:17.889 be curious about it? How could he not– like when 951 00:47:17.949 --> 00:47:20.750 you say something that flies in the face of everything 952 00:47:20.849 --> 00:47:24.210 that he's taught, how could he not be curious and 953 00:47:24.250 --> 00:47:27.050 want to talk to you? And if you're right, why 954 00:47:27.070 --> 00:47:29.260 would he not want to like do something with you? 955 00:47:29.590 --> 00:47:31.820 Like if I found someone like you and I was– 956 00:47:31.900 --> 00:47:33.380 I mean I would have hoped that I would be 957 00:47:33.420 --> 00:47:35.599 the same way as I am now. And I had 958 00:47:35.639 --> 00:47:38.119 an opportunity. I would say, we should do a podcast together. 959 00:47:38.139 --> 00:47:40.360 We could explain this. This is crazy. Right. 960 00:47:40.800 --> 00:47:42.599 I invited him to the Pita Ha. He was coming 961 00:47:42.659 --> 00:47:45.099 to Brazil and I said, hey, why don't you come 962 00:47:45.119 --> 00:47:47.090 with me to the Pita Ha? And I'll ask them 963 00:47:47.119 --> 00:47:48.650 any question you want me to ask them. We can 964 00:47:48.690 --> 00:47:50.650 talk about it there. And he said, I don't do 965 00:47:50.710 --> 00:47:53.570 that kind of thing. I don't do field work. So 966 00:47:53.610 --> 00:47:54.090 he didn't come. 967 00:47:54.349 --> 00:47:57.409 Good move. You don't want typhoid fever and fucking malaria 968 00:47:57.570 --> 00:48:00.440 bit by snakes, stalked by jaguars. That's all true. See? 969 00:48:00.519 --> 00:48:05.719 He's smart. It's just very disappointing when people are really brilliant. 970 00:48:05.780 --> 00:48:09.820 He's a brilliant guy and essentially– I mean especially rather 971 00:48:09.960 --> 00:48:13.519 was really brilliant when he was young. It's just– I'm 972 00:48:13.619 --> 00:48:16.300 so sad when you see someone like that just behaving 973 00:48:16.380 --> 00:48:19.760 with ego because he was the expert. He was the 974 00:48:20.019 --> 00:48:21.840 foremost linguist on planet Earth. 975 00:48:21.989 --> 00:48:24.010 When the New York Times is saying things like you're 976 00:48:24.030 --> 00:48:27.510 the most important intellectual alive and you have people hanging 977 00:48:27.630 --> 00:48:31.429 off every word as though it comes from the Oracle 978 00:48:31.489 --> 00:48:35.989 of Apollo, I assume that it affects your ego to 979 00:48:36.030 --> 00:48:36.489 some degree. 980 00:48:36.489 --> 00:48:40.059 100 percent. Most people, especially back then when there's no 981 00:48:40.119 --> 00:48:43.179 internet to check you. You can get a really distorted 982 00:48:43.239 --> 00:48:47.329 perception of how you stand. Also, everyone is kissing your ass. 983 00:48:47.730 --> 00:48:50.909 You're surrounded by other people that are trying to climb 984 00:48:50.929 --> 00:48:53.230 the same ladder you're on. You're in a very lofty 985 00:48:53.269 --> 00:48:55.789 position of authority and power. 986 00:48:56.269 --> 00:48:58.909 He wrote letters of recommendation for me for my first 987 00:48:58.949 --> 00:48:59.809 job in the US. 988 00:48:59.969 --> 00:49:00.309 Really? 989 00:49:00.449 --> 00:49:02.210 And he wrote a letter of recommendation when I came 990 00:49:02.250 --> 00:49:05.250 up for promotion to tenure at the University of Pittsburgh. 991 00:49:05.510 --> 00:49:06.969 Why would he do that if you're an idiot? 992 00:49:07.110 --> 00:49:09.130 But I hadn't been– I wasn't yet an idiot. 993 00:49:09.150 --> 00:49:09.670 Yeah. 994 00:49:10.909 --> 00:49:11.889 I became an idiot. 995 00:49:12.190 --> 00:49:15.389 You became an idiot when you disagreed with him. Meanwhile, ha-ha, 996 00:49:15.429 --> 00:49:18.989 you're right. That's what's funny. In the end, you're right. 997 00:49:19.010 --> 00:49:24.630 Yeah, well. he– I've had so many exchanges in journals 998 00:49:24.829 --> 00:49:28.090 and magazines and things with his followers over the years 999 00:49:28.210 --> 00:49:32.829 and with him that I go give a talk somewhere 1000 00:49:32.969 --> 00:49:35.139 and people say, I hope you're ready because there's a 1001 00:49:35.159 --> 00:49:39.170 lot of skeptics in this audience and I say– I 1002 00:49:39.190 --> 00:49:40.869 don't think they're going to ask me any new questions. 1003 00:49:40.909 --> 00:49:42.639 I've done this so much now that they're going to 1004 00:49:42.739 --> 00:49:46.679 ask me– I said I'll be surprised if anybody asks 1005 00:49:46.739 --> 00:49:49.639 me a question that I haven't heard from Chomsky. 1006 00:49:50.619 --> 00:49:53.820 And when you have these conversations with Chomsky and you 1007 00:49:53.940 --> 00:49:57.860 lay out how the Piraha use their language and what 1008 00:49:57.900 --> 00:50:00.940 they– and how it works, what was his reaction to that? 1009 00:50:01.139 --> 00:50:02.070 You're just incorrect? 1010 00:50:02.090 --> 00:50:04.289 Correct. Well, the first time I talked to him about it, 1011 00:50:04.360 --> 00:50:06.860 he had not made this claim about recursion. This was 1012 00:50:06.989 --> 00:50:11.829 in 1984. I was a visitor at MIT Linguistics, and 1013 00:50:11.869 --> 00:50:14.570 my office was next to his. And so I talked 1014 00:50:14.590 --> 00:50:17.730 to him several times that year, and I said, I 1015 00:50:19.889 --> 00:50:23.250 don't think their language has this property. And he said, 1016 00:50:23.630 --> 00:50:25.750 you know, he was drinking coffee and looking at the board. 1017 00:50:25.769 --> 00:50:28.289 He had a blackboard right by his desk, and he said, hmm, 1018 00:50:28.510 --> 00:50:31.130 wonder what the consequences of that are. And then one 1019 00:50:31.150 --> 00:50:33.170 of his PhD students told me, oh, you really got 1020 00:50:33.190 --> 00:50:36.659 gnome thinking. What is this? He found that very intriguing. 1021 00:50:36.969 --> 00:50:39.000 But then when he came out with the proclamation that 1022 00:50:39.039 --> 00:50:41.239 all languages had the habit, then I became an idiot. 1023 00:50:41.619 --> 00:50:49.539 Oh, God. That's so disappointing. Fucking people. Yeah. Fucking people. 1024 00:50:50.380 --> 00:50:55.159 Even the brightest minds. They're just– ego is such a motherfucker. 1025 00:50:55.519 --> 00:50:58.739 Yeah. Well, it's really disappointing because he was like my 1026 00:50:58.880 --> 00:51:01.960 idol for the first part of my linguistic career and 1027 00:51:02.119 --> 00:51:02.860 I wasn't. 1028 00:51:03.139 --> 00:51:04.949 Did you try to have a conversation with him after 1029 00:51:05.170 --> 00:51:08.170 he denounced you? Did you try to like one-on-one get 1030 00:51:08.210 --> 00:51:08.730 together with him? 1031 00:51:09.730 --> 00:51:11.130 Well, we exchanged emails. 1032 00:51:11.389 --> 00:51:13.909 Yeah, but in his face, like right in front of him. 1033 00:51:13.949 --> 00:51:15.389 Did you try to do that? No. 1034 00:51:15.880 --> 00:51:18.059 He never had– I had always told him when I 1035 00:51:18.079 --> 00:51:21.380 was going through Cambridge that I was coming and maybe 1036 00:51:21.420 --> 00:51:23.599 he and I could talk. And he always made time 1037 00:51:24.079 --> 00:51:26.530 and we talked. I would be living somewhere else and 1038 00:51:26.550 --> 00:51:28.090 I would come to MIT and he would talk to me. 1039 00:51:28.550 --> 00:51:31.650 And my first PhD student is a full professor at 1040 00:51:31.690 --> 00:51:35.809 MIT and he started off in linguistics. He's in brain 1041 00:51:35.849 --> 00:51:38.409 and cognitive sciences now. So I had a good relationship 1042 00:51:38.449 --> 00:51:41.099 with Chomsky. But then suddenly he never had time to 1043 00:51:41.139 --> 00:51:41.639 meet with me. 1044 00:51:42.039 --> 00:51:45.239 So after his proclamation. Right. Okay. 1045 00:51:45.480 --> 00:51:47.659 He had no time to meet with me. His wife died, 1046 00:51:47.900 --> 00:51:50.239 and I wrote him a letter saying, I'm so sorry 1047 00:51:50.280 --> 00:51:52.369 that Carol died. This is really terrible. I know you 1048 00:51:52.409 --> 00:51:54.789 guys have been together for so long. And he wrote 1049 00:51:54.829 --> 00:51:57.190 back and said, thank you so much. That means a 1050 00:51:57.210 --> 00:51:59.489 great deal to me. And then I saw this article 1051 00:51:59.550 --> 00:52:01.730 in a Sao Paulo paper where he called me a charlatan. 1052 00:52:02.090 --> 00:52:03.840 So I wrote him right back, and I said, did 1053 00:52:03.860 --> 00:52:06.880 you call me a charlatan? And he said, yeah, you 1054 00:52:06.960 --> 00:52:09.500 are a charlatan. I said, you should be ashamed of yourself. 1055 00:52:09.539 --> 00:52:11.440 He said, no, you should be ashamed of yourself for 1056 00:52:11.500 --> 00:52:15.380 saying things you know that can't be right. So that 1057 00:52:15.409 --> 00:52:16.389 was the last exchange we had. 1058 00:52:16.429 --> 00:52:18.559 Silly, silly. No, of course you should have had that 1059 00:52:18.639 --> 00:52:21.579 in front of them. I mean, just, I think people 1060 00:52:22.119 --> 00:52:24.619 say things in emails that I think is a terrible 1061 00:52:24.639 --> 00:52:25.280 way to communicate. 1062 00:52:25.320 --> 00:52:28.300 I agree completely. You know, that's. 1063 00:52:28.320 --> 00:52:31.739 Especially with insults. It's just, it's such a way. And 1064 00:52:31.760 --> 00:52:35.059 then you're waiting on the other person's insult in return. Like, God, 1065 00:52:35.079 --> 00:52:38.679 stop it. Are you fucking 12 years old? Yeah. Stop. 1066 00:52:39.119 --> 00:52:43.289 So the author, Tom Wolfe, um, The last book he 1067 00:52:43.349 --> 00:52:46.710 wrote was called Kingdom of Speech. And he talked about 1068 00:52:46.769 --> 00:52:52.719 two controversies, Darwin versus Alfred Russell Wallace and me versus Chomsky. 1069 00:52:53.000 --> 00:52:53.400 Oh, wow. 1070 00:52:53.519 --> 00:52:56.539 And so he has a very– he has some bizarre, 1071 00:52:56.900 --> 00:52:59.880 absolutely wrong ideas about where language came from. He's not 1072 00:52:59.920 --> 00:53:03.559 a linguist. But he did cover that controversy extremely well. 1073 00:53:04.280 --> 00:53:07.849 And Tom used to call me every week when he 1074 00:53:07.869 --> 00:53:09.349 was writing the book. I didn't even know what it 1075 00:53:09.369 --> 00:53:12.139 was about to ask to get the details right. But 1076 00:53:12.179 --> 00:53:14.599 he was just shocked how this happened. 1077 00:53:15.420 --> 00:53:20.469 Yeah. Again, it's disappointing. But even the most brilliant humans 1078 00:53:20.570 --> 00:53:21.210 are just human. 1079 00:53:21.750 --> 00:53:22.010 Right. 1080 00:53:22.050 --> 00:53:24.889 And they're subject to all the flaws and all the 1081 00:53:24.969 --> 00:53:27.429 traps that the human mind could fall into. 1082 00:53:27.909 --> 00:53:32.380 Yeah. I've often said after long experience that intelligence is 1083 00:53:32.460 --> 00:53:33.980 no antidote for stupidity. 1084 00:53:34.559 --> 00:53:34.820 Right. 1085 00:53:34.920 --> 00:53:35.639 You can be both. 1086 00:53:36.079 --> 00:53:39.619 Oh, 100 percent. Absolutely. Especially when ego is involved. Yeah. 1087 00:53:40.019 --> 00:53:44.030 So– How many people– how many of the piraha did 1088 00:53:44.070 --> 00:53:44.630 you convert? 1089 00:53:45.309 --> 00:53:52.489 Nobody. In decades, they weren't interested. They were so totally– 1090 00:53:52.610 --> 00:53:55.840 because my claims did not meet their standard of evidence. 1091 00:53:56.179 --> 00:53:58.460 They have a high standard of evidence and I didn't 1092 00:53:58.739 --> 00:53:59.559 meet that standard. 1093 00:54:00.269 --> 00:54:03.210 This episode is brought to you by Blue Chew. Man, 1094 00:54:03.429 --> 00:54:05.969 let's talk about Blue Chew. They're already the number one 1095 00:54:06.030 --> 00:54:08.820 brand for better sex. But what they're doing with Blue 1096 00:54:08.840 --> 00:54:13.139 Chew Gold is completely next level. Gold is a four-in-one 1097 00:54:13.260 --> 00:54:18.280 formula designed to make your bedroom noisy again. Obviously, it 1098 00:54:18.300 --> 00:54:21.190 gets you hard, like you're back in your 20s, and 1099 00:54:21.489 --> 00:54:26.510 everything is handled 100% online. 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This ad and 1109 00:55:03.699 --> 00:55:07.309 the products being advertised are intended for a United States audience. 1110 00:55:08.110 --> 00:55:11.449 But don't they have like mystical creatures and stuff that 1111 00:55:11.489 --> 00:55:13.070 they believe live in the forest? 1112 00:55:13.710 --> 00:55:17.219 They do. And When I first got there as a Christian, 1113 00:55:18.059 --> 00:55:21.420 I called these things spirits because that's all I knew 1114 00:55:21.500 --> 00:55:22.039 how to characterize them. 1115 00:55:22.059 --> 00:55:22.800 How do they describe them? 1116 00:55:23.179 --> 00:55:26.820 They describe them as distinct beings. They don't say they're 1117 00:55:26.860 --> 00:55:30.360 spiritual or anything like that. But you see something. Like 1118 00:55:30.380 --> 00:55:34.699 you see– maybe there's another Indian hunting from a different tribe, 1119 00:55:34.760 --> 00:55:36.909 hunting in your jungle because there are some that are 1120 00:55:37.110 --> 00:55:39.829 close enough to be hunting in the same area. You 1121 00:55:39.929 --> 00:55:41.849 see them, but you don't see them well. They go 1122 00:55:41.889 --> 00:55:45.269 behind a tree or something. So you say, oh, that's 1123 00:55:45.369 --> 00:55:48.219 one of these things. I just saw one of these things. 1124 00:55:50.599 --> 00:55:52.079 They don't put it to the test. 1125 00:55:51.900 --> 00:55:54.119 Necessarily, but they did see it. When they say these things. 1126 00:55:54.460 --> 00:55:58.219 So they have three major types of entities besides humans. 1127 00:55:59.239 --> 00:56:01.699 And they have different types of humans. I'm one type 1128 00:56:01.780 --> 00:56:05.840 and they're another type. And so they have things. 1129 00:56:05.860 --> 00:56:07.940 How do they make the distinction? Is it the appearance? 1130 00:56:08.519 --> 00:56:12.480 For humans, yes, it's appearance. Well, actually for the other entities, 1131 00:56:12.519 --> 00:56:16.820 it's appearance too. So for me. I'm white and white 1132 00:56:17.340 --> 00:56:20.199 means you don't have blood. So they've asked me. They said, 1133 00:56:20.760 --> 00:56:24.030 so do you have blood? And they asked me one 1134 00:56:24.050 --> 00:56:25.630 time after I'd been there for years. They said, do 1135 00:56:25.670 --> 00:56:29.650 Americans die? And I said, yeah, we die. But you're 1136 00:56:29.690 --> 00:56:31.989 really old and you haven't died yet. And so I 1137 00:56:32.289 --> 00:56:33.349 cut myself once. 1138 00:56:33.389 --> 00:56:34.510 How old were you at the time? 1139 00:56:35.380 --> 00:56:36.469 Probably 45. 1140 00:56:36.469 --> 00:56:38.280 45. And they thought you were a goner. 1141 00:56:38.679 --> 00:56:41.360 Yeah, because we age differently. I already had gray hair, 1142 00:56:41.380 --> 00:56:42.659 you know, not all over. 1143 00:56:42.739 --> 00:56:45.449 Right. They look a lot different when they're 45. Yeah, yeah. 1144 00:56:45.489 --> 00:56:47.369 They're all still 100% black hair. 1145 00:56:47.889 --> 00:56:50.030 Oh, they thought you were a goner with the white hair. 1146 00:56:50.190 --> 00:56:54.889 So they have an expression, almost about to fall to 1147 00:56:54.929 --> 00:56:58.070 the ground. And that's the way they described me. Wow. 1148 00:56:59.199 --> 00:57:02.239 So Americans are one way. Brazilians are another way. But 1149 00:57:02.280 --> 00:57:03.800 then there are these things. Some of them are called 1150 00:57:03.860 --> 00:57:06.880 fast mouths. And so they talk. They talk in a 1151 00:57:06.920 --> 00:57:11.340 high-pitched voice. And at night, you hear somebody, you know, 1152 00:57:11.579 --> 00:57:14.300 a creature talking in a high falsetto voice into the village. 1153 00:57:15.059 --> 00:57:16.679 And I say, what's that? And they said, oh, that's 1154 00:57:16.719 --> 00:57:20.610 a fast mouth. I said, but I'm seeing it, and 1155 00:57:20.650 --> 00:57:22.130 it looks like a pita ha. Oh, yeah, they look 1156 00:57:22.150 --> 00:57:24.630 just like us, but they're not. They're not us. And 1157 00:57:25.570 --> 00:57:28.739 so this is where we come to the border of 1158 00:57:28.820 --> 00:57:32.639 fact and fiction. And we try to draw a fairly 1159 00:57:33.159 --> 00:57:36.969 rigid line between fact and fiction. in our society and 1160 00:57:36.989 --> 00:57:42.139 in most European societies. But to them, they don't have 1161 00:57:42.219 --> 00:57:47.500 to have the full range of experience with this to 1162 00:57:47.539 --> 00:57:50.300 describe it. And so a fast mouth is just a 1163 00:57:50.340 --> 00:57:53.079 fast mouth. And you know who they are because they 1164 00:57:53.099 --> 00:57:55.659 talk in a high falsetto voice and they go naked. 1165 00:57:56.099 --> 00:57:59.380 Whereas pitahas often go naked, but if they have clothes, 1166 00:57:59.400 --> 00:58:01.570 they'll wear them. And the fast mouths will never wear clothes. 1167 00:58:03.030 --> 00:58:06.849 And the fast mouths are also sexually promiscuous. So I 1168 00:58:06.889 --> 00:58:09.210 had a reporter with me in the jungle from GEO 1169 00:58:09.250 --> 00:58:12.170 magazine in Germany. And he said, can I see one 1170 00:58:12.210 --> 00:58:15.590 of these fast mouths? And I told one guy, I said, 1171 00:58:15.750 --> 00:58:17.769 he wants to see a fast mouth. And he said, well, 1172 00:58:17.789 --> 00:58:20.349 I'll go get one. And he walks off into the jungle. 1173 00:58:20.409 --> 00:58:24.670 And then the same guy comes back in naked, talking 1174 00:58:24.690 --> 00:58:29.170 in this falsetto voice, and starts trying to hump the reporter. Yeah. 1175 00:58:31.619 --> 00:58:34.639 And the reporter says, oh, I'm feeling very uncomfortable. I said, 1176 00:58:34.659 --> 00:58:36.420 you asked for it. I mean, you know, I mean, 1177 00:58:36.440 --> 00:58:38.619 that's the way they are. And so I finally told 1178 00:58:38.659 --> 00:58:40.679 the guy, I said, you know, he doesn't want this. 1179 00:58:40.719 --> 00:58:42.860 He doesn't want to see the fast mouth anymore. So 1180 00:58:42.900 --> 00:58:44.340 he talks to me in a high falsetto and he 1181 00:58:44.380 --> 00:58:46.420 walks off and he comes back on with his clothes on. 1182 00:58:47.039 --> 00:58:51.070 And I said, did you see the fast mouth? He said, 1183 00:58:51.159 --> 00:58:53.389 was there a fast mouth here? I was gone, you know, 1184 00:58:54.070 --> 00:58:54.869 but it's the same guy. 1185 00:58:56.480 --> 00:59:00.980 What did you take of that? Did you think that 1186 00:59:01.019 --> 00:59:03.289 they were playing a prank on you? Did you think 1187 00:59:03.329 --> 00:59:06.610 this is like some sort of a psychotic state that 1188 00:59:06.650 --> 00:59:07.550 they fall into? 1189 00:59:07.570 --> 00:59:13.750 It is a limit. area between being, say, theater and 1190 00:59:13.789 --> 00:59:17.750 being reality. And I don't know if they feel possessed. 1191 00:59:17.909 --> 00:59:20.739 I don't think they have a concept of possession. I've 1192 00:59:20.949 --> 00:59:23.389 asked them and I've investigated this and I've never seen that. 1193 00:59:23.940 --> 00:59:28.400 But they definitely believe that. They're gone and this other 1194 00:59:28.440 --> 00:59:29.900 creature is there in their place. 1195 00:59:31.610 --> 00:59:34.730 Do they have memory of when they become a fast mouth? 1196 00:59:34.789 --> 00:59:36.829 They deny it. I've tried to get them to talk 1197 00:59:36.869 --> 00:59:37.150 about it. 1198 00:59:37.670 --> 00:59:38.030 I don't know. 1199 00:59:38.090 --> 00:59:38.670 I wasn't here. 1200 00:59:38.989 --> 00:59:40.099 Everyone denies it? 1201 00:59:40.230 --> 00:59:41.170 Everybody denies it. 1202 00:59:41.610 --> 00:59:44.280 Wow. Do you think that being a fast mouth is 1203 00:59:44.500 --> 00:59:48.300 like almost like a license to go and do stuff 1204 00:59:48.320 --> 00:59:51.440 you're not supposed to do? Go fuck everybody? Yeah. You 1205 00:59:51.460 --> 00:59:52.219 think that's what it is? Yeah. 1206 00:59:52.889 --> 00:59:56.659 They also change names very frequently. So if I go 1207 00:59:56.699 --> 00:59:58.880 back there now, all my old friends will have different names. 1208 00:59:59.199 --> 01:00:02.340 And anything done under the old name is– you'll say, 1209 01:00:02.679 --> 01:00:04.800 you remember when you did this? Well, I didn't do that. 1210 01:00:05.519 --> 01:00:08.510 That was the guy with this name. So they don't 1211 01:00:08.550 --> 01:00:12.909 even claim– so the concept of constancy of identity throughout time, 1212 01:00:14.289 --> 01:00:14.989 they deny this. 1213 01:00:15.750 --> 01:00:18.110 So when do they choose to make a new name 1214 01:00:18.230 --> 01:00:20.449 or do they get a new name assigned to them? 1215 01:00:20.769 --> 01:00:21.269 They can. 1216 01:00:21.289 --> 01:00:22.070 Okay. 1217 01:00:22.949 --> 01:00:25.369 Children often get new names for different phases of life. 1218 01:00:25.869 --> 01:00:28.789 But adults, if you're out in the jungle and you 1219 01:00:28.809 --> 01:00:30.849 think you saw something and you can't explain it, you 1220 01:00:30.869 --> 01:00:31.630 might take a new name. 1221 01:00:35.969 --> 01:00:37.519 Not a bad idea, right? 1222 01:00:37.900 --> 01:00:39.619 This is a way of coping with things. 1223 01:00:39.719 --> 01:00:41.800 Yeah. I mean it kind of makes sense. If something 1224 01:00:41.980 --> 01:00:44.460 really traumatic happens to you and you want to like 1225 01:00:44.500 --> 01:00:47.940 reclaim your life, you change your name, start over from scratch. Right. 1226 01:00:48.570 --> 01:00:50.670 And some of us do it in American culture, but 1227 01:00:50.730 --> 01:00:53.630 it's a lot harder legal process to change your name. 1228 01:00:53.809 --> 01:00:55.690 How often do they get killed by jaguars? 1229 01:00:56.969 --> 01:00:59.579 Nobody has ever been killed in my almost 50 years 1230 01:00:59.900 --> 01:01:02.380 coming and going, but many of them have been attacked. 1231 01:01:02.820 --> 01:01:03.480 Really? Yeah. 1232 01:01:03.539 --> 01:01:08.099 Like one guy was coming back from getting Brazil nuts 1233 01:01:08.159 --> 01:01:10.800 and he had a big basket. And so his head 1234 01:01:10.820 --> 01:01:13.190 is down a bit with the tump line and the 1235 01:01:13.250 --> 01:01:19.260 basket probably weighs 60 pounds. And– Suddenly a jaguar jumps 1236 01:01:19.280 --> 01:01:21.219 out of the tree right on his back, but it 1237 01:01:21.260 --> 01:01:23.619 got the basket and not him, and it pulled the 1238 01:01:23.639 --> 01:01:27.199 basket off his head, and he shot it with an arrow. 1239 01:01:28.219 --> 01:01:28.800 Oh, my God. 1240 01:01:28.860 --> 01:01:31.079 But they tell me that when you shoot a jaguar 1241 01:01:31.119 --> 01:01:33.929 with an arrow, the jaguar forgets about you and keeps 1242 01:01:33.949 --> 01:01:36.869 trying to get the arrow out. And by that time, 1243 01:01:36.889 --> 01:01:40.889 you've got three or four more arrows in it. So 1244 01:01:40.909 --> 01:01:43.750 these guys are deadly accurate with bows and arrows. 1245 01:01:43.829 --> 01:01:47.980 So if they did that and, like, maybe— they got attacked, 1246 01:01:48.139 --> 01:01:49.440 would they change their name after that? 1247 01:01:49.780 --> 01:01:52.219 They could. And I, so I don't completely have it 1248 01:01:52.260 --> 01:01:53.139 down to a formula. 1249 01:01:53.579 --> 01:01:56.599 Oh, okay. So it's not, it's not like when they're uncomfortable, 1250 01:01:56.639 --> 01:01:58.780 sometimes it's just like, it's time. It's time that Bob 1251 01:01:58.800 --> 01:01:59.090 becomes Mike. 1252 01:01:59.110 --> 01:02:02.530 It's a subjective reaction to objective experience that causes them 1253 01:02:02.570 --> 01:02:03.090 to do this. 1254 01:02:03.570 --> 01:02:05.469 And they, do they announce it to the village? 1255 01:02:06.849 --> 01:02:09.630 They announce it to their, like their spouse or their kids. 1256 01:02:09.889 --> 01:02:12.820 And then the word spreads. And so I'll come back in. 1257 01:02:12.840 --> 01:02:14.800 I came back in after six months and my buddy, 1258 01:02:14.840 --> 01:02:20.539 my main language teacher, And his name was, when I left, 1259 01:02:20.679 --> 01:02:24.960 it was Kohoi Behe, which means blood eater. And when 1260 01:02:25.000 --> 01:02:27.000 I got back, I said, you know, and the nickname 1261 01:02:27.059 --> 01:02:28.940 is Ko. Hey, Ko. You know, I asked him, how 1262 01:02:29.000 --> 01:02:31.179 are you doing? And nobody responds. He didn't turn and 1263 01:02:31.199 --> 01:02:32.940 look at me or anything. And I called him again 1264 01:02:32.980 --> 01:02:35.699 and again. He said, you talking to me? I said, yeah. 1265 01:02:35.719 --> 01:02:38.000 He said, that's not my name. And so I had 1266 01:02:38.039 --> 01:02:40.889 to learn his new name was Kapaobi, you know, which, 1267 01:02:42.489 --> 01:02:44.789 and he was serious about it. He wouldn't respond anymore 1268 01:02:44.829 --> 01:02:45.429 to that old name. 1269 01:02:45.989 --> 01:02:50.449 Wow. How odd. The first time that happened, were you like, oh, 1270 01:02:50.469 --> 01:02:52.010 my God, these people are fucking crazy? 1271 01:02:52.369 --> 01:02:54.769 No, I thought, I'm pretty stupid. I can't even remember 1272 01:02:54.809 --> 01:02:55.309 their names. 1273 01:02:55.769 --> 01:02:56.110 Wow. 1274 01:02:56.150 --> 01:02:57.230 That was my first reaction. 1275 01:02:57.289 --> 01:03:01.440 How quickly did this happen from you first, like, encountering 1276 01:03:01.460 --> 01:03:01.900 these people? 1277 01:03:02.480 --> 01:03:06.300 Well, I would be gone for three or four months 1278 01:03:06.360 --> 01:03:09.000 at a time and then come back because I was 1279 01:03:09.420 --> 01:03:10.119 doing linguistic. 1280 01:03:10.219 --> 01:03:13.159 Oh, so you never experienced it, like, as it was happening? 1281 01:03:13.199 --> 01:03:14.239 You only experienced it... One time. 1282 01:03:14.300 --> 01:03:17.239 One time there was... You really need to spend at 1283 01:03:17.300 --> 01:03:19.460 least a full year there so you can see all 1284 01:03:19.500 --> 01:03:22.139 the seasons and all the changes. Then I saw some 1285 01:03:22.159 --> 01:03:24.199 of the stuff. But many of the name changes happened 1286 01:03:24.239 --> 01:03:26.000 when I was out of the village. Some of them 1287 01:03:26.039 --> 01:03:28.699 happened when I was in the village. But my best friends, 1288 01:03:28.800 --> 01:03:30.820 their name changes seemed to happen when I was out 1289 01:03:30.860 --> 01:03:34.070 of the village. And they were very serious about enforcing 1290 01:03:34.110 --> 01:03:39.590 those new name changes. So if you ask them to 1291 01:03:39.650 --> 01:03:43.849 tell stories about their childhood, you get these very vague stories. 1292 01:03:44.449 --> 01:03:47.070 And they'll say, you know, but I'm talking about this person, 1293 01:03:47.329 --> 01:03:49.949 you know. Or they'll tell me, you know, they changed 1294 01:03:49.989 --> 01:03:53.289 my name twice, you know. And so they name me 1295 01:03:53.349 --> 01:03:55.250 and so a guy comes up to me and he says, 1296 01:03:56.110 --> 01:03:58.610 that name is rotten, which is the same word you 1297 01:03:58.679 --> 01:04:02.139 use for spoiled food. You know, your name is spoiled. 1298 01:04:03.300 --> 01:04:05.219 So I'm going to give you this name. And then 1299 01:04:05.239 --> 01:04:07.139 I got it. Then one time I was in there 1300 01:04:07.400 --> 01:04:09.300 and was staying with this guy. He's just wearing a 1301 01:04:09.340 --> 01:04:12.920 loincloth and the other Peter Hoff fearing because he's this 1302 01:04:13.059 --> 01:04:18.320 fierce guy. And he says, you're really old. They always 1303 01:04:18.360 --> 01:04:20.579 tell me that. He said, you're really old. And I said, 1304 01:04:21.340 --> 01:04:22.960 I'm not that old. He said, yeah, you are. My 1305 01:04:23.000 --> 01:04:25.260 dad's dead and you're about the same age as he was. 1306 01:04:25.639 --> 01:04:27.880 They don't know what the age is. He said, I'm 1307 01:04:27.900 --> 01:04:30.730 going to give you my dad's name. And Bao Aisi, 1308 01:04:30.750 --> 01:04:32.630 which is just the name of his dad. So that's 1309 01:04:32.670 --> 01:04:34.710 been my name ever since. I've had that name now 1310 01:04:34.769 --> 01:04:35.849 for about 15 years. 1311 01:04:36.090 --> 01:04:39.199 And when you go back, what happens if they want 1312 01:04:39.219 --> 01:04:40.539 to switch it up again? You have to learn a 1313 01:04:40.559 --> 01:04:43.119 new name? Yeah, yeah. And that could easily happen, right? 1314 01:04:43.300 --> 01:04:45.119 Yeah, it could easily happen. It just depends on which 1315 01:04:45.159 --> 01:04:47.000 village you go to and which person you're talking to. 1316 01:04:47.519 --> 01:04:49.619 What is the population of these people? 1317 01:04:50.239 --> 01:04:51.769 When I first got there, it was under 200. And 1318 01:04:51.829 --> 01:04:57.340 now it's around 700 to 800. They've grown because they've 1319 01:04:57.360 --> 01:05:00.219 had more medical assistance. I gave them medical assistance, my 1320 01:05:00.280 --> 01:05:02.519 wife and I, for 20 years. 1321 01:05:03.380 --> 01:05:07.519 And so your goal was to convert them to Christianity. 1322 01:05:07.619 --> 01:05:07.840 Right. 1323 01:05:08.059 --> 01:05:12.159 And when it's– so no one's buying it. So what 1324 01:05:12.199 --> 01:05:15.320 are you doing? What do your days consist of while 1325 01:05:15.360 --> 01:05:15.739 you're there? 1326 01:05:15.820 --> 01:05:21.480 Well, my days consist of linguistic analysis and translation effort. 1327 01:05:22.300 --> 01:05:24.679 So I'll work with somebody. And so I worked with 1328 01:05:24.719 --> 01:05:27.909 this guy, for example– And we went through the story 1329 01:05:27.929 --> 01:05:30.630 of Jesus. I had translated a large part of the 1330 01:05:30.670 --> 01:05:33.710 Gospel of Luke, and I tell him this story. And 1331 01:05:33.750 --> 01:05:37.409 then I showed film strips, you know, made by, you know, 1332 01:05:37.429 --> 01:05:40.190 where Jesus looks like an American and has a beard 1333 01:05:40.250 --> 01:05:43.469 and all this stuff. And I explained it. They don't 1334 01:05:43.510 --> 01:05:47.050 make a difference between drawings and photographs, so they figured, well, 1335 01:05:47.110 --> 01:05:50.469 this must be Jesus. He saw Jesus. So that night, 1336 01:05:50.650 --> 01:05:52.030 after I had told him all this and we had 1337 01:05:52.070 --> 01:05:55.760 seen the film strips, His village was across the river. 1338 01:05:55.820 --> 01:05:57.639 I lived in one village, and across the river was 1339 01:05:57.679 --> 01:06:00.239 another village, and they went across the river. And all 1340 01:06:00.300 --> 01:06:03.300 night long, I heard screaming and yelling and people running 1341 01:06:03.340 --> 01:06:07.030 around and women laughing and then women screaming. And the 1342 01:06:07.070 --> 01:06:08.829 next morning, he comes back to work with me, and 1343 01:06:08.869 --> 01:06:11.570 I said, so what was going on all night? He said, oh, 1344 01:06:11.610 --> 01:06:15.809 Jesus came to our village. I said, what? He said, yeah, 1345 01:06:15.829 --> 01:06:17.179 he came to our village, you know, and he had 1346 01:06:17.219 --> 01:06:20.780 a penis three feet long. They don't have words for feet, 1347 01:06:20.820 --> 01:06:23.300 so I'm just going by his hand thing. He said, 1348 01:06:23.340 --> 01:06:24.860 and he was trying to stick it in all the women. 1349 01:06:25.429 --> 01:06:27.869 And so, you know, the women don't want to know 1350 01:06:27.909 --> 01:06:28.670 anymore about Jesus. 1351 01:06:29.210 --> 01:06:29.489 What? 1352 01:06:30.849 --> 01:06:34.889 This is their way of rejecting it. So I never 1353 01:06:34.949 --> 01:06:37.769 expected that. In all my Bible training and things. 1354 01:06:38.340 --> 01:06:41.960 Did they say, so they wouldn't admit if one of 1355 01:06:42.000 --> 01:06:44.980 them became like they become a fast talker if they 1356 01:06:45.019 --> 01:06:48.019 just became Jesus. Right. But that could have been what happened. 1357 01:06:48.179 --> 01:06:50.800 I'm sure that's what happened. So one guy just decided 1358 01:06:50.840 --> 01:06:51.489 I'm Jesus. 1359 01:06:51.570 --> 01:06:54.590 Yeah. But everybody took him, you're Jesus. 1360 01:06:54.889 --> 01:06:55.110 Yeah. 1361 01:06:55.230 --> 01:06:56.630 And this is what Jesus is trying to do. 1362 01:06:57.389 --> 01:06:58.329 Oh, boy. 1363 01:06:58.510 --> 01:07:01.320 But they would ask questions like, you know, hey, Dan, 1364 01:07:02.179 --> 01:07:04.199 what does Jesus look like? Is he brown like us 1365 01:07:04.320 --> 01:07:05.940 or is he white like you? And I say, well, 1366 01:07:05.960 --> 01:07:07.960 you know, some people say he was brown like you 1367 01:07:08.019 --> 01:07:09.840 and some people say he was white like me. And 1368 01:07:09.860 --> 01:07:11.739 they said, yeah, yeah, but you've seen him. What did 1369 01:07:11.780 --> 01:07:14.900 he look like? And I said, well, I never saw him. Well, 1370 01:07:14.920 --> 01:07:17.449 your dad saw him. No, my dad never saw him. 1371 01:07:17.469 --> 01:07:19.190 He lived a long time ago. I don't know anyone 1372 01:07:19.210 --> 01:07:21.400 who's ever seen Jesus. And they said, you don't know 1373 01:07:21.460 --> 01:07:23.599 anyone who's ever seen him and you're just talking about 1374 01:07:23.619 --> 01:07:26.099 him the whole time telling us about him? They said, 1375 01:07:26.139 --> 01:07:30.489 we don't want to hear about this anymore. And that 1376 01:07:30.510 --> 01:07:31.780 was like– But you at. 1377 01:07:31.750 --> 01:07:34.730 The time were a believer. You're a true believer. Yeah. 1378 01:07:35.070 --> 01:07:37.610 So when did that start to slip away? 1379 01:07:38.230 --> 01:07:42.130 It started to slip away from two sides. One, I 1380 01:07:42.150 --> 01:07:45.050 was spending a lot of my time in the intellectual 1381 01:07:45.090 --> 01:07:49.250 world and trying to do serious linguistic science. And it 1382 01:07:49.309 --> 01:07:53.159 slipped away mainly, however– by constant interaction with the Pidahans, 1383 01:07:53.179 --> 01:07:55.360 because as I've gotten to know these people over the years, 1384 01:07:56.679 --> 01:08:00.469 these are really smart people. They're very intelligent people. They 1385 01:08:00.909 --> 01:08:03.289 had me figured out before I had them figured out, 1386 01:08:03.510 --> 01:08:05.530 and they can predict my behavior better than I can 1387 01:08:05.570 --> 01:08:09.929 predict theirs, even today. And so they would come to 1388 01:08:09.969 --> 01:08:11.590 me and they would say this, you know, they say, Dan, 1389 01:08:11.610 --> 01:08:15.300 you keep telling us about Jesus, but it seems that 1390 01:08:15.360 --> 01:08:17.500 only Americans believe in Jesus, because we don't know any 1391 01:08:17.539 --> 01:08:20.479 Brazilians that we've ever met that believe in Jesus. And 1392 01:08:20.859 --> 01:08:23.300 So this seems like an American thing, but we're not Americans. 1393 01:08:23.859 --> 01:08:25.579 And then they would say, you know, where did you 1394 01:08:25.619 --> 01:08:28.399 get your evidence? And I began to think, you know, 1395 01:08:28.439 --> 01:08:30.899 these are good questions. I can't just throw these questions off. 1396 01:08:30.939 --> 01:08:33.600 What is my evidence? You know, I went to Bible school. 1397 01:08:33.640 --> 01:08:37.800 I've been surrounded by Christians. I've surrounded myself by people 1398 01:08:37.840 --> 01:08:40.579 who believe. And this is what happens in linguistic theory 1399 01:08:40.640 --> 01:08:43.579 or other scientific theories. You surround yourself with a community 1400 01:08:44.100 --> 01:08:47.020 that believes the same thing, and pretty soon it's hard 1401 01:08:47.039 --> 01:08:51.250 for you to consider alternatives. Right. And so I started 1402 01:08:51.289 --> 01:08:55.800 considering the alternative and I realized– I was an atheist 1403 01:08:55.859 --> 01:08:59.729 back when I met my first wife in front of 1404 01:08:59.750 --> 01:09:01.829 a gymnasium. Hendrix concert. I was an atheist and then 1405 01:09:01.869 --> 01:09:04.510 I became a Christian and then I thought maybe I 1406 01:09:04.550 --> 01:09:10.590 was right to begin with. And so eventually I told them. 1407 01:09:10.630 --> 01:09:12.390 I said, you know, I don't believe this stuff anymore either. 1408 01:09:12.430 --> 01:09:14.789 And they started laughing. All the guys started laughing. I said, 1409 01:09:14.829 --> 01:09:16.869 why are you– they said, oh, now you're like us. 1410 01:09:17.090 --> 01:09:20.840 But– But then they told me one time, they said, 1411 01:09:20.859 --> 01:09:24.460 you know, from what we understand, Christians don't drink and 1412 01:09:24.500 --> 01:09:27.399 they don't sleep with other women. And, you know, we 1413 01:09:27.439 --> 01:09:31.550 like to do those things. So we're not interested. 1414 01:09:33.189 --> 01:09:36.550 What was convincing for you, though? If you're a true believer, 1415 01:09:36.930 --> 01:09:39.409 you think your path is the right way when you're 1416 01:09:39.449 --> 01:09:42.449 hanging out with these people. What is making you question it? 1417 01:09:42.909 --> 01:09:45.949 Well, several things. One of the most important things was 1418 01:09:45.989 --> 01:09:48.920 that having spent so many years as a Christian and 1419 01:09:48.979 --> 01:09:51.869 knowing Christians both in the U.S. and missionaries who are 1420 01:09:51.890 --> 01:09:56.050 the cream of the crop, supposedly, I didn't know anyone 1421 01:09:56.090 --> 01:09:58.909 in the Christian faith who was as well-adjusted, who could 1422 01:09:58.970 --> 01:10:01.250 cope with life as well, who was as satisfied and 1423 01:10:01.270 --> 01:10:04.439 content with their lives as the Pidahan. They were like 1424 01:10:04.479 --> 01:10:08.359 the ultimate Zen masters and the ultimate, you know, if 1425 01:10:08.399 --> 01:10:10.539 you thought, what is Jesus supposed to do for your life? 1426 01:10:11.060 --> 01:10:13.859 They already had it. And I didn't know many Christians 1427 01:10:13.880 --> 01:10:16.619 who did. So first it was quality of the spiritual life. 1428 01:10:16.800 --> 01:10:18.579 They seem to me to have the highest quality of 1429 01:10:18.619 --> 01:10:21.960 spiritual life. So one MIT guy who came down, an 1430 01:10:22.100 --> 01:10:25.659 MIT PhD student, said, these look like the happiest people 1431 01:10:25.699 --> 01:10:28.350 in the world. And I said, well, what kind of 1432 01:10:28.369 --> 01:10:31.989 statement is that? How would you measure who's happiest? He said, well, 1433 01:10:32.050 --> 01:10:35.010 I would spend time, I would see how long they 1434 01:10:35.090 --> 01:10:37.489 smile and laugh every day and compare it to others 1435 01:10:37.550 --> 01:10:40.869 and how much time they spend laughing and smiling. And 1436 01:10:40.909 --> 01:10:43.279 I'll guarantee you, he said, I've never seen a Peter 1437 01:10:43.300 --> 01:10:46.100 Hahn here who's not smiling or laughing at Frequently. 1438 01:10:46.659 --> 01:10:46.979 Yeah. 1439 01:10:47.899 --> 01:10:50.859 So it was that quality of character. And it was 1440 01:10:50.939 --> 01:10:53.119 also just the fact that I began to realize that 1441 01:10:53.649 --> 01:10:56.470 the scientific principles that I've been learning and that I'm 1442 01:10:56.510 --> 01:11:01.409 applying in linguistics almost have to be suspended to apply 1443 01:11:01.470 --> 01:11:06.770 them to the faith. Because, you know, for example, I've 1444 01:11:06.789 --> 01:11:12.350 heard a lot of stories of people being healed. But 1445 01:11:12.390 --> 01:11:15.199 this is anecdotal evidence. And I'm not going to deny 1446 01:11:15.270 --> 01:11:18.449 anybody's experience. If you tell me you had inoperable cancer, 1447 01:11:21.390 --> 01:11:24.770 but now you don't, something happened, and I can't tell 1448 01:11:24.789 --> 01:11:28.050 you what it was. But at the same time, there's 1449 01:11:28.069 --> 01:11:32.470 no statistical relevance to that. It's also the case that 1450 01:11:32.569 --> 01:11:36.310 even when I was in Bible school, one of my 1451 01:11:36.369 --> 01:11:40.289 teachers said, I wonder why healers, faith healers, never start 1452 01:11:40.329 --> 01:11:43.779 with amputees, you know? They always start with diseases you 1453 01:11:43.819 --> 01:11:47.800 can't see, like cancer, and explain how it went away. 1454 01:11:47.899 --> 01:11:51.020 But they said also in the Bible, and the Bible 1455 01:11:51.079 --> 01:11:54.920 itself says this, Jesus not only healed people, he raised 1456 01:11:54.939 --> 01:11:57.520 them from the dead. So if somebody claims to be 1457 01:11:57.560 --> 01:12:00.859 a healer in the same vein as Jesus, I'd like 1458 01:12:00.899 --> 01:12:04.319 to see them start at cemeteries and start raising people 1459 01:12:04.359 --> 01:12:06.090 from the dead. We're not seeing that, and we don't 1460 01:12:06.149 --> 01:12:09.829 see amputees healed. We see things that are sort of 1461 01:12:09.869 --> 01:12:13.300 subjective experiences. So that And I'm not claiming that nobody 1462 01:12:13.340 --> 01:12:15.159 has a right to believe what they believe or that 1463 01:12:15.199 --> 01:12:16.939 I'm right about all these things. But these are the 1464 01:12:17.000 --> 01:12:19.539 reason– this is part of the reasoning process that went 1465 01:12:19.560 --> 01:12:23.930 through my mind and I thought, yeah, I just can't 1466 01:12:25.289 --> 01:12:27.649 do this anymore. I cannot tell these people to believe 1467 01:12:27.689 --> 01:12:32.149 something that they have reasonable objections against and I don't 1468 01:12:32.210 --> 01:12:35.930 have reasonable answers for. So to me, they made more 1469 01:12:35.989 --> 01:12:36.750 sense than I did. 1470 01:12:37.760 --> 01:12:42.170 Well, there's– So many of these ancient religions that have 1471 01:12:42.350 --> 01:12:45.069 very similar stories to the Jesus story. 1472 01:12:46.229 --> 01:12:46.489 Yes. 1473 01:12:46.689 --> 01:12:51.310 It seems like a very old story. And I'm of 1474 01:12:51.380 --> 01:12:55.000 the opinion that what you're getting with all of these 1475 01:12:55.079 --> 01:13:01.720 religious texts is there were some events and there's some 1476 01:13:01.800 --> 01:13:09.270 sort of a documentation of this events, but it's very hard. Right. Like, 1477 01:13:09.789 --> 01:13:15.029 for instance, Paul never met Jesus. No. When most people 1478 01:13:15.069 --> 01:13:16.960 find that out, they go, wait, what? So all that 1479 01:13:16.979 --> 01:13:21.100 stuff that Jesus said, Paul's writing down. And well, how 1480 01:13:21.119 --> 01:13:23.819 does Paul know this? And then you go, oh, well, 1481 01:13:23.939 --> 01:13:27.729 Paul met Jesus in a dream. Like, hold the fuck on. 1482 01:13:28.069 --> 01:13:31.930 Right. See, ironically, the Pentecost might actually take that as evidence. 1483 01:13:31.989 --> 01:13:34.630 Right. But– I mean, Jesus came back to their camp 1484 01:13:34.689 --> 01:13:35.289 as a fast forward. 1485 01:13:35.310 --> 01:13:39.250 But we said– you know, I learned in Bible school 1486 01:13:39.289 --> 01:13:42.270 that all the apostles had to have met Jesus. And 1487 01:13:42.340 --> 01:13:44.300 Paul was an apostle. Therefore, he had to have met Jesus. 1488 01:13:44.359 --> 01:13:46.060 And so I said, well, when did he meet Jesus? 1489 01:13:46.079 --> 01:13:48.359 And they said, on the road to Damascus. He had 1490 01:13:48.420 --> 01:13:50.739 the revelation of Jesus on the road to Damascus. So 1491 01:13:50.779 --> 01:13:51.159 we met him. 1492 01:13:51.880 --> 01:13:53.310 But– It's tricky. 1493 01:13:53.550 --> 01:13:54.029 It's tricky. 1494 01:13:54.189 --> 01:13:59.560 It's tricky. It's also– again, when you get especially to 1495 01:13:59.600 --> 01:14:05.220 the Old Testament, like what were they documenting? What are 1496 01:14:05.239 --> 01:14:11.279 these events? What happened there? There's some stories that you 1497 01:14:11.340 --> 01:14:13.960 say– like the flood story for example. Boy, there's a 1498 01:14:14.000 --> 01:14:15.699 lot of those. There's a lot of those in all 1499 01:14:15.739 --> 01:14:19.449 sorts of ancient religions. It seems to be some sort 1500 01:14:19.489 --> 01:14:23.359 of a historical record. of some sort of a catastrophe. Right. 1501 01:14:24.520 --> 01:14:26.350 All the other stuff that's attached to it, you just 1502 01:14:26.390 --> 01:14:29.810 got to go, I'm not sure what this means. Right. 1503 01:14:29.890 --> 01:14:31.569 You know, when I was a little boy, you know, 1504 01:14:31.609 --> 01:14:33.289 my mother died when I was very young, but when 1505 01:14:33.310 --> 01:14:34.729 I was a little boy, we would drive up from 1506 01:14:34.869 --> 01:14:36.970 Imperial Valley, California to San Diego, and you've got to 1507 01:14:37.010 --> 01:14:40.619 go through the mountains. And there's this line of white 1508 01:14:40.680 --> 01:14:43.140 stones that I noticed near the top of the mountains. 1509 01:14:43.659 --> 01:14:46.039 And I said, you know, what caused that? And my 1510 01:14:46.079 --> 01:14:49.539 mother said, the flood. And I thought, Well, that makes sense. 1511 01:14:49.699 --> 01:14:53.770 It must be the flood. I'm like seven. And so 1512 01:14:54.350 --> 01:14:56.970 this is– some of this stuff gets started this way 1513 01:14:56.989 --> 01:14:57.750 and it becomes truth. 1514 01:14:58.210 --> 01:15:00.529 Well, I mean it's certainly when you're talking about a 1515 01:15:00.590 --> 01:15:06.270 time thousands of years ago where just the ability to 1516 01:15:06.390 --> 01:15:09.890 read was very limited. And then you're translating things from 1517 01:15:09.930 --> 01:15:13.600 languages that we don't even speak anymore. It gets real 1518 01:15:13.659 --> 01:15:16.239 squirrely when you try to figure out what these events 1519 01:15:16.420 --> 01:15:22.909 actually were that they were documenting. It's– having a belief system, 1520 01:15:23.010 --> 01:15:24.590 I think there's a lot of value to it. I 1521 01:15:24.630 --> 01:15:27.949 think it gives you a moral scaffolding, gives you structure 1522 01:15:27.970 --> 01:15:30.529 in your life, and that alone is like super beneficial 1523 01:15:30.949 --> 01:15:32.909 to people. And the people that I know that are 1524 01:15:33.029 --> 01:15:36.789 like true Christians, really follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, 1525 01:15:37.149 --> 01:15:38.689 they're some of the nicest people I've ever met. I 1526 01:15:38.850 --> 01:15:41.689 think there's a really great benefit to that. The problem 1527 01:15:41.710 --> 01:15:46.270 is like what are we saying? You know, what exactly– 1528 01:15:46.300 --> 01:15:48.600 like do you– the Adam and Eve one. It's like, okay, 1529 01:15:48.739 --> 01:15:51.260 what do you think happened? Do you think there's two people? 1530 01:15:51.399 --> 01:15:53.180 That's the only two people on earth? And then where 1531 01:15:53.199 --> 01:15:55.600 do the other people come from? The brothers and sisters 1532 01:15:55.649 --> 01:15:57.850 just have sex with each other? Right. What? 1533 01:15:58.430 --> 01:16:02.350 Yeah, I mean evolution explains that obviously very well. But 1534 01:16:02.489 --> 01:16:04.829 Adam and Eve, you know, I remember when my mother 1535 01:16:04.890 --> 01:16:09.250 told me the story of eating the apple and betraying God. 1536 01:16:09.850 --> 01:16:14.369 And Adam is hiding out and God says, where are you? 1537 01:16:15.170 --> 01:16:17.430 And I asked my mother. I said, I thought God 1538 01:16:17.470 --> 01:16:19.829 knew everything. Why is he asking him where he is? 1539 01:16:19.869 --> 01:16:22.489 I don't understand that. And she said, well, he wants 1540 01:16:22.510 --> 01:16:25.449 him to confess it. Well, there's always that kind of answer. 1541 01:16:25.489 --> 01:16:27.810 You can always give that kind of answer. But we– 1542 01:16:28.010 --> 01:16:30.010 you know, you don't have to focus on religion. You 1543 01:16:30.029 --> 01:16:33.449 can even go to paleoanthropology and you can look at 1544 01:16:33.880 --> 01:16:36.899 are there 20 species of Homo that used to exist 1545 01:16:36.960 --> 01:16:40.859 in the past or more? Or were there just three, Erectus, Neanderthal, 1546 01:16:41.340 --> 01:16:45.060 and Sapiens? And what does it mean to be a species? 1547 01:16:45.689 --> 01:16:48.430 And how can we really prove some of that stuff? 1548 01:16:48.810 --> 01:16:53.149 Before the work of Svante Paibo and decoding the DNA, 1549 01:16:53.550 --> 01:16:58.310 the genome of ancient creatures doing this thing that people 1550 01:16:58.350 --> 01:17:01.869 thought was impossible, that was speculation. It was really hard 1551 01:17:01.909 --> 01:17:06.449 to tell. And there were a lot of controversies. And 1552 01:17:06.510 --> 01:17:09.399 now we can look at the genetic record and we 1553 01:17:09.439 --> 01:17:11.810 can look at the genome and But that still doesn't 1554 01:17:11.850 --> 01:17:15.369 tell us everything. So a lot of straight history and 1555 01:17:15.390 --> 01:17:19.869 a lot of paleoanthropology and paleoarchaeology, all of these things 1556 01:17:20.470 --> 01:17:26.899 always involve, as any theory does, speculation. You're guessing and 1557 01:17:26.939 --> 01:17:30.060 then trying to test your guess. And some things are 1558 01:17:30.119 --> 01:17:33.960 easier to test than other things. And so science is 1559 01:17:34.020 --> 01:17:38.359 a community of people who believe they can work towards 1560 01:17:38.420 --> 01:17:40.909 the truth, but the only way to do that is 1561 01:17:40.949 --> 01:17:43.380 to have good guesses and know how to test them 1562 01:17:44.100 --> 01:17:47.079 and be willing to admit that you're wrong and then 1563 01:17:47.140 --> 01:17:51.640 move on to the next best guess. Right. And every 1564 01:17:51.680 --> 01:17:55.300 scientist recognizes this, but in practice, it's really hard. 1565 01:17:56.220 --> 01:17:59.319 Well, it's certainly hard if you're also a fundamentalist Christian. Oh, yeah. 1566 01:17:59.350 --> 01:18:00.250 That makes it much harder. 1567 01:18:00.270 --> 01:18:02.909 Because then you're living in conflict all the time. Right. 1568 01:18:02.930 --> 01:18:04.449 You believe a guy came back from the dead, but 1569 01:18:04.550 --> 01:18:05.770 show me proof for everything else. 1570 01:18:05.890 --> 01:18:09.289 Yeah. You believe in miracles, but you can't. They certainly 1571 01:18:09.310 --> 01:18:10.029 can't be produced. 1572 01:18:10.720 --> 01:18:14.359 On demand. You also believe that people tell the truth. That's, 1573 01:18:14.520 --> 01:18:16.319 that's part of the problem. Part of the problem with 1574 01:18:16.340 --> 01:18:19.819 all this stuff is like, look, the Bible condones slavery, 1575 01:18:20.300 --> 01:18:23.159 talks about slavery in multiple passages. 1576 01:18:23.539 --> 01:18:23.720 Yeah. 1577 01:18:24.260 --> 01:18:27.460 Um, that's a person thing. That's a people thing. Right. That's. 1578 01:18:28.539 --> 01:18:31.270 And the Bible talks about, um, all sorts of things that, 1579 01:18:31.560 --> 01:18:35.210 you know, we don't, uh, agree with, uh, today, but 1580 01:18:35.229 --> 01:18:38.590 we try to, um, interpret it in such a way 1581 01:18:38.649 --> 01:18:39.560 that we can live with it. 1582 01:18:39.689 --> 01:18:40.770 Right. Exactly. 1583 01:18:41.350 --> 01:18:43.779 You know, so God, I mean, if you read anything 1584 01:18:43.840 --> 01:18:46.920 by Mark Twain about God, which is not only brilliant 1585 01:18:46.960 --> 01:18:52.039 but funny, you know, Right. just makes fun of the 1586 01:18:52.079 --> 01:18:54.859 whole notion that … It. 1587 01:18:54.840 --> 01:18:57.319 Says religion started when the first con man made the 1588 01:18:57.359 --> 01:18:57.899 first sucker. 1589 01:18:58.359 --> 01:19:01.890 Yeah. And how many germs– he has this story about 1590 01:19:02.289 --> 01:19:05.010 Noah's Ark about how Noah's family had to be so 1591 01:19:05.069 --> 01:19:09.569 infested with germs so they could survive the flood. Yeah. 1592 01:19:11.529 --> 01:19:14.869 When you stop and think about it, I mean like 1593 01:19:15.069 --> 01:19:18.369 the ark came to rest on Mount Ararat and then 1594 01:19:18.850 --> 01:19:21.250 all these creatures had to boogie on down to Australia 1595 01:19:21.310 --> 01:19:25.260 almost immediately. And so you get these stories and people 1596 01:19:25.340 --> 01:19:27.760 don't want to talk about those things. I don't know 1597 01:19:27.800 --> 01:19:28.470 how God did it. 1598 01:19:28.819 --> 01:19:32.039 I think there was an event and I think this 1599 01:19:32.479 --> 01:19:36.279 version of it, this doctrine that you're supposed to adhere to, 1600 01:19:37.369 --> 01:19:43.840 is woefully uninformed about the actual like real facts of 1601 01:19:43.880 --> 01:19:46.239 the event. I don't think anybody could possibly know. But 1602 01:19:46.260 --> 01:19:49.199 I think when you have the epic of Gilgamesh, which 1603 01:19:49.439 --> 01:19:52.640 mirrors the story of Noah's Ark, which mirrors the story 1604 01:19:52.760 --> 01:19:56.520 of other religions that have similar flood myths or flood stories, 1605 01:19:56.979 --> 01:20:00.010 it's probably something happened. Yeah, it's probably one of the 1606 01:20:00.069 --> 01:20:00.810 things that happened. 1607 01:20:01.710 --> 01:20:06.310 Right. I mean you can tell people– It would be 1608 01:20:06.430 --> 01:20:09.829 intellectually dishonest to tell people that all the claims of 1609 01:20:09.869 --> 01:20:12.100 their religion are false. How do you know that? You 1610 01:20:12.140 --> 01:20:15.180 don't know that. And I used to tell Christians, I said, 1611 01:20:15.239 --> 01:20:18.239 you know, when I was a Christian, the best evidence 1612 01:20:18.300 --> 01:20:20.979 for God is what he's done in your life. And 1613 01:20:21.279 --> 01:20:23.279 are you living a better life? And if you're not 1614 01:20:23.319 --> 01:20:25.020 living a better life, then why are you saying that 1615 01:20:25.060 --> 01:20:28.569 he saved you? And if you can't live a more 1616 01:20:28.670 --> 01:20:33.109 moral life than people who don't know Christ, then what 1617 01:20:33.149 --> 01:20:35.680 are you saying? You claim that he changed your life 1618 01:20:35.699 --> 01:20:37.930 for the good, but you're not living a life for 1619 01:20:37.939 --> 01:20:40.770 the good. You know, I went to work in construction 1620 01:20:40.789 --> 01:20:44.689 when I was still in high school for a Christian contractor. 1621 01:20:45.390 --> 01:20:47.930 And I was in the union. I joined the laborers union, 1622 01:20:47.970 --> 01:20:50.220 which meant that as a hod carrier, that's the hardest 1623 01:20:50.239 --> 01:20:53.619 job I ever did, that you got paid $ 8. 25 an hour. 1624 01:20:53.640 --> 01:20:54.800 And this is 1968. And that was a lot of 1625 01:20:54.819 --> 01:20:55.960 money in 1968. And the guy told me when I 1626 01:20:55.979 --> 01:21:03.010 got hired, he said, the union says I got to 1627 01:21:03.029 --> 01:21:05.189 pay $ 8. 25 an hour, but I'm not going to pay 1628 01:21:05.210 --> 01:21:06.949 you that. I'm going to write you down as only 1629 01:21:07.010 --> 01:21:09.100 working four hours a day, but you're going to work eight. 1630 01:21:10.020 --> 01:21:11.779 And that's how he got around it. And I thought, 1631 01:21:12.899 --> 01:21:15.539 this guy's a Christian and he's lying on these forms 1632 01:21:15.659 --> 01:21:19.350 and on his taxes and he's going to church. And, um, 1633 01:21:19.729 --> 01:21:22.510 I got the job through my Christian missionary father-in-law who 1634 01:21:22.550 --> 01:21:26.229 knew this guy. And, and I saw that happening time 1635 01:21:26.270 --> 01:21:30.619 and time again. Um, So very often, unfortunately, people who 1636 01:21:30.680 --> 01:21:34.060 claim to be religious and follow the commandments of Jesus, 1637 01:21:34.079 --> 01:21:36.960 which are much more difficult to follow than the commandments 1638 01:21:36.979 --> 01:21:40.720 of the Old Testament because they affect your thoughts and 1639 01:21:40.779 --> 01:21:46.350 not just your overt action. When you don't see consistency, 1640 01:21:46.609 --> 01:21:49.210 the answer could be, well, we're just humans. We're not perfect. 1641 01:21:49.670 --> 01:21:53.149 And that's true. But why doesn't the Holy Spirit that 1642 01:21:53.170 --> 01:21:55.369 you say you believe in make a bigger difference in 1643 01:21:55.409 --> 01:21:58.170 your life than he does in Joe Schmo down the street? 1644 01:21:58.590 --> 01:22:02.010 who doesn't claim anything, and he's leading a more moral 1645 01:22:02.050 --> 01:22:02.770 life than you are. 1646 01:22:02.789 --> 01:22:04.510 Especially if you're robbing laborers. 1647 01:22:04.909 --> 01:22:07.770 Yeah, exactly. And lying on your taxes. Yeah. 1648 01:22:08.189 --> 01:22:12.880 And so when you're with the pitaha, they live a 1649 01:22:12.920 --> 01:22:17.159 subsistence lifestyle. Right. And there's been a lot of evidence 1650 01:22:17.319 --> 01:22:24.430 that subsistence lifestyles are some of the Most compatible lifestyles 1651 01:22:24.710 --> 01:22:28.850 in terms of like people's happiness and peace and having 1652 01:22:28.890 --> 01:22:35.090 like a sense of meaning. Like your life is wrapped 1653 01:22:35.149 --> 01:22:38.310 around the gathering of food and community and spending time together. 1654 01:22:38.329 --> 01:22:41.130 And they're the happiest people in the world. Right. 1655 01:22:41.590 --> 01:22:44.060 I monitor them for a while. How many hours a 1656 01:22:44.109 --> 01:22:46.930 week does a hunter work? And I came up with 1657 01:22:46.970 --> 01:22:49.909 about 15 or 20 hours a week. Yeah. 1658 01:22:50.170 --> 01:22:51.350 Unless it's not going well. 1659 01:22:51.510 --> 01:22:53.949 Yeah. And then, yeah, like now they're doing it all 1660 01:22:53.989 --> 01:22:57.100 the time. But when the fish are jumping, it's that. 1661 01:22:57.479 --> 01:22:58.479 And then so what do you do with the rest 1662 01:22:58.500 --> 01:23:00.539 of your time? You lay around the fire and tell 1663 01:23:00.619 --> 01:23:02.859 jokes and talk to people and play with your kids. 1664 01:23:03.359 --> 01:23:05.159 You know, the men love to play with everybody. 1665 01:23:05.180 --> 01:23:09.470 They're in pure subsistence too because they're not even preserving food. Right. 1666 01:23:09.750 --> 01:23:12.409 If they don't find food today, they go hungry today. 1667 01:23:13.029 --> 01:23:15.890 Have you ever seen the Werner Herzog documentary, Happy People? 1668 01:23:16.770 --> 01:23:19.350 I haven't seen that. I did meet him once, but 1669 01:23:19.789 --> 01:23:24.520 I haven't seen that documentary. He's really big into these 1670 01:23:24.600 --> 01:23:26.119 kinds of societies. I know that. 1671 01:23:26.260 --> 01:23:28.220 That's what Happy People is about. It's about these people 1672 01:23:28.239 --> 01:23:29.159 that live in Siberia. 1673 01:23:29.460 --> 01:23:29.699 Right. 1674 01:23:29.920 --> 01:23:33.020 There are hunters and trappers that live in Siberia, and 1675 01:23:33.060 --> 01:23:33.680 they're all happy. 1676 01:23:33.979 --> 01:23:34.180 Right. 1677 01:23:34.420 --> 01:23:37.760 Yeah, and they basically just spend most of their time 1678 01:23:37.819 --> 01:23:40.819 gathering food, gathering food and then spending time with the communities. 1679 01:23:41.079 --> 01:23:43.880 Yeah. Well, the documentary that was made about the Pitaha 1680 01:23:43.899 --> 01:23:48.460 by the Smithsonian and a couple of other– It's called 1681 01:23:48.479 --> 01:23:52.859 The Grammar of Happiness because the film crew that went 1682 01:23:53.180 --> 01:23:56.960 with me was very small, like three people. But they 1683 01:23:57.000 --> 01:23:59.449 were deeply impressed by what they saw and the level 1684 01:23:59.470 --> 01:24:01.829 of happiness. And all the psychologists that I've taken and 1685 01:24:01.869 --> 01:24:05.250 linguists have also been very impressed by the level. If 1686 01:24:05.289 --> 01:24:07.949 they get past the heat and they get past the 1687 01:24:08.529 --> 01:24:12.859 confrontation with your body and the pita hump, don't have 1688 01:24:12.960 --> 01:24:15.159 outhouses they don't have you know I mean if somebody 1689 01:24:15.199 --> 01:24:17.260 needs to take a dump they walk off 10 feet 1690 01:24:17.279 --> 01:24:21.600 into the bush and do it and so we have to. 1691 01:24:21.680 --> 01:24:25.300 Have toilet paper no what do they do a stick 1692 01:24:25.420 --> 01:24:27.800 or leaves oh sticks yeah hey. 1693 01:24:28.020 --> 01:24:29.840 Or if you have corn cobs that's great but they 1694 01:24:29.880 --> 01:24:30.880 don't have corn. 1695 01:24:30.579 --> 01:24:33.260 Cobs good lord. 1696 01:24:32.859 --> 01:24:36.020 Yeah so so yeah but it's just not a big 1697 01:24:36.039 --> 01:24:38.800 deal they grow up that way it's just a function 1698 01:24:39.300 --> 01:24:40.859 you know and so you ask them things about life 1699 01:24:40.880 --> 01:24:44.260 what happens to you after you die What do you mean? Well, 1700 01:24:44.319 --> 01:24:48.090 when you're dead, what happens? Well, you're dead. And so 1701 01:24:48.100 --> 01:24:50.270 there's like a dead monkey that somebody just brought back 1702 01:24:50.289 --> 01:24:52.609 and they're going to eat. He says, he's dead. What 1703 01:24:53.010 --> 01:24:56.369 else is there? Why are you asking this question? We die, 1704 01:24:56.409 --> 01:24:59.470 we die. And they don't fear death. They don't have 1705 01:24:59.489 --> 01:25:01.810 to– they don't make up a story to make themselves 1706 01:25:01.890 --> 01:25:02.529 not fear death. 1707 01:25:02.930 --> 01:25:04.109 Were there a lot of them injured? 1708 01:25:04.939 --> 01:25:07.159 Oh, yeah. They get– they live a violent life. They 1709 01:25:07.180 --> 01:25:10.569 get– I have people who– people bitten by snakes, cut– 1710 01:25:10.729 --> 01:25:13.010 I have had people who split their hand almost in 1711 01:25:13.050 --> 01:25:15.670 two with a machete, run arrows all the way up 1712 01:25:15.710 --> 01:25:19.289 their arm, step on sticks that go all the way 1713 01:25:19.329 --> 01:25:21.289 through their foot. I mean, these are people who are 1714 01:25:21.350 --> 01:25:24.930 naked running through the jungle and they get scratches. And, 1715 01:25:25.390 --> 01:25:27.489 you know, you know, if you get bitten by a 1716 01:25:27.970 --> 01:25:34.430 by a snake that's hemotoxic, like this is I don't 1717 01:25:34.470 --> 01:25:37.369 know what it is. And it's a bushmaster. When you 1718 01:25:37.390 --> 01:25:40.600 get bit by one of those things. Even if you survive, 1719 01:25:41.000 --> 01:25:42.539 a lot of the flesh is going to come off 1720 01:25:42.560 --> 01:25:45.649 whatever they bit. So you see people with one leg 1721 01:25:45.699 --> 01:25:47.930 normal and one leg that looks like bone because it's 1722 01:25:47.970 --> 01:25:50.229 basically bone with a little bit of muscle covered in 1723 01:25:50.270 --> 01:25:53.390 skin because the flesh all fell off after the snake bite. 1724 01:25:55.310 --> 01:25:58.850 So they know what it is to suffer, and they're tough. 1725 01:25:59.149 --> 01:26:01.609 If you get a toothache, how do you fix it? Well, 1726 01:26:02.369 --> 01:26:04.069 if I'm there, I have some things that can help 1727 01:26:04.090 --> 01:26:07.050 with the pain, or I can pull the tooth. But 1728 01:26:07.550 --> 01:26:10.220 most of the time, it rots out. That's how they 1729 01:26:10.239 --> 01:26:13.699 deal with it. So they learn, you know, I was 1730 01:26:13.800 --> 01:26:17.020 talking to a woman one time, you know, really for, 1731 01:26:17.260 --> 01:26:20.020 you know, pina ha, looking very feminine looking woman. And 1732 01:26:20.100 --> 01:26:22.060 she gets bit by a wasp on the face while 1733 01:26:22.079 --> 01:26:24.979 I'm talking to her. And she pulls the stinger out 1734 01:26:25.060 --> 01:26:27.409 and she doesn't, it doesn't stop her conversation. And I've 1735 01:26:27.430 --> 01:26:29.149 been stung by those wasps and I know they hurt 1736 01:26:29.189 --> 01:26:31.470 like hell. And I said, didn't that hurt? 1737 01:26:32.310 --> 01:26:32.390 Yeah. 1738 01:26:32.430 --> 01:26:35.590 But you didn't say anything. She says, I'm not a baby. 1739 01:26:35.609 --> 01:26:38.949 You know, so this is the way they are. 1740 01:26:38.970 --> 01:26:39.039 Wow. 1741 01:26:39.560 --> 01:26:41.739 From the time they're children, they learn to deal with pain. 1742 01:26:41.760 --> 01:26:43.880 They learn to be tough. In fact, they have an 1743 01:26:43.920 --> 01:26:46.840 expression for that. He wants to be hard. And that 1744 01:26:46.899 --> 01:26:50.619 means you deliberately sleep sometimes less than you need. You 1745 01:26:50.640 --> 01:26:53.560 go hungry on purpose and you put yourself in hard 1746 01:26:53.600 --> 01:26:56.479 situations because you want to be tough because that's what 1747 01:26:56.510 --> 01:26:57.439 the environment demands. 1748 01:26:58.100 --> 01:27:03.390 So they build their resilience on purpose. Yes. Voluntarily. Well, 1749 01:27:03.590 --> 01:27:06.470 I would imagine that's like the most important thing to have. 1750 01:27:06.489 --> 01:27:08.390 If you're running around naked in the jungle, you have 1751 01:27:08.409 --> 01:27:09.300 to be tough. Right. 1752 01:27:09.840 --> 01:27:14.800 You have to be. I go barefoot sometimes in the village. 1753 01:27:17.140 --> 01:27:19.899 You can get parasites that way, but I do it anyway. 1754 01:27:21.590 --> 01:27:22.949 But when I go to the jungle, I always put 1755 01:27:22.989 --> 01:27:26.329 on shoes because my feet can't take all the thorns 1756 01:27:26.390 --> 01:27:29.949 and everything. And theirs are covered with like a whole 1757 01:27:30.020 --> 01:27:32.100 layer of callus all around their foot. 1758 01:27:32.560 --> 01:27:34.460 They have those crazy splayed out toes as well. 1759 01:27:34.479 --> 01:27:37.180 Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's the way feet are supposed 1760 01:27:37.220 --> 01:27:39.619 to look really. Right. Ours don't look that way because 1761 01:27:39.680 --> 01:27:43.979 we protect them. But their feet are tough. Their hands 1762 01:27:44.039 --> 01:27:46.699 are tough. Their skin is tough. It's like leather. Even 1763 01:27:46.729 --> 01:27:49.810 a little kid, their little kids, rather than crawl, they 1764 01:27:50.430 --> 01:27:53.270 scoot around on their butt. And so you pick a 1765 01:27:53.289 --> 01:27:54.710 little kid up and you look at their butt and 1766 01:27:54.750 --> 01:27:58.909 it's just callous. It's just solid callous. And these kids 1767 01:27:58.970 --> 01:28:06.130 are tough. But– By their standards, they're very gentle to 1768 01:28:06.149 --> 01:28:07.800 their kids. I had a guy with me one time 1769 01:28:07.840 --> 01:28:09.920 and he was trying to sleep at night and a 1770 01:28:09.960 --> 01:28:13.380 baby was screaming all night. And he said, why don't 1771 01:28:13.399 --> 01:28:15.579 they tell that baby to shut up? And I said, why? 1772 01:28:16.539 --> 01:28:18.579 I said, they don't need to tell it to shut up. 1773 01:28:18.600 --> 01:28:20.630 That's just part of life. They don't have a schedule 1774 01:28:20.670 --> 01:28:22.630 to keep tomorrow. He said, well, what would happen if 1775 01:28:22.689 --> 01:28:24.750 I went over and swatted it on the behind? I said, 1776 01:28:24.789 --> 01:28:27.350 they'd kill you. They'd kill me. I said, yeah, you 1777 01:28:27.390 --> 01:28:29.859 don't hit kids. They don't believe in hitting kids. 1778 01:28:30.279 --> 01:28:32.390 Swat a baby to get it to– does he think 1779 01:28:32.430 --> 01:28:33.850 that's how babies stop screaming? 1780 01:28:34.710 --> 01:28:35.130 I don't know. 1781 01:28:35.210 --> 01:28:36.670 I mean– Does he have any kids? 1782 01:28:37.890 --> 01:28:40.859 I don't think this guy did. But Christian– often believe, 1783 01:28:41.279 --> 01:28:44.479 really believe, spare the rod and spoil the child. And 1784 01:28:44.500 --> 01:28:47.180 they believe very much in corporal– Back then at least, right? Yeah, 1785 01:28:47.220 --> 01:28:52.350 back then. I don't know today. But so the Bidahav 1786 01:28:52.430 --> 01:28:55.479 never believed this. They don't accept it. 1787 01:28:56.149 --> 01:29:00.000 Well, I think they're probably correct. It is interesting how 1788 01:29:00.079 --> 01:29:03.399 those people are happier. Like we've done something to ourselves 1789 01:29:03.500 --> 01:29:07.939 by forcing ourselves into cities and jobs and constant stress 1790 01:29:07.979 --> 01:29:11.460 and bills and taxes and all these external things that 1791 01:29:11.500 --> 01:29:14.130 we've attached to our lives that we think are 100 1792 01:29:14.130 --> 01:29:19.409 percent necessary. Don't bring anybody any happier. Don't bring anybody 1793 01:29:19.590 --> 01:29:22.890 any more happiness. In fact, make you way more miserable, 1794 01:29:23.449 --> 01:29:26.529 make you susceptible to a bunch of stress-related illnesses. 1795 01:29:26.550 --> 01:29:30.539 Yeah. I've had friends visit me in the jungle, researchers 1796 01:29:30.579 --> 01:29:34.850 who are friends, and they'll say things like, I've never 1797 01:29:34.899 --> 01:29:37.689 seen you so relaxed. You know, you seem tense when 1798 01:29:37.710 --> 01:29:39.789 you're at the university, but down here you just seem 1799 01:29:39.909 --> 01:29:43.140 totally laid back. And I said, well, I didn't notice it, 1800 01:29:43.250 --> 01:29:45.750 but that makes perfect sense to me because all these 1801 01:29:45.789 --> 01:29:47.630 people are laid back. There's Pina Ha that I go 1802 01:29:47.649 --> 01:29:50.270 to talk to the guy, and I find myself nodding off. 1803 01:29:50.710 --> 01:29:52.789 And I'm not even sleepy when I go over there, 1804 01:29:52.829 --> 01:29:56.409 but he's just so laid back and talks so calmly 1805 01:29:56.479 --> 01:30:00.079 and softly. and telling jokes and things that it just 1806 01:30:00.100 --> 01:30:00.760 puts me to sleep. 1807 01:30:01.020 --> 01:30:02.899 God, it's such a bummer that those people have to 1808 01:30:02.939 --> 01:30:03.560 struggle now. 1809 01:30:03.880 --> 01:30:06.260 Yeah, it's terrible. 1810 01:30:08.100 --> 01:30:09.630 What do they hunt? What do they eat? 1811 01:30:10.750 --> 01:30:13.470 Seventy percent of their diet before they started having river 1812 01:30:13.529 --> 01:30:17.569 problems was fish. So the average diet of a Pita 1813 01:30:17.609 --> 01:30:22.979 Ha family is fish and water and jungle nuts and 1814 01:30:23.029 --> 01:30:27.739 things you get from the jungle. Hunter-gatherers, which they are, have... 1815 01:30:27.890 --> 01:30:32.479 healthier diets than agriculturalists. Because, you know, we had this 1816 01:30:32.760 --> 01:30:37.680 outbreak of disease from lettuce recently in this country. They 1817 01:30:37.699 --> 01:30:39.600 don't grow vegetables, so they're never going to get that 1818 01:30:39.619 --> 01:30:42.220 kind of thing. They don't get that in naturally occurring 1819 01:30:42.279 --> 01:30:45.880 things out in the jungle. So their diets are healthier. 1820 01:30:46.220 --> 01:30:49.850 They're eating protein. I know, for example, that I could 1821 01:30:49.890 --> 01:30:53.569 take any Pitaham man out of the jungle at random, 1822 01:30:53.890 --> 01:30:55.970 and if I weigh him, he's going to be 155 pounds. 1823 01:30:57.859 --> 01:31:02.420 He's going to have about a 25-inch waist, 26. He's 1824 01:31:02.460 --> 01:31:07.119 going to have about 4% body fat, and he's just 1825 01:31:07.159 --> 01:31:11.800 going to be lean, mean machine. And they don't– they 1826 01:31:11.840 --> 01:31:13.960 do try to harden themselves, but that's just what the 1827 01:31:14.039 --> 01:31:15.020 life does to you. 1828 01:31:16.199 --> 01:31:18.770 But they're not overweight. They're not dealing with obesity. No, 1829 01:31:18.810 --> 01:31:19.739 you're never– No diabetes. 1830 01:31:20.430 --> 01:31:26.489 Only when outsiders, representatives of the Brazilian government thought it 1831 01:31:26.529 --> 01:31:29.010 would be good to give them something to rely on. 1832 01:31:29.409 --> 01:31:31.750 So they brought in a lot of rice and they 1833 01:31:31.789 --> 01:31:34.489 started letting the people feed. The people don't grow rice, 1834 01:31:34.550 --> 01:31:36.789 but the government would supply it. So now all of 1835 01:31:36.829 --> 01:31:41.170 a sudden you see people overweight because they're eating starch, 1836 01:31:41.850 --> 01:31:43.760 which they never used to eat that much of. Or 1837 01:31:44.500 --> 01:31:47.000 I took a dentist in once about 25 years ago 1838 01:31:48.060 --> 01:31:51.180 and we inspected the mouth of every living pitaha and 1839 01:31:51.239 --> 01:31:54.119 not one cavity. He was disappointed. He said, I thought 1840 01:31:54.140 --> 01:31:55.729 I was going to be able to do some free 1841 01:31:55.739 --> 01:31:59.039 dental work here, And nobody has a cavity. Well, then 1842 01:31:59.560 --> 01:32:03.710 somebody introduced sugarcane into their fields from the outside world, 1843 01:32:04.170 --> 01:32:08.210 and now it's almost 100% cavities. Everybody has cavities because 1844 01:32:08.250 --> 01:32:11.229 they eat sugarcane. Wow. So you keep away the sweets, 1845 01:32:11.289 --> 01:32:14.270 you keep away the starch, and you get healthier people. 1846 01:32:14.329 --> 01:32:16.979 This is just living proof of what we often read 1847 01:32:17.039 --> 01:32:21.800 about diets, but that we're so tempted by that we 1848 01:32:21.840 --> 01:32:22.720 don't normally follow. 1849 01:32:22.739 --> 01:32:25.220 I heard another issue with them is when they get 1850 01:32:25.319 --> 01:32:26.300 introduced to soda. 1851 01:32:27.439 --> 01:32:28.500 Yeah, that's bad. 1852 01:32:28.939 --> 01:32:29.260 Yeah. 1853 01:32:29.479 --> 01:32:31.100 Also whiskey, but that's a different matter. 1854 01:32:31.359 --> 01:32:31.640 Sure. 1855 01:32:31.659 --> 01:32:35.109 They're both bad. Soda is– yeah, I mean they love it. 1856 01:32:35.119 --> 01:32:38.979 They call it sweet water and they will drink the 1857 01:32:39.000 --> 01:32:41.319 hell out of that. If they got five gallons, they'll 1858 01:32:41.340 --> 01:32:43.500 drink it all. I had a guy once who wove 1859 01:32:43.539 --> 01:32:46.619 a basket for me and I said, what do you 1860 01:32:46.659 --> 01:32:49.630 want for it? And he knew that I had some 1861 01:32:49.689 --> 01:32:52.630 canned fruit that I used on Sundays for my kids 1862 01:32:52.670 --> 01:32:54.550 when we were all living there. And he said, I 1863 01:32:54.569 --> 01:32:58.060 want a can of this stuff, which is peaches and 1864 01:32:58.140 --> 01:33:01.340 sweet syrup. And it was a big can. And he 1865 01:33:01.380 --> 01:33:04.060 ate that whole thing. And the kids came around. And 1866 01:33:04.100 --> 01:33:06.939 I've seen guys trade with a boat and they'll get 1867 01:33:07.039 --> 01:33:09.060 like a kilo of sugar, two and a half pounds 1868 01:33:09.100 --> 01:33:11.159 of sugar. And they just sit down with a spoon 1869 01:33:11.199 --> 01:33:11.479 and eat it. 1870 01:33:11.659 --> 01:33:12.199 Oh, boy. 1871 01:33:12.319 --> 01:33:14.170 And so if they have it, they eat it. And 1872 01:33:14.189 --> 01:33:15.369 if they don't have it, they don't eat it. 1873 01:33:15.369 --> 01:33:16.890 And they have no idea that it's bad for them 1874 01:33:16.909 --> 01:33:18.770 because it tastes good. Why would it be bad? Right. 1875 01:33:19.170 --> 01:33:22.149 You can eat anything you find as a hunter-gatherer and 1876 01:33:22.170 --> 01:33:24.329 you're not going to have enough of it. To be 1877 01:33:24.369 --> 01:33:24.869 bad for you. 1878 01:33:25.050 --> 01:33:25.289 Right. 1879 01:33:25.550 --> 01:33:27.109 Because you're going to get something else the next day. 1880 01:33:27.409 --> 01:33:29.909 Or like tobacco. I can take in tobacco. But they're 1881 01:33:29.939 --> 01:33:32.439 not going to get addicted to it. They're not going 1882 01:33:32.479 --> 01:33:35.380 to– even when they roll cigarettes, they like them. But 1883 01:33:35.560 --> 01:33:37.760 they only have it like once or twice a year. 1884 01:33:37.819 --> 01:33:40.800 So you don't have to worry about it. If they 1885 01:33:40.819 --> 01:33:43.279 had it all the time, they would have serious issues. 1886 01:33:43.899 --> 01:33:46.970 So they've only developed addictions based on what they've been 1887 01:33:47.010 --> 01:33:48.449 introduced from the Western world. 1888 01:33:48.630 --> 01:33:50.829 Right. 100%. 1889 01:33:51.329 --> 01:33:54.529 So tell me about this conversion that you have. Tell 1890 01:33:54.550 --> 01:33:57.470 me about how you– like what are the steps to 1891 01:33:57.510 --> 01:34:00.510 go from being a true believer, living with the Pidaha, 1892 01:34:01.229 --> 01:34:04.989 and then changing your opinions? How many steps did it take? 1893 01:34:05.880 --> 01:34:08.319 It took some practical steps and it took a lot 1894 01:34:08.340 --> 01:34:09.260 of mental steps. 1895 01:34:10.079 --> 01:34:10.699 How much time? 1896 01:34:12.460 --> 01:34:15.239 I would say that I started seriously doubting my faith 1897 01:34:15.539 --> 01:34:21.189 about five or six years into my time, so about 1982, 1983. 1898 01:34:21.189 --> 01:34:22.989 And I did not announce that I was not a 1899 01:34:23.010 --> 01:34:31.829 Christian until 2000 because Christians were saying things about– actually, 1900 01:34:31.890 --> 01:34:34.489 it was 2001. Christians were saying things about the war 1901 01:34:34.750 --> 01:34:38.640 in Iraq, about how the soldiers that we send over 1902 01:34:38.649 --> 01:34:43.420 there are the blessed peacemakers of the gospel. And I 1903 01:34:43.439 --> 01:34:47.539 didn't like that. And so the first step is you 1904 01:34:47.579 --> 01:34:50.630 start to doubt. Then you pray so that you won't 1905 01:34:50.670 --> 01:34:54.170 doubt because the Apostle Thomas said, Lord, I believe. Help 1906 01:34:54.229 --> 01:34:58.329 mine unbelief. But then after a certain point, that doesn't 1907 01:34:58.369 --> 01:35:03.470 work so well. So you start to read literature from apologetics, 1908 01:35:03.590 --> 01:35:06.510 trying to defend these, you know, defend your mind against 1909 01:35:06.550 --> 01:35:09.369 these things that you're thinking. And then you realize, I'm 1910 01:35:09.409 --> 01:35:12.729 not satisfied with those answers either. So finally, one day, 1911 01:35:12.760 --> 01:35:17.329 you reach the conclusion that I just, I just can't 1912 01:35:17.369 --> 01:35:21.250 do it anymore. I can't sustain this belief. I can't 1913 01:35:21.430 --> 01:35:24.220 pretend that I have something that I'm not. And so 1914 01:35:25.420 --> 01:35:28.659 then eventually I told my wife, I said, I just 1915 01:35:28.699 --> 01:35:31.659 don't believe this stuff anymore. I can't believe it. And 1916 01:35:34.220 --> 01:35:37.079 pretty much instantaneously, she walked out of the house and 1917 01:35:37.100 --> 01:35:40.079 we got a divorce. That was the end of that. Also, 1918 01:35:40.119 --> 01:35:42.039 if you're a Christian missionary and you're getting your income 1919 01:35:42.100 --> 01:35:44.529 from being a missionary, and then you tell people, oh, 1920 01:35:44.569 --> 01:35:46.550 I don't believe anymore, then you're unemployed. 1921 01:35:46.729 --> 01:35:48.550 Did you have any other issues in the marriage other 1922 01:35:48.609 --> 01:35:49.029 than that? 1923 01:35:49.970 --> 01:35:52.689 Yeah, it wasn't. That wasn't the only issue. But she 1924 01:35:52.750 --> 01:35:55.470 tracked up all the issues we had to what she 1925 01:35:55.529 --> 01:36:02.649 perceived as my declining faith. Oh, of course. Because, you know, 1926 01:36:04.399 --> 01:36:06.279 I loved rock music before we met. We met at 1927 01:36:06.319 --> 01:36:08.600 a Jimi Hendrix concert, and I went many years without 1928 01:36:08.640 --> 01:36:11.829 listening to rock music. And I love rock music. And 1929 01:36:11.890 --> 01:36:15.720 so I finally started listening to it again and– She 1930 01:36:15.739 --> 01:36:18.300 got upset. That was a sign that I was starting 1931 01:36:18.340 --> 01:36:23.260 to fade away in my faith. And so– and I'm 1932 01:36:23.300 --> 01:36:25.819 not a perfect person. I would go out with Brazilian 1933 01:36:25.890 --> 01:36:28.710 friends drinking and that's definitely a no-no. 1934 01:36:30.470 --> 01:36:33.529 And– Any religion that tries to keep you from Hendricks. 1935 01:36:34.069 --> 01:36:34.770 Yeah, yeah. 1936 01:36:34.850 --> 01:36:36.569 It can't be a real religion. 1937 01:36:36.609 --> 01:36:39.020 My dad said to me when I first became a Christian, 1938 01:36:39.060 --> 01:36:42.479 he was the epitome of an atheist and he's He said, 1939 01:36:42.529 --> 01:36:46.619 the one thing about religions is they're always trying to 1940 01:36:46.659 --> 01:36:49.659 beat their own system. They're always trying to find an 1941 01:36:49.819 --> 01:36:52.520 exception so they don't have to do the unpleasant things 1942 01:36:52.600 --> 01:36:55.979 that religion tells them they need to do. And I thought, oh, 1943 01:36:56.000 --> 01:36:59.399 you don't know anything. You don't know anything about religion. 1944 01:36:59.420 --> 01:37:01.539 You've never been in part of a church. But it's 1945 01:37:01.600 --> 01:37:05.819 not entirely false. People are always trying to make– it's 1946 01:37:05.859 --> 01:37:10.310 like another expression that comes to mind when you're If 1947 01:37:10.350 --> 01:37:12.529 you see somebody who says they're a believer and now 1948 01:37:12.569 --> 01:37:14.329 they start doing things you don't think they should do, 1949 01:37:14.970 --> 01:37:17.710 there are two reactions you could have. One is justice 1950 01:37:18.109 --> 01:37:21.329 and one is mercy. And everybody wants to give justice 1951 01:37:21.569 --> 01:37:26.060 and get mercy for their beliefs and for their transgressions. 1952 01:37:27.800 --> 01:37:31.399 And so I was giving myself mercy and my wife 1953 01:37:31.439 --> 01:37:34.239 was giving me justice. But in the end, I realized 1954 01:37:34.939 --> 01:37:37.079 I'm not going to be bound by these rules anymore. 1955 01:37:37.430 --> 01:37:39.189 I'm just going to live my life according to my 1956 01:37:39.229 --> 01:37:41.909 best lights and according to the best decisions, and I'm 1957 01:37:41.930 --> 01:37:43.829 not going to let this book tell me anymore. The 1958 01:37:43.909 --> 01:37:46.020 ironic thing is, you know, I graduated number one in 1959 01:37:46.060 --> 01:37:47.640 my class at a Bible school, so I know the 1960 01:37:47.680 --> 01:37:50.880 Bible really well. And when people try to reconvert me, 1961 01:37:50.899 --> 01:37:53.119 I've had many Christians try to reconvert me. I said, 1962 01:37:53.880 --> 01:37:55.619 that's not going to work, you know, because I know 1963 01:37:55.640 --> 01:37:57.720 the Bible probably better than you do, so you're not 1964 01:37:57.739 --> 01:37:59.939 going to give me a verse I don't know. I said, 1965 01:38:00.479 --> 01:38:02.319 I'm not telling you you're wrong, and I'm not even 1966 01:38:02.359 --> 01:38:04.579 telling you your interpretation is wrong. I'm just saying it 1967 01:38:04.600 --> 01:38:07.039 doesn't work for me, and I can't pretend that it does. 1968 01:38:08.939 --> 01:38:14.960 It's got to be weird to have your beliefs confronted 1969 01:38:15.060 --> 01:38:18.520 by a group of people where as you're learning their language, 1970 01:38:19.369 --> 01:38:24.250 you're realizing that this moral framework and the scaffolding that 1971 01:38:24.270 --> 01:38:28.109 you've only attributed to Christianity and you think that it's 1972 01:38:28.329 --> 01:38:31.739 just Christianity and religion that makes people good people. And 1973 01:38:31.979 --> 01:38:33.819 then here's people that don't have any God. 1974 01:38:34.239 --> 01:38:34.439 Right. 1975 01:38:35.520 --> 01:38:35.659 Yeah. 1976 01:38:35.689 --> 01:38:37.390 So like, you know, you're in a big storm. The 1977 01:38:37.430 --> 01:38:40.869 Amazon has storms in the rainy season. So somebody's house 1978 01:38:40.909 --> 01:38:43.850 blows over because their houses, they're hunter gatherers and they're 1979 01:38:43.869 --> 01:38:46.619 semi nomadic. So they don't build the best houses. So 1980 01:38:46.720 --> 01:38:49.800 it's pouring rain and somebody's house blows over and they're 1981 01:38:49.840 --> 01:38:52.640 just stuck there in the rain. What is their reaction? 1982 01:38:52.960 --> 01:38:55.880 They start laughing like it's the funniest thing that ever happened. 1983 01:38:56.390 --> 01:38:58.569 And they will go off into other people's huts and 1984 01:38:58.609 --> 01:39:00.390 sleep on the ground or get near the fire or 1985 01:39:00.430 --> 01:39:02.750 they might come to my house, that's very common, and 1986 01:39:02.850 --> 01:39:04.250 want to sleep with me. And then the next day 1987 01:39:04.289 --> 01:39:08.430 they'll rebuild it. There's nothing except for fear of immediate 1988 01:39:08.510 --> 01:39:11.670 threat from the outside or from animals that gets them 1989 01:39:12.050 --> 01:39:14.869 to lose their cool. And when they do lose their cool, 1990 01:39:16.000 --> 01:39:20.600 It's not really losing their cool. It is calculated defense. 1991 01:39:21.560 --> 01:39:24.909 They know how to take care of themselves. When I 1992 01:39:24.949 --> 01:39:27.689 mentioned to this guy that they would kill him, I said, 1993 01:39:27.710 --> 01:39:29.649 they kill for a living. Don't forget that. That's how 1994 01:39:29.689 --> 01:39:33.310 they make their living. Every man there, every boy here 1995 01:39:33.720 --> 01:39:36.760 could shoot you through the eye at 50 yards with 1996 01:39:36.819 --> 01:39:39.060 one of those arrows. They're not going to miss. If 1997 01:39:39.079 --> 01:39:42.619 they decide to kill you or me, we're dead. So 1998 01:39:42.979 --> 01:39:45.619 they don't because they make a difference between killing out 1999 01:39:45.640 --> 01:39:49.819 of necessity and killing to murder. But if they think 2000 01:39:49.859 --> 01:39:51.439 they have to defend their family, you're dead. 2001 01:39:51.920 --> 01:39:55.979 But their culture doesn't encourage squabbles. Like they just– they're easygoing. 2002 01:39:56.050 --> 01:39:56.810 They take everything. 2003 01:39:57.489 --> 01:40:00.750 The biggest– if there's a concept of sin among the pitaha, 2004 01:40:00.909 --> 01:40:03.829 it is anger. You don't raise your voice in anger. 2005 01:40:03.909 --> 01:40:07.970 You don't hit another pitaha in anger. I saw a 2006 01:40:08.010 --> 01:40:10.890 guy get drunk. When they get alcohol, they get drunk. 2007 01:40:11.449 --> 01:40:13.550 and he took a shotgun that he had gotten from 2008 01:40:13.590 --> 01:40:16.810 a Brazilian, and he shot a dog that belonged to 2009 01:40:17.029 --> 01:40:21.270 his brother. And his brother runs up to the dog, 2010 01:40:21.289 --> 01:40:23.670 and he's just sobbing because they love their dogs, and 2011 01:40:23.710 --> 01:40:26.470 he's just crying that his dog's dead. And I went 2012 01:40:26.510 --> 01:40:27.869 up to him, and I thought, oh, God, there's going 2013 01:40:27.890 --> 01:40:29.529 to be some violence here. I got to get ready 2014 01:40:29.569 --> 01:40:31.510 for this. And I said, what are you going to do? 2015 01:40:31.569 --> 01:40:34.210 He said, what do you mean? I said, are you 2016 01:40:34.229 --> 01:40:36.270 going to do anything to your brother? He shot your dog. 2017 01:40:36.350 --> 01:40:38.850 He said, I don't do anything to my brother. He's 2018 01:40:38.890 --> 01:40:40.789 my brother. He shouldn't have shot my dog, but he's 2019 01:40:40.829 --> 01:40:43.329 drunk and his head's not working. You know, I miss 2020 01:40:43.369 --> 01:40:45.270 my dog. I love my dog, but I love my brother. 2021 01:40:45.289 --> 01:40:47.649 I'm not going to hurt my brother. So they just 2022 01:40:47.689 --> 01:40:48.529 don't react that way. 2023 01:40:48.939 --> 01:40:51.020 So do they have punishment for crimes? 2024 01:40:52.319 --> 01:40:55.720 They have punishment if it threatens the survival of the village. 2025 01:40:55.840 --> 01:40:58.920 So there was one young man, a teenager, and I 2026 01:40:58.979 --> 01:41:02.399 talk about him in, um, in both my book, don't 2027 01:41:02.460 --> 01:41:04.159 sleep through our snakes. And in the new one that's 2028 01:41:04.199 --> 01:41:08.460 coming out next year, born of the river, um, who 2029 01:41:08.500 --> 01:41:12.220 was paid in alcohol and a new shotgun to kill 2030 01:41:12.840 --> 01:41:17.739 somebody who was living up the river, who wasn't a pitaha, 2031 01:41:17.979 --> 01:41:21.859 living on the same river. And he killed him. And 2032 01:41:21.899 --> 01:41:25.569 the pitaha saw this as an existential threat to the 2033 01:41:25.609 --> 01:41:28.119 whole community because they knew that the police could come up. 2034 01:41:28.470 --> 01:41:30.770 They knew that soldiers could come up. They knew that 2035 01:41:31.369 --> 01:41:34.710 many pitaha could be killed if this wasn't handled. So 2036 01:41:34.869 --> 01:41:36.409 they didn't hurt him, but they kicked him out of 2037 01:41:36.430 --> 01:41:37.789 the village. He had to live on his own. And 2038 01:41:37.829 --> 01:41:41.260 he died about two months later. He was dead. It's 2039 01:41:41.300 --> 01:41:42.739 hard to live on your own in the middle of 2040 01:41:42.760 --> 01:41:45.399 the jungle with no community and nobody who has anything 2041 01:41:45.439 --> 01:41:49.439 to do with you. Just shun. Wow. So that's the 2042 01:41:49.479 --> 01:41:51.640 worst punishment they have. Banishment. Banishment. 2043 01:41:52.819 --> 01:41:56.180 Banishment in the jungle is crazy. Yeah. What did they 2044 01:41:56.220 --> 01:41:58.189 give him to survive? Was it like you when you 2045 01:41:58.229 --> 01:42:00.449 were learning? He got nothing. Nothing. 2046 01:42:00.550 --> 01:42:03.090 Yeah, get out. He could take what he had. But 2047 01:42:03.210 --> 01:42:05.109 nobody gave him anything else. So he had a bow 2048 01:42:05.130 --> 01:42:06.970 and arrow, no food, no clothes. 2049 01:42:07.250 --> 01:42:07.949 How did he die? 2050 01:42:09.979 --> 01:42:12.319 Well, that I don't know because I just know that 2051 01:42:12.380 --> 01:42:15.500 when I came– I would ask about him and then 2052 01:42:15.520 --> 01:42:18.880 they said, oh, he's dead. So there's two possibilities. He died, 2053 01:42:19.199 --> 01:42:22.279 naturally death, which I think is probably what happened, or 2054 01:42:22.319 --> 01:42:22.989 somebody killed him. 2055 01:42:23.689 --> 01:42:25.279 And then changed their name. I didn't do it. 2056 01:42:25.470 --> 01:42:29.510 Yeah, yeah. That could have easily happened because. 2057 01:42:29.229 --> 01:42:31.289 The change of the name gag is awesome. 2058 01:42:31.840 --> 01:42:34.460 Everybody up there is violent. You see Brazilians coming up 2059 01:42:34.500 --> 01:42:37.739 in these boats. Many of them are like pirates. I mean, 2060 01:42:37.760 --> 01:42:40.819 they don't practice piracy now. Some of them do. But 2061 01:42:40.899 --> 01:42:43.539 you go on a boat with these guys, and these 2062 01:42:43.600 --> 01:42:46.220 are some tough-looking guys. They've got scars on their faces 2063 01:42:46.279 --> 01:42:48.800 and scars on their– these are knife fights. These are 2064 01:42:48.840 --> 01:42:54.380 guys who– like I got really mad at somebody once, 2065 01:42:55.159 --> 01:42:57.479 and I mentioned to another Brazilian. I said, if he 2066 01:42:57.500 --> 01:42:59.020 keeps doing that, I'm going to punch him in the face. 2067 01:42:59.060 --> 01:43:01.250 And he says– If you punch him in the face, 2068 01:43:01.289 --> 01:43:03.890 he's going to kill you. He'll either get a knife 2069 01:43:03.970 --> 01:43:05.770 or he'll get a gun. So if you decide you're 2070 01:43:05.789 --> 01:43:07.689 going to hit somebody, you better be armed because they're 2071 01:43:07.710 --> 01:43:09.350 going to come at you with whatever weapon they can 2072 01:43:09.380 --> 01:43:09.859 get their hands on. 2073 01:43:09.850 --> 01:43:11.220 You really thought that you were just going to be 2074 01:43:11.239 --> 01:43:11.840 able to punch him? 2075 01:43:13.199 --> 01:43:16.260 I was just talking, but I obviously didn't have a 2076 01:43:16.279 --> 01:43:18.720 lot of– my dad liked to fight a lot. 2077 01:43:18.920 --> 01:43:22.079 Were you guys drunk at the time when you were 2078 01:43:22.100 --> 01:43:24.399 doing this? Oh, no. 2079 01:43:24.479 --> 01:43:26.840 I wasn't drunk. This guy was drunk and he was 2080 01:43:27.350 --> 01:43:29.970 pushing and he was– giving my daughters, who by that 2081 01:43:30.010 --> 01:43:33.770 time were pretty little blonde teenagers, a hard time. And 2082 01:43:33.789 --> 01:43:37.489 I told him to get away. And he wanted to fight. 2083 01:43:38.250 --> 01:43:41.250 And I got it calmed down, but I thought, you know, 2084 01:43:41.289 --> 01:43:42.810 if he keeps trying, I'm going to punch him in 2085 01:43:42.829 --> 01:43:45.569 the face. And I told this guy that, and he said, 2086 01:43:45.590 --> 01:43:47.529 you don't do that out here. Unless you're willing to 2087 01:43:47.569 --> 01:43:50.470 kill him right now, don't do that. Because he's not 2088 01:43:50.510 --> 01:43:52.970 going to fight you fair. He's going to come at 2089 01:43:53.010 --> 01:43:54.949 you when you're not expecting it, and you're going to die. 2090 01:43:55.939 --> 01:43:56.060 So. 2091 01:43:56.960 --> 01:44:00.399 This is– it's just a different concept. So avoiding violence 2092 01:44:00.810 --> 01:44:03.329 has lots of reasons to be done. 2093 01:44:04.729 --> 01:44:08.010 I agree with that at all times. Yeah. I think 2094 01:44:08.050 --> 01:44:09.850 people should constantly avoid violence. 2095 01:44:10.390 --> 01:44:12.850 I completely agree too and the PETA has shown you that. 2096 01:44:12.890 --> 01:44:16.340 These are people who are much better at violence than 2097 01:44:16.939 --> 01:44:20.140 most people in this country without guns. 2098 01:44:20.760 --> 01:44:21.680 And they avoid it at all costs. 2099 01:44:21.699 --> 01:44:23.159 And they avoid it at all costs. 2100 01:44:23.220 --> 01:44:23.420 Yeah. 2101 01:44:23.619 --> 01:44:23.739 Wise. 2102 01:44:23.760 --> 01:44:23.920 Wise. 2103 01:44:24.510 --> 01:44:25.329 Yeah, very wise. 2104 01:44:25.829 --> 01:44:28.329 What did you think when you were just looking at 2105 01:44:28.390 --> 01:44:32.029 the framework that they live by that these people don't 2106 01:44:32.069 --> 01:44:36.109 have a god, that they don't have like someone watching over, 2107 01:44:36.210 --> 01:44:38.590 making sure they're doing the right thing all the time 2108 01:44:38.689 --> 01:44:42.909 or this punishment of being burning forever in hell? None 2109 01:44:42.939 --> 01:44:44.060 of that is motivating them. 2110 01:44:44.399 --> 01:44:46.920 No. And I also thought that they would be afraid 2111 01:44:46.939 --> 01:44:50.779 of death. They're not. I thought they would be afraid 2112 01:44:50.819 --> 01:44:54.979 of the unknown. They're not. They're willing to learn. I 2113 01:44:55.020 --> 01:44:58.279 sit outside on the riverbank with them, and they point 2114 01:44:58.340 --> 01:45:02.449 out satellites going overhead because they know the sky so 2115 01:45:02.510 --> 01:45:04.609 well that they say, what's that? And I look, and 2116 01:45:04.630 --> 01:45:07.609 it's like, must be a satellite. I said, it's like 2117 01:45:07.649 --> 01:45:09.810 a radio thing because they have radio. I mean, they 2118 01:45:09.850 --> 01:45:13.689 don't have radios, but I have radio. And they said, well, 2119 01:45:13.710 --> 01:45:16.399 who put that up there? I said, I don't know. 2120 01:45:16.859 --> 01:45:20.939 I said, Americans, I think, and they said, You know 2121 01:45:20.979 --> 01:45:22.220 how to do that? I said, no, I don't know 2122 01:45:22.239 --> 01:45:24.000 how to do that. So they said some other Americans 2123 01:45:24.039 --> 01:45:25.560 know how to do that. I said, yeah, I don't 2124 01:45:25.579 --> 01:45:29.239 know how to do that. But they're very conscious of 2125 01:45:29.279 --> 01:45:33.100 their environment. Right. And they're very curious and they want 2126 01:45:33.119 --> 01:45:35.409 to learn these things. But if I told them that 2127 01:45:35.449 --> 01:45:37.430 God put it up there, they wouldn't pay attention. 2128 01:45:37.850 --> 01:45:42.170 Now, they have these spirits that we talked about earlier 2129 01:45:42.390 --> 01:45:47.010 where they believe a thing embodies a spirit. Like it 2130 01:45:47.050 --> 01:45:49.729 could be like a jaguar embodies a spirit. Yes, exactly. 2131 01:45:50.840 --> 01:45:53.560 So they have some spirit. So that's a spirit we 2132 01:45:53.600 --> 01:45:55.840 haven't talked about yet. So they have this spirit, Igagai, 2133 01:45:56.399 --> 01:46:00.489 which they believe– so they might see a man and 2134 01:46:00.510 --> 01:46:02.390 then they might see a jaguar and then they say, 2135 01:46:02.409 --> 01:46:04.789 that must be the same thing. This man became a 2136 01:46:04.829 --> 01:46:08.149 jaguar or the jaguar became a man. And this is 2137 01:46:08.189 --> 01:46:13.319 a belief that is in fact shape-shifting. It's not an 2138 01:46:13.380 --> 01:46:16.619 uncommon belief in the Amazon among even Brazilians that live there. 2139 01:46:17.420 --> 01:46:21.210 So– One time I got up in the morning and 2140 01:46:21.289 --> 01:46:23.729 everybody was yelling and pointing at the beach on the 2141 01:46:23.770 --> 01:46:27.770 other side. And I said, what are we looking at? 2142 01:46:28.050 --> 01:46:30.670 They said, can't you see it? I said, I don't 2143 01:46:30.710 --> 01:46:34.149 see anything. And they said, that's Igagai. And I didn't 2144 01:46:34.210 --> 01:46:38.489 see anything. Then later, a few nights later, somebody said, 2145 01:46:38.710 --> 01:46:41.409 we've seen Igagai. It's dark. It's night. And the guy 2146 01:46:41.449 --> 01:46:43.289 wakes me up. He says, we've seen Igagai. He's not 2147 01:46:43.350 --> 01:46:45.989 far behind your house. Would you come with us? Because 2148 01:46:46.020 --> 01:46:48.670 we know you're not afraid of him. And I failed 2149 01:46:48.689 --> 01:46:51.630 for that. And so we go out there and then 2150 01:46:51.670 --> 01:46:54.819 I turn around and they're not by me. Because Igagai 2151 01:46:54.880 --> 01:46:57.939 can also refer to the jaguar shape. So there's a 2152 01:46:57.960 --> 01:47:00.779 jaguar out there. And I just won't go walking out 2153 01:47:00.800 --> 01:47:03.180 there with a machete. And then I realized they're not 2154 01:47:03.220 --> 01:47:05.220 with me. And I go back and they said, did 2155 01:47:05.239 --> 01:47:06.899 you see it? I said, no, I didn't see anything. 2156 01:47:08.149 --> 01:47:13.369 But if they see a jaguar, they believe that it 2157 01:47:13.449 --> 01:47:16.189 could be a jaguar or it could be Igagai. 2158 01:47:17.079 --> 01:47:19.619 But when they were seeing this Igagai and you couldn't 2159 01:47:19.680 --> 01:47:20.939 see anything, they were seeing it. 2160 01:47:21.779 --> 01:47:27.279 Yes. And I was looking for a human-looking creature. But 2161 01:47:27.859 --> 01:47:31.180 it's very possible that there was a jaguar just inside 2162 01:47:31.220 --> 01:47:32.220 the forest. 2163 01:47:31.920 --> 01:47:33.300 That I didn't see. But they could see it and 2164 01:47:33.340 --> 01:47:33.819 you couldn't. 2165 01:47:34.399 --> 01:47:36.920 Yeah, because– well, yeah. But if you walk around with 2166 01:47:36.939 --> 01:47:38.859 them in the jungle, you find that they can see 2167 01:47:38.899 --> 01:47:41.189 a lot of things you can't see. So once I 2168 01:47:41.229 --> 01:47:43.520 was walking with a guy down a path and he said, oh, 2169 01:47:43.689 --> 01:47:46.529 don't step on that snake. It's a bushmaster. And I said, what? 2170 01:47:47.270 --> 01:47:49.069 And I'm looking down. I'm looking at the path. I 2171 01:47:49.090 --> 01:47:52.670 don't see anything. And I said, what snake? And he 2172 01:47:52.710 --> 01:47:55.600 takes his bow and he shoots. And the arrow starts 2173 01:47:56.060 --> 01:47:58.079 flocking around like that. And he pulls it up. And 2174 01:47:58.100 --> 01:47:59.800 there's a Bushmaster at the end. He said, that one. 2175 01:48:00.340 --> 01:48:02.960 Don't step on that one. And I didn't see it. 2176 01:48:03.100 --> 01:48:07.460 And I've almost put my hand on snakes. I don't 2177 01:48:07.500 --> 01:48:11.619 know why I'm still alive. Because it's like I'm a 2178 01:48:12.340 --> 01:48:15.920 special needs person. They have to watch out for me 2179 01:48:15.939 --> 01:48:18.199 when I'm in the jungle. Because It takes a lot 2180 01:48:18.239 --> 01:48:20.640 of skill to be able to see these things Just 2181 01:48:20.659 --> 01:48:22.539 like when I take them to the city for like 2182 01:48:22.699 --> 01:48:26.699 medical work, they get totally lost. They can't– it's hard 2183 01:48:26.720 --> 01:48:28.420 for them to understand how I can find my way 2184 01:48:28.460 --> 01:48:33.170 around the city because the cues that I'm using are 2185 01:48:33.229 --> 01:48:34.810 totally different than the things they're used to. 2186 01:48:35.329 --> 01:48:38.550 So this Igagai, this thing that they said they saw, 2187 01:48:38.630 --> 01:48:41.270 they could have just been seeing an animal and saying 2188 01:48:41.489 --> 01:48:44.520 it was Igagai and agreeing that it was a spirit. 2189 01:48:44.859 --> 01:48:45.920 And that's not. 2190 01:48:45.739 --> 01:48:49.000 Like they're seeing a spirit that you're not seeing. Did 2191 01:48:49.020 --> 01:48:51.960 you ever take that into consideration that they can see 2192 01:48:52.000 --> 01:48:52.800 things you can't see? 2193 01:48:52.979 --> 01:48:55.420 Yes, that is another possibility. And I definitely took that. 2194 01:48:55.720 --> 01:48:58.239 In fact, for the first several years before I had 2195 01:48:58.300 --> 01:49:02.550 really investigated the different shape shifting of Igagai, I thought 2196 01:49:02.569 --> 01:49:05.039 that's all it could mean. They were seeing something. And 2197 01:49:05.119 --> 01:49:06.850 I couldn't see it. They were all seeing it. 2198 01:49:06.880 --> 01:49:10.260 So you took that into consideration that maybe they have 2199 01:49:10.319 --> 01:49:12.100 a sense that you don't have? Yes. 2200 01:49:12.520 --> 01:49:16.569 And it's clear that they have senses in the jungle. 2201 01:49:16.609 --> 01:49:18.289 They're able to sense things that I cannot. 2202 01:49:18.569 --> 01:49:18.989 Like how? 2203 01:49:20.010 --> 01:49:26.430 Well, like I say, they've grown up learning. So let's 2204 01:49:26.470 --> 01:49:28.289 say that you see a branch move in a tree. 2205 01:49:29.489 --> 01:49:32.890 Was that the wind? Was that a monkey moving? Was 2206 01:49:32.930 --> 01:49:35.140 that a snake up in the tree? What was it? 2207 01:49:36.310 --> 01:49:36.689 I don't know. 2208 01:49:36.930 --> 01:49:39.989 I barely noticed that the branches make moving. But they 2209 01:49:40.029 --> 01:49:42.659 know not only that it's moving, but exactly what caused it. 2210 01:49:43.029 --> 01:49:45.550 I can see bubbles coming out of the water from 2211 01:49:45.609 --> 01:49:49.550 the river. They're just bubbles to me. But to them, 2212 01:49:49.810 --> 01:49:55.569 they represent either a rock underneath or an alligator or 2213 01:49:55.670 --> 01:49:58.470 some other creature that's under the water. And they can 2214 01:49:58.489 --> 01:50:01.760 tell by the bubbles. But I can't. So they've learned to... 2215 01:50:02.520 --> 01:50:06.159 interpret their world in a way that I can't. 2216 01:50:06.560 --> 01:50:08.859 So it's not that they don't have senses that you, 2217 01:50:09.520 --> 01:50:11.340 not that they have senses that you don't have, but 2218 01:50:11.399 --> 01:50:13.000 that they have pattern recognition. 2219 01:50:13.840 --> 01:50:18.079 That's the way I would put it. But again, you 2220 01:50:18.100 --> 01:50:22.779 would need to do some sort of psychological testing and 2221 01:50:22.859 --> 01:50:25.600 much more controlled conditions than I've ever been able to 2222 01:50:25.659 --> 01:50:29.649 do to sort those things out. But my view now 2223 01:50:29.789 --> 01:50:33.500 is that they simply have the ability to recognize and, 2224 01:50:34.239 --> 01:50:37.479 and perceive things that they've grown up with that I 2225 01:50:37.539 --> 01:50:38.279 miss entirely. 2226 01:50:39.539 --> 01:50:45.079 And this spirit thing, does it always embody a creature 2227 01:50:45.159 --> 01:50:48.600 that they're, that they're, that's common like a Jaguar or 2228 01:50:48.699 --> 01:50:51.970 does it sometimes take on another form? 2229 01:50:54.189 --> 01:50:57.770 It can take these, these, um, entities that I've talked about. 2230 01:50:58.710 --> 01:51:06.079 So there's another one, um, um, I, which has long teeth. 2231 01:51:07.039 --> 01:51:10.050 And so they see these different creatures. One's naked, talks 2232 01:51:10.090 --> 01:51:16.090 in a high voice. And so they're putting experiences they 2233 01:51:16.170 --> 01:51:20.119 can't explain into the shapes of these entities that they 2234 01:51:20.180 --> 01:51:23.840 can explain. So just like us, we see so many 2235 01:51:23.880 --> 01:51:26.100 things in the world we don't understand. That's what science 2236 01:51:26.140 --> 01:51:30.119 is all about. So we create theoretical entities to be 2237 01:51:30.199 --> 01:51:33.840 able to explain those observations that we otherwise have no 2238 01:51:33.920 --> 01:51:39.739 explanation for. So in a sense, these separate entities are 2239 01:51:39.770 --> 01:51:41.909 a primitive form. I shouldn't even use the word primitive. 2240 01:51:41.930 --> 01:51:45.010 They're a form of science given what they have. They're 2241 01:51:45.489 --> 01:51:48.810 reducing the unexplained to the explainable. 2242 01:51:49.510 --> 01:51:53.750 And their audit of the jungle is limited to the 2243 01:51:53.869 --> 01:51:57.369 places that they've traveled. Right. So their version of the 2244 01:51:57.449 --> 01:52:01.390 world is entirely limited to the language they possess. Is 2245 01:52:01.449 --> 01:52:02.090 it written at all? 2246 01:52:03.010 --> 01:52:05.109 I developed a writing system for them, yes. 2247 01:52:05.130 --> 01:52:05.949 But before you know. 2248 01:52:06.229 --> 01:52:06.949 Before you know. 2249 01:52:06.970 --> 01:52:11.729 So non-written language, verbal language with no historical database to 2250 01:52:11.770 --> 01:52:12.850 draw from. Right. 2251 01:52:13.590 --> 01:52:16.210 But they actually get some really good skills out of this. 2252 01:52:16.250 --> 01:52:18.840 So I took a guy to the nearest town, a 2253 01:52:19.310 --> 01:52:22.039 big town, Porto Velho. It's the capital of a Brazilian state. 2254 01:52:22.909 --> 01:52:25.970 because he had cirrhosis of the liver, however he got that. 2255 01:52:26.689 --> 01:52:28.390 And I took him to the hospital. First, we went 2256 01:52:28.430 --> 01:52:31.409 to my house that I had in that city on 2257 01:52:31.449 --> 01:52:34.569 the missionary compound. He had never been out of the 2258 01:52:34.590 --> 01:52:37.170 jungle before in his life. So we go there and 2259 01:52:37.250 --> 01:52:38.869 we have lunch. And I said, now it's time to 2260 01:52:38.890 --> 01:52:40.710 go to the hospital. So I take him to the 2261 01:52:40.750 --> 01:52:42.689 hospital and he says, I don't want to stay here. 2262 01:52:43.210 --> 01:52:45.310 I said, the doctors say you have to stay here 2263 01:52:45.350 --> 01:52:47.409 so they can make you feel better. And so then 2264 01:52:47.470 --> 01:52:49.529 I drive off after I spent a couple of hours 2265 01:52:49.550 --> 01:52:54.989 with him. And, um, The next morning, about 6 a.m., 2266 01:52:55.489 --> 01:52:57.970 there's this knocking on my door. So this is 30 2267 01:52:57.970 --> 01:53:01.199 miles away. The hospital is 30 miles away. And he's 2268 01:53:01.260 --> 01:53:03.899 standing there wearing a hospital gown with no underwear or 2269 01:53:03.939 --> 01:53:07.420 anything on. And I said, how did you find my house? 2270 01:53:08.000 --> 01:53:10.890 He said, well, I just walked here. I said, but 2271 01:53:10.899 --> 01:53:12.310 how did you know how to walk here? Well, I 2272 01:53:12.329 --> 01:53:14.850 saw it yesterday. But all he had to do was 2273 01:53:14.890 --> 01:53:18.869 get the river where the river is and then mentally 2274 01:53:18.909 --> 01:53:22.810 compute where we're at. So Many experiments have shown that 2275 01:53:22.850 --> 01:53:25.699 people who don't have right and left, front and back, 2276 01:53:25.760 --> 01:53:28.859 but use absolute directions like up river, down river, to 2277 01:53:28.880 --> 01:53:32.479 the jungle, away from the jungle, are better at finding 2278 01:53:32.520 --> 01:53:35.479 their way in new places than we are. You know, 2279 01:53:35.520 --> 01:53:37.739 I can tell you turn north and you might know 2280 01:53:37.770 --> 01:53:39.930 what I'm talking about. For the average person, I say 2281 01:53:40.430 --> 01:53:42.130 turn north. If your life depends on it, you don't 2282 01:53:42.149 --> 01:53:45.550 know which way to turn. But they would know. And 2283 01:53:45.609 --> 01:53:48.630 so that gives them a better sense of a map 2284 01:53:49.050 --> 01:53:49.619 of where they're at. 2285 01:53:50.000 --> 01:53:51.560 So do they have a word for north? 2286 01:53:52.789 --> 01:53:56.170 No, they only use upriver. So the first thing they 2287 01:53:56.210 --> 01:53:57.750 have to do, the first thing he did when we 2288 01:53:57.789 --> 01:54:00.989 got him out to town was, where's the river? And 2289 01:54:01.050 --> 01:54:03.270 I showed him the river. And now he knew where 2290 01:54:03.310 --> 01:54:07.760 everything was. Because he got the river, hence he's got 2291 01:54:07.779 --> 01:54:09.619 my house. Now he knows where everything is. 2292 01:54:09.619 --> 01:54:11.180 30 miles away. 2293 01:54:11.399 --> 01:54:12.319 Yeah, 30 miles away. 2294 01:54:12.819 --> 01:54:14.420 But doesn't the river wind? 2295 01:54:14.699 --> 01:54:17.289 Yes, but they know how rivers work. And they can 2296 01:54:17.310 --> 01:54:19.149 tell by the direction which way it's flowing. And when 2297 01:54:19.189 --> 01:54:20.909 he looks at it, he knows which way is upriver 2298 01:54:20.949 --> 01:54:22.930 and downriver based on the way the water is flowing. 2299 01:54:23.630 --> 01:54:26.289 And he walked out barefoot with nothing but a hospital 2300 01:54:26.329 --> 01:54:29.939 gown on, 30 kilometers. And so he left at night 2301 01:54:30.020 --> 01:54:31.340 and he got there first thing in the morning. 2302 01:54:31.560 --> 01:54:31.960 Wow. 2303 01:54:32.180 --> 01:54:34.020 And I said, well, we have to go back. He said, 2304 01:54:34.159 --> 01:54:36.659 I am not going back. I said, well, the doctor 2305 01:54:36.699 --> 01:54:38.600 says you'll die if you don't go back. He says, well, 2306 01:54:38.619 --> 01:54:40.220 I'm going to die then because I'm not going back. 2307 01:54:40.699 --> 01:54:42.300 He said, I would rather go back and die with 2308 01:54:42.340 --> 01:54:44.760 my people. And so I took him back and a 2309 01:54:44.779 --> 01:54:45.859 few days later he was dead. 2310 01:54:47.229 --> 01:54:47.869 Was he a drinker? 2311 01:54:48.789 --> 01:54:51.890 He had been, yeah. There was a time before I 2312 01:54:51.970 --> 01:54:56.310 helped the Indian agency demarcate their reservation so it could 2313 01:54:56.329 --> 01:54:59.600 be controlled that boats came up and down all the 2314 01:54:59.649 --> 01:55:04.180 time when the Brazil nuts were falling and when there 2315 01:55:04.199 --> 01:55:07.239 were other jungle products like latex and sorva, which is 2316 01:55:07.279 --> 01:55:09.500 a product used to make chewing gum and all sorts 2317 01:55:09.520 --> 01:55:12.699 of other things, and copaiba, which is used for suntan lotion. 2318 01:55:12.739 --> 01:55:15.000 So the Brazilian boats would come up. and trade for 2319 01:55:15.020 --> 01:55:17.460 all these things, and they always traded with whiskey because 2320 01:55:17.479 --> 01:55:21.920 that's the– I mean sugarcane rum, cachaca, which is the 2321 01:55:21.960 --> 01:55:25.039 cheapest thing. It's $ 0. 30 a bottle. It was a lot 2322 01:55:25.079 --> 01:55:26.720 easier to give them that, and the pitahal liked it. 2323 01:55:27.579 --> 01:55:28.979 I told him one time, I said, this stuff is 2324 01:55:29.000 --> 01:55:31.680 really cheap. He said, not for us it isn't. We 2325 01:55:31.699 --> 01:55:35.979 don't otherwise get it, and we like it. So they 2326 01:55:36.020 --> 01:55:36.520 like to drink. 2327 01:55:36.619 --> 01:55:40.600 Did they understand the concept of health, of the consequences 2328 01:55:40.659 --> 01:55:41.539 of drinking alcohol? 2329 01:55:41.800 --> 01:55:44.489 No, because if you're a hunter-gatherer, and you're not used 2330 01:55:44.529 --> 01:55:47.649 to having something in constant supply, you don't have to 2331 01:55:47.689 --> 01:55:50.569 worry about it. But once it comes in constant supply, 2332 01:55:50.590 --> 01:55:52.750 then you do have to worry about it. And when 2333 01:55:52.789 --> 01:55:55.430 these guys keep coming up, giving, leaving this stuff off, 2334 01:55:55.829 --> 01:55:58.649 then it becomes a serious health problem. Whereas before it 2335 01:55:58.680 --> 01:56:00.380 was like, I got drunk six months ago. 2336 01:56:00.399 --> 01:56:00.939 Right. 2337 01:56:01.119 --> 01:56:02.119 You know, it's not a big deal. 2338 01:56:02.460 --> 01:56:06.380 Right. So once it became commonplace. Yeah. And do they 2339 01:56:06.399 --> 01:56:10.560 adjust their behavior based on people dying of like liver sclerosis? 2340 01:56:10.760 --> 01:56:14.180 Not that I've ever seen. They, they don't, I can 2341 01:56:14.220 --> 01:56:16.520 tell them until I'm blue in the face that it's 2342 01:56:16.560 --> 01:56:19.720 the alcohol that's doing this or the tobacco that's doing this. 2343 01:56:21.140 --> 01:56:23.260 Why would they believe me? They know a lot of 2344 01:56:23.300 --> 01:56:25.590 guys who have drunk a lot of whiskey and they 2345 01:56:25.630 --> 01:56:28.699 don't have it. So these couple of guys got it. 2346 01:56:29.430 --> 01:56:33.170 How do I know that's what caused it? So they 2347 01:56:33.189 --> 01:56:36.409 don't take my word on truth. It's very childlike. It 2348 01:56:36.479 --> 01:56:40.000 is childlike in the sense that children learn by evidence. 2349 01:56:40.800 --> 01:56:44.819 And if children don't have evidence for something– I mean– 2350 01:56:44.869 --> 01:56:46.649 and it takes a while for the evidence to start 2351 01:56:46.689 --> 01:56:48.710 to sink in. You've got to repeat the experiment. 2352 01:56:49.109 --> 01:56:52.050 Right. But you would imagine that if they're intelligent people, 2353 01:56:52.149 --> 01:56:57.729 you could explain this consumption of alcohol when done infrequently, 2354 01:56:57.789 --> 01:57:01.340 it's OK. But the everyday consumption of alcohol because you 2355 01:57:01.380 --> 01:57:03.960 have an endless supply of it now is becoming a 2356 01:57:04.000 --> 01:57:04.699 real problem. 2357 01:57:04.979 --> 01:57:06.819 That's a very good point and I have brought that 2358 01:57:06.880 --> 01:57:10.380 up with them before and they say, yeah, we know 2359 01:57:10.399 --> 01:57:11.880 a lot of Brazilians that drink and they don't get 2360 01:57:11.920 --> 01:57:15.800 that sickness. So– They come right up. It's like I 2361 01:57:15.819 --> 01:57:19.369 could tell you that the COVID vaccine is really good 2362 01:57:19.409 --> 01:57:20.909 for you. And you can say, well, I know a 2363 01:57:20.909 --> 01:57:22.130 lot of people didn't get it, and they didn't get 2364 01:57:22.149 --> 01:57:25.970 COVID either. They weren't vaccinated. They didn't get COVID. So 2365 01:57:25.989 --> 01:57:29.869 you have to look at the statistics. And even there, 2366 01:57:30.050 --> 01:57:30.890 it's hard. 2367 01:57:31.569 --> 01:57:34.310 They just don't seem very concerned with dying anyway. 2368 01:57:35.029 --> 01:57:38.909 They're not. They don't want to die right now, but 2369 01:57:39.399 --> 01:57:41.039 it happens, and they're not worried about it. 2370 01:57:42.279 --> 01:57:46.060 What do they think– do they have a purpose for life? 2371 01:57:46.500 --> 01:57:49.680 Do they have a thing they worship at all? 2372 01:57:50.819 --> 01:57:55.659 No, they don't worship anything. The community is everything. You 2373 01:57:55.720 --> 01:57:58.890 make a contribution to the community while you're alive, and 2374 01:57:59.229 --> 01:58:00.010 that's your purpose. 2375 01:58:00.729 --> 01:58:01.149 That's it. 2376 01:58:01.329 --> 01:58:04.970 That's it. And it doesn't take any thought. You don't 2377 01:58:04.989 --> 01:58:07.090 need somebody to give a lesson. This is what our 2378 01:58:07.130 --> 01:58:09.970 purpose is, folks. You just see everybody living, and that's 2379 01:58:10.069 --> 01:58:10.550 how you live. 2380 01:58:10.569 --> 01:58:14.380 Isn't it odd that that's not the primary way people 2381 01:58:14.439 --> 01:58:18.899 live that makes you so happy? It's interesting because even me, 2382 01:58:19.159 --> 01:58:21.479 I'm hearing this. I'm like, God, it's so appealing. But 2383 01:58:21.600 --> 01:58:23.979 part of me is like, I'm not fucking living like that. 2384 01:58:24.100 --> 01:58:26.659 Nobody wants to live like that. It just seems too crazy, 2385 01:58:26.739 --> 01:58:29.720 too difficult, too daunting. I don't want to. get bit 2386 01:58:29.760 --> 01:58:31.899 by a snake and have my bones exposed? 2387 01:58:32.180 --> 01:58:34.199 Well, I often think this when I talk to people 2388 01:58:34.260 --> 01:58:37.720 who are extreme ecologists who think we need to not 2389 01:58:37.760 --> 01:58:40.020 affect the environment. And I'm thinking, yeah, well, go live 2390 01:58:40.060 --> 01:58:42.649 with the pitaha. You're not going to last three days 2391 01:58:42.689 --> 01:58:46.689 there with them. Maybe a few days more, but not much. 2392 01:58:47.890 --> 01:58:52.529 So it is very appealing. And I live there and 2393 01:58:52.569 --> 01:58:54.409 enjoyed it. But while I was living there, I had 2394 01:58:54.449 --> 01:58:56.899 things they didn't have access to. So I I can't 2395 01:58:57.060 --> 01:58:58.810 fairly say that I live just like them. 2396 01:58:58.899 --> 01:58:59.739 And you could always leave. 2397 01:59:00.050 --> 01:59:02.310 And I can always leave, yeah. I mean I can 2398 01:59:02.729 --> 01:59:06.069 get in my motorboat and take off. Or in the 2399 01:59:06.109 --> 01:59:08.989 worst case, I can get on my two-way radio or 2400 01:59:09.069 --> 01:59:10.869 satellite phone and call for help. 2401 01:59:11.170 --> 01:59:13.529 Did you ever think about just saying fuck it, stay 2402 01:59:13.550 --> 01:59:14.850 there forever? Yeah. 2403 01:59:15.189 --> 01:59:17.050 In the early years, I did think about it. I 2404 01:59:17.090 --> 01:59:20.189 thought about not pursuing any kind of graduate degree, not 2405 01:59:20.229 --> 01:59:23.970 worrying about ever coming back to the US. And I 2406 01:59:24.029 --> 01:59:26.600 was really loving it there. But then I realized– My 2407 01:59:26.659 --> 01:59:31.689 kids wanted a wider experience, and I didn't have the 2408 01:59:31.739 --> 01:59:32.829 right to deprive them of that. 2409 01:59:32.850 --> 01:59:34.189 So you think if you were single, you would have 2410 01:59:34.210 --> 01:59:34.850 just integrated? 2411 01:59:35.609 --> 01:59:38.430 It's very possible. Yeah, I mean, that would have been 2412 01:59:38.489 --> 01:59:41.210 easy to do, although I would have had to become 2413 01:59:41.289 --> 01:59:45.449 much better at outdoor skills than I ever was. I mean, 2414 01:59:45.470 --> 01:59:48.489 I would not stand up to a pitaha's standards of 2415 01:59:48.569 --> 01:59:51.510 hunting and fishing, and no woman would have married me 2416 01:59:51.869 --> 01:59:53.520 because they would have starved to death. 2417 01:59:53.529 --> 01:59:56.470 Right. Did you ever get better at those things? 2418 01:59:57.289 --> 02:00:02.989 Not really. No? For one thing, I like to hunt. 2419 02:00:03.109 --> 02:00:05.449 I started hunting when I was like 10 years old, 2420 02:00:05.510 --> 02:00:09.090 pheasant hunting, dove hunting. And so I do enjoy that, 2421 02:00:09.710 --> 02:00:14.170 but I've never given it the time to become really 2422 02:00:14.210 --> 02:00:16.149 good at it. Now, if I were abandoned in the jungle, 2423 02:00:16.350 --> 02:00:19.300 I probably would, but it would take me a long time. 2424 02:00:19.699 --> 02:00:22.039 These guys are using bows and arrows from the time 2425 02:00:22.060 --> 02:00:24.460 they're two years old. So by the time they get 2426 02:00:24.970 --> 02:00:29.060 To be teenagers, they're perfect. They are absolutely unmatchless in 2427 02:00:29.079 --> 02:00:32.199 their skill. And I've done little archery contests before to 2428 02:00:32.239 --> 02:00:35.880 see how good they are. And it's just astounding. So 2429 02:00:36.340 --> 02:00:39.140 I would have to spend many years practicing to get 2430 02:00:39.180 --> 02:00:41.659 as good as they are. And then in the meantime, 2431 02:00:41.689 --> 02:00:43.329 I would starve to death because they're not going to 2432 02:00:43.369 --> 02:00:43.710 feed me. 2433 02:00:45.649 --> 02:00:46.949 How are they making their bows? 2434 02:00:48.869 --> 02:00:50.989 There's a couple of different kinds of wood that they use. 2435 02:00:51.109 --> 02:00:55.020 But there's one that is a bright red wood. And 2436 02:00:55.079 --> 02:01:04.140 it's called piranha food because it grows near the edge 2437 02:01:04.159 --> 02:01:07.140 of the river and it drops flowers off the tree 2438 02:01:07.199 --> 02:01:09.699 into the river. And the piranhas love to eat those flowers. 2439 02:01:10.600 --> 02:01:12.220 So if you see a lot of those flowers in 2440 02:01:12.239 --> 02:01:15.380 the water, probably not good to swim there. But they 2441 02:01:15.420 --> 02:01:17.979 take a section of the bark, a big section. It 2442 02:01:18.020 --> 02:01:22.550 might be like four inches by four inches or six inches. 2443 02:01:23.619 --> 02:01:28.439 And it's just a hard piece, maybe eight feet long. 2444 02:01:29.119 --> 02:01:32.100 And they bring that back, and they have a special tool. 2445 02:01:33.010 --> 02:01:35.170 And it could be wood or bone, or if they 2446 02:01:35.189 --> 02:01:37.470 have a machete, they use that. And they just start 2447 02:01:37.529 --> 02:01:40.750 shaping it until finally they get a bow that's probably 2448 02:01:42.949 --> 02:01:45.880 two inches wide and an inch and a half thick. 2449 02:01:46.729 --> 02:01:50.220 And it's taller than they are. It's about seven feet long. 2450 02:01:50.979 --> 02:01:51.079 And. 2451 02:01:52.840 --> 02:01:54.920 Then they get the bark from a tree, a certain 2452 02:01:54.939 --> 02:01:58.119 kind of tree, and they give that– and they get 2453 02:01:58.159 --> 02:02:01.430 it off in strands. And so a man, a brother 2454 02:02:01.659 --> 02:02:04.550 or a father or a husband will give it to 2455 02:02:04.810 --> 02:02:08.350 their closest woman relative and she takes those strands and 2456 02:02:08.409 --> 02:02:12.050 she makes a bowstring. So the bow represents man and 2457 02:02:12.090 --> 02:02:14.789 woman working together. A man can make the wood. A 2458 02:02:14.850 --> 02:02:17.680 woman makes the string. Then they get the arrows. A 2459 02:02:17.720 --> 02:02:19.779 man gets the feathers. A man gets the shaft. The 2460 02:02:19.819 --> 02:02:23.039 woman makes the strings that tie everything on. So she's 2461 02:02:23.079 --> 02:02:27.550 the glue. And once you get that, that thing– yeah, 2462 02:02:27.689 --> 02:02:29.909 there's one right there, this guy. 2463 02:02:31.430 --> 02:02:33.550 That's a pretty– And those are the arrows, really long arrows? 2464 02:02:33.569 --> 02:02:36.310 Yeah, yeah. Those are the arrows. And these are fishing arrows, 2465 02:02:36.350 --> 02:02:39.300 so they're much longer. But actually, they're not both fishing arrows. 2466 02:02:39.380 --> 02:02:40.880 One of them is just a regular arrow. So their 2467 02:02:40.939 --> 02:02:44.720 arrows are quite long. And that thing is a very 2468 02:02:44.779 --> 02:02:47.000 powerful bow. And you can see the thickness of the 2469 02:02:47.039 --> 02:02:53.689 string there. So– Yeah, and that's the bow. 2470 02:02:54.770 --> 02:02:55.789 They eat a lot of monkeys? 2471 02:02:56.329 --> 02:02:57.489 Yeah, they eat a lot of monkeys. 2472 02:02:57.510 --> 02:02:58.529 Isn't that weird? 2473 02:03:00.140 --> 02:03:04.859 No, I asked them once. I said, do monkeys look 2474 02:03:04.880 --> 02:03:08.039 like people? And they say, no, why would you ask that? 2475 02:03:08.140 --> 02:03:11.079 I said, they look like people to me. And he said, no, no, 2476 02:03:11.119 --> 02:03:14.619 they're covered in hair. You're not covered in hair. So 2477 02:03:14.689 --> 02:03:19.289 I went to the Trans-Amazon Road. I was traveling out 2478 02:03:19.409 --> 02:03:24.039 all by myself, hitchhiking, and I stayed with this Brazilian. Um, 2479 02:03:24.600 --> 02:03:26.399 and I said, do you have any cold water? He said, 2480 02:03:26.560 --> 02:03:30.000 and he had a kerosene, um, refrigerator. And so I 2481 02:03:30.039 --> 02:03:31.979 went over and I opened it to get his cold water. 2482 02:03:32.380 --> 02:03:33.920 And at the bottom, it looked like there were like 2483 02:03:34.000 --> 02:03:37.859 four dead babies. And I'm thinking, Oh my God, what 2484 02:03:37.899 --> 02:03:39.939 is that? I said, what is this? He said, Oh, 2485 02:03:39.979 --> 02:03:42.739 it's just some monkeys. I skinned him, you know, and 2486 02:03:43.680 --> 02:03:47.670 a monkey that's been skinned does look a lot more human. Um, and, uh, 2487 02:03:47.750 --> 02:03:51.829 but nobody thinks twice about it, you know? Um, I said, 2488 02:03:52.109 --> 02:03:55.140 are the monkeys more like us or are they more 2489 02:03:55.180 --> 02:03:57.680 like dogs? Oh, they're like dogs. They're much more like 2490 02:03:57.720 --> 02:03:59.979 dogs than they are like us. So they just don't 2491 02:04:00.000 --> 02:04:00.659 see the problem. 2492 02:04:01.279 --> 02:04:01.819 It's just food. 2493 02:04:02.119 --> 02:04:06.159 Yeah, it's just food. And so, you know, and they 2494 02:04:06.239 --> 02:04:09.060 love– the favorite part of any animal is the brains. 2495 02:04:09.979 --> 02:04:11.930 And one reason the brains are so good is because 2496 02:04:12.310 --> 02:04:15.689 brains have a lot of saturated fat. It's a great 2497 02:04:15.770 --> 02:04:19.149 source of saturated fat. They eat monkey brains? Yeah, they 2498 02:04:19.170 --> 02:04:21.569 eat monkey brains. Okay. The favorite thing, I was talking 2499 02:04:21.609 --> 02:04:25.430 to a woman one time and I was making a sandwich. 2500 02:04:25.489 --> 02:04:27.949 I had brought in some lunch meat and bread. I 2501 02:04:27.970 --> 02:04:29.569 had just gotten there. It was my first day there. 2502 02:04:29.609 --> 02:04:31.069 And so I had a little bit enough to make 2503 02:04:31.109 --> 02:04:34.960 a sandwich for that night. And I'm squirting mustard. And, 2504 02:04:34.979 --> 02:04:36.079 you know, when you get to the end of the 2505 02:04:36.119 --> 02:04:39.159 mustard bottle and you're squeezing, it makes a sound like 2506 02:04:39.640 --> 02:04:45.640 somebody who's got diarrhea. And she says, what is that 2507 02:04:46.000 --> 02:04:49.600 bird shit stuff you're eating? And I said, Well, it's good. 2508 02:04:49.659 --> 02:04:50.859 It's mustard. Do you want to try some? 2509 02:04:51.060 --> 02:04:51.680 Oh, no. 2510 02:04:52.359 --> 02:04:55.500 And she said, look at this bird shit. He's eating 2511 02:04:55.560 --> 02:04:58.960 bird shit. And then I look at her and she's 2512 02:04:59.020 --> 02:05:02.619 eating the brains out of a rat. And he's got 2513 02:05:02.659 --> 02:05:05.890 this rat head and she's sucking the brains out. And 2514 02:05:06.810 --> 02:05:10.050 they're cooked, of course. But she's sucking the– and I'm 2515 02:05:10.069 --> 02:05:14.529 thinking this is a great example for an introductory class 2516 02:05:14.590 --> 02:05:19.449 in anthropology. How different we perceive things. That's great to her. 2517 02:05:19.510 --> 02:05:21.670 This is great to me. But it grosses the other 2518 02:05:21.750 --> 02:05:22.029 one out. 2519 02:05:22.229 --> 02:05:25.770 That's wild. Mustard is disgusting. Rat brain is great. Yeah. 2520 02:05:26.149 --> 02:05:30.810 And isn't there an issue with eating primate brain tissue? 2521 02:05:31.510 --> 02:05:32.850 Can you get prion diseases? 2522 02:05:33.029 --> 02:05:36.149 Well, there are diseases that they discovered in New Guinea 2523 02:05:36.220 --> 02:05:40.640 from cannibals who were eating human brains. Right. But I'm 2524 02:05:40.680 --> 02:05:43.380 not aware of any diseases that are passed by eating 2525 02:05:43.460 --> 02:05:47.100 monkey brains or other kinds of brains. They'll eat any 2526 02:05:47.180 --> 02:05:47.899 animal's brains. 2527 02:05:49.369 --> 02:05:52.050 So the prion diseases that you get are from animals 2528 02:05:52.149 --> 02:05:55.470 eating the same animal, right? Like mad cow disease is 2529 02:05:55.529 --> 02:05:58.949 because they serve cows' literal brain and neural tissue from 2530 02:05:59.170 --> 02:06:00.210 other cows. Right. 2531 02:06:00.770 --> 02:06:03.680 So I'm not an expert on that, but I do 2532 02:06:03.699 --> 02:06:05.460 know that I've never seen a case of them getting 2533 02:06:05.640 --> 02:06:08.760 disease from that. And the superficial reading that I've done 2534 02:06:08.840 --> 02:06:11.779 on it suggests that humans get it from eating human brains. 2535 02:06:12.319 --> 02:06:17.279 Interesting. So they can eat deer brains, rat brains, no problem. Right. 2536 02:06:17.359 --> 02:06:20.100 So– The favorite part of any animal is the head. 2537 02:06:20.770 --> 02:06:22.979 So if they bring me a fish, they'll give me 2538 02:06:23.020 --> 02:06:26.159 a fish. They like to trade fish for canned meat 2539 02:06:26.239 --> 02:06:30.960 because canned meat keeps. But I like fish cheeks but 2540 02:06:31.899 --> 02:06:34.380 my wife hated the fish heads. She didn't want the 2541 02:06:34.420 --> 02:06:37.579 fish heads around. So they would be happy to keep 2542 02:06:37.600 --> 02:06:39.199 the fish heads and they just make a big stew 2543 02:06:39.220 --> 02:06:40.840 of fish heads and they eat the brains and the 2544 02:06:40.920 --> 02:06:43.180 eyeballs and everything. Those are really tasty bits. 2545 02:06:44.060 --> 02:06:45.760 Can probably bridge the nutrients. 2546 02:06:46.050 --> 02:06:48.109 Yeah, they are rich in nutrients. They know what they're doing. 2547 02:06:48.149 --> 02:06:49.710 They love all the internal organs. 2548 02:06:50.090 --> 02:06:52.590 Yeah, it's so weird how we've moved away from all 2549 02:06:52.630 --> 02:06:55.289 that stuff. Right. I mean, that's one of the things 2550 02:06:55.310 --> 02:06:57.560 that happens with wolves. The alpha in the pack is 2551 02:06:57.569 --> 02:06:58.539 the one that eats the liver. 2552 02:06:59.460 --> 02:06:59.699 Right. 2553 02:07:00.199 --> 02:07:02.640 They know something's going on. There's a lot of nutrients 2554 02:07:02.680 --> 02:07:05.199 in these organ meats, and we've moved away from that 2555 02:07:05.220 --> 02:07:07.920 in a very strange way. Right. People are disgusted by 2556 02:07:07.960 --> 02:07:09.359 the idea of liver. Yeah. 2557 02:07:09.760 --> 02:07:11.439 So, you know, you go to some– if you go 2558 02:07:11.479 --> 02:07:13.859 to northern Brazil and you go to one of these churrascarias, 2559 02:07:13.920 --> 02:07:19.520 Brazilian steak restaurants– Love those. If you're in an everyday person's, 2560 02:07:19.880 --> 02:07:22.470 you're going to get a lot of heart and you're 2561 02:07:22.479 --> 02:07:23.609 going to get liver. 2562 02:07:23.829 --> 02:07:24.210 Kidney. 2563 02:07:24.430 --> 02:07:29.609 Kidney. You're going to get all that stuff. So that 2564 02:07:29.649 --> 02:07:31.489 is stuff they love to eat. Sure. 2565 02:07:31.510 --> 02:07:36.489 A lot of cultures. Mexicans, menudo. Menudo, it's got tripe 2566 02:07:36.550 --> 02:07:38.680 in it and organ meat. Right. 2567 02:07:38.810 --> 02:07:44.000 And my brother-in-law, deceased now, but he was Mexican and 2568 02:07:44.430 --> 02:07:47.350 That's the first thing he insisted that my sister learn 2569 02:07:47.390 --> 02:07:50.079 how to make in terms of true Mexican food was menudo. 2570 02:07:50.640 --> 02:07:53.479 And he wanted that every Saturday and she loved to 2571 02:07:53.539 --> 02:07:56.789 make it for him. So then she made this pozole 2572 02:07:57.329 --> 02:08:01.529 with cow feet in it. Whoa. And got the hooves 2573 02:08:01.590 --> 02:08:04.310 and everything in the pozole. But cooks all day. 2574 02:08:04.340 --> 02:08:07.060 I remember when I was a kid, pickled pig's feet 2575 02:08:07.100 --> 02:08:07.800 was a big thing. 2576 02:08:07.899 --> 02:08:11.859 Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so internal organs are really good. 2577 02:08:11.880 --> 02:08:15.939 You know that a Brazilian churrascaria is authentic if they 2578 02:08:16.010 --> 02:08:16.850 serve chicken hearts. 2579 02:08:16.899 --> 02:08:17.130 Right. 2580 02:08:17.390 --> 02:08:19.399 You know. And so if I go to one and 2581 02:08:19.420 --> 02:08:21.479 they don't have chicken hearts, I'm quite disappointed. 2582 02:08:21.500 --> 02:08:25.130 It's westernized. Yeah, yeah. They're still great, but, yeah, I 2583 02:08:25.149 --> 02:08:27.369 know what you mean. Yeah. Yeah, I went to one 2584 02:08:27.409 --> 02:08:28.949 when I was in Brazil. It was awesome. 2585 02:08:29.250 --> 02:08:31.710 Oh, yeah. It's Brazilian fast food. 2586 02:08:31.949 --> 02:08:34.590 Yeah, and it is fast, and it's amazing food too. 2587 02:08:34.770 --> 02:08:36.399 It's like they know how to eat. If you're in 2588 02:08:36.439 --> 02:08:38.460 a rush, a churrascari is the best place to eat. 2589 02:08:38.699 --> 02:08:38.880 Yeah. 2590 02:08:38.899 --> 02:08:41.319 Because you sit down, you flip that cart over to green, 2591 02:08:41.340 --> 02:08:43.680 the food keeps– 20 minutes later, you're stuffed. Exactly. 2592 02:08:43.720 --> 02:08:47.729 Exactly. Exactly, and you ate much more nutrition than having 2593 02:08:47.770 --> 02:08:49.630 a McDonald's Big Mac or something like that. 2594 02:08:49.649 --> 02:08:52.430 Sure, and it's all you can eat. Yeah. Yeah, it's awesome. 2595 02:08:52.850 --> 02:08:55.409 I used to come out of the village and go 2596 02:08:55.479 --> 02:08:56.659 straight to one of those. I've been out of the 2597 02:08:56.680 --> 02:08:59.039 village for six months, and I was really hungry, and 2598 02:08:59.060 --> 02:09:01.539 I was coming out on my motorcycle, and the first 2599 02:09:01.600 --> 02:09:03.659 one I saw, I pulled over, and I ate until 2600 02:09:03.680 --> 02:09:04.380 I could barely move. 2601 02:09:04.619 --> 02:09:06.460 Did you eat monkey when you were in the jungle? 2602 02:09:06.579 --> 02:09:09.350 Yeah, yeah. I didn't eat the brains, but they didn't 2603 02:09:09.399 --> 02:09:11.949 offer them either because that's the best part. 2604 02:09:12.590 --> 02:09:14.149 Would you have if they offered you some? 2605 02:09:14.550 --> 02:09:16.289 Yeah, I would have. I would have. I've tried a 2606 02:09:16.329 --> 02:09:18.989 lot of stuff there. And when I was doing my 2607 02:09:19.029 --> 02:09:22.369 field experience in southern Mexico in Chiapas, I spent some 2608 02:09:22.409 --> 02:09:27.350 time with the Celtales, the Celta people, descendants of the Mayas. And, 2609 02:09:28.130 --> 02:09:31.010 you know, I ate this stuff they chew up and 2610 02:09:31.069 --> 02:09:32.470 spit out and let ferment. 2611 02:09:32.750 --> 02:09:36.289 Oh, I've heard of that. That's a beverage. Is that 2612 02:09:36.369 --> 02:09:37.930 like an alcoholic beverage? Yeah. 2613 02:09:38.149 --> 02:09:39.529 And so I was trying to fit in. And so 2614 02:09:39.550 --> 02:09:43.079 they gave me just a little bit. And they said, 2615 02:09:43.100 --> 02:09:44.649 what did you think? And I said, I'm trying to 2616 02:09:44.689 --> 02:09:47.430 be this cool guy. And I said, I loved it. 2617 02:09:47.829 --> 02:09:49.949 I hated it. But I said I loved it. And 2618 02:09:50.050 --> 02:09:51.109 so they bring me a big bowl. 2619 02:09:52.409 --> 02:09:54.510 And so then– Drinking people's spit. 2620 02:09:55.050 --> 02:09:59.829 That night I was up with things coming out of 2621 02:09:59.869 --> 02:10:03.510 both ends all night long. And the next morning my 2622 02:10:03.550 --> 02:10:05.770 blood pressure was 60 over 40 and I had to 2623 02:10:05.810 --> 02:10:08.569 be flown out. They had to get me on a 2624 02:10:08.630 --> 02:10:11.050 mule and get me out to the nearest airstrip and 2625 02:10:11.149 --> 02:10:14.880 out and– But I did my bit. I was accepted 2626 02:10:14.949 --> 02:10:17.739 as a great gringo for eating this stuff, you know, 2627 02:10:17.779 --> 02:10:18.369 for drinking it. 2628 02:10:18.460 --> 02:10:19.180 What happened to you? 2629 02:10:20.439 --> 02:10:25.289 Well, whatever it was, my body didn't like it. 2630 02:10:26.039 --> 02:10:28.840 So is it just like the bacteria in it, you think? 2631 02:10:29.380 --> 02:10:31.539 Probably. I think it had to be that because it 2632 02:10:31.560 --> 02:10:33.460 didn't gross me out. I didn't like the taste of it, 2633 02:10:33.500 --> 02:10:35.380 but it wasn't grossing me out. And it was a 2634 02:10:35.399 --> 02:10:37.960 happy time. We had little ribbons and stuff. We were 2635 02:10:38.000 --> 02:10:40.159 having a festa and I was sitting with the men 2636 02:10:40.220 --> 02:10:41.180 at the table. 2637 02:10:40.899 --> 02:10:43.550 And And their gut bacteria just knows how to handle it. 2638 02:10:44.149 --> 02:10:47.170 There you go. There you go. 2639 02:10:47.189 --> 02:10:53.270 It says that the human saliva creates the fermentation. 2640 02:10:53.289 --> 02:10:54.109 Yeah, that's right. 2641 02:10:54.350 --> 02:10:57.689 Come on, people. Isn't there a better way to get drunk? 2642 02:10:58.159 --> 02:10:59.060 Good Lord. 2643 02:10:59.199 --> 02:11:01.880 If you want to get drunk and you want it 2644 02:11:01.899 --> 02:11:03.399 bad enough, there it is. 2645 02:11:03.539 --> 02:11:05.340 And I bet that stuff you're not going to drink 2646 02:11:05.399 --> 02:11:08.340 every day because it's so disgusting. It's not going to 2647 02:11:08.359 --> 02:11:09.100 become a problem. 2648 02:11:09.319 --> 02:11:12.779 Once it's fermented, Nobody really cares, you know, who's around 2649 02:11:12.819 --> 02:11:13.359 that culture. 2650 02:11:13.520 --> 02:11:13.859 Boy. 2651 02:11:14.119 --> 02:11:14.779 You know, but. 2652 02:11:16.060 --> 02:11:17.079 What does a monkey taste like? 2653 02:11:18.260 --> 02:11:21.399 Well, there again, I don't have a vocabulary to describe 2654 02:11:21.439 --> 02:11:25.069 all these meats. It's a tough meat, but I pressure it. 2655 02:11:25.659 --> 02:11:26.239 I put the. 2656 02:11:26.260 --> 02:11:27.680 A crock pot? 2657 02:11:27.800 --> 02:11:29.680 Yeah, I put it in a pressure cooker over a fire. 2658 02:11:29.720 --> 02:11:31.770 I take in a pressure cooker, you know, not an 2659 02:11:31.819 --> 02:11:34.159 electric pressure cooker, obviously. One of these pressure cookers you 2660 02:11:34.189 --> 02:11:36.229 can set on top of the fire. And after I 2661 02:11:36.270 --> 02:11:39.130 pressure it, it's falling off the bone and I take 2662 02:11:39.170 --> 02:11:40.949 the meat off. And I throw it in a bowl 2663 02:11:41.010 --> 02:11:43.029 and I put some manioc meal on top of that. 2664 02:11:43.430 --> 02:11:46.109 And then I cover it in Tabasco. And it's great. 2665 02:11:46.470 --> 02:11:48.050 It's very filling and it tastes really good. 2666 02:11:48.369 --> 02:11:50.800 Wow. Did you feel weird eating a monkey? 2667 02:11:52.840 --> 02:11:55.619 When you see the monkey and you put the little 2668 02:11:55.640 --> 02:11:58.520 monkey body inside the pressure cooker and it looks like 2669 02:11:58.560 --> 02:12:01.260 a baby, it doesn't look too good. But once you 2670 02:12:01.439 --> 02:12:03.319 open up the pressure cooker and it's all cooked and 2671 02:12:03.340 --> 02:12:05.390 the bones are separated from the meat and then it's 2672 02:12:05.449 --> 02:12:08.739 just meat floating in there, you know. And when you're 2673 02:12:08.779 --> 02:12:10.659 out in the jungle and you've been out there long enough, 2674 02:12:11.779 --> 02:12:14.819 just about any kind of meat sounds pretty good. I 2675 02:12:14.859 --> 02:12:18.470 worked with a group called the Wadi. I actually wrote 2676 02:12:18.770 --> 02:12:22.770 a 540-page grammar of their language, co-wrote it. And they 2677 02:12:22.789 --> 02:12:24.689 were cannibals up until 1962. 2678 02:12:24.689 --> 02:12:25.029 Yo. 2679 02:12:26.090 --> 02:12:32.710 And they had two– they had Indo-cannibalism and Exo-cannibalism. Exo-cannibalism 2680 02:12:32.770 --> 02:12:37.220 was eating their enemies and Indo-cannibalism was eating their people. Right. 2681 02:12:37.659 --> 02:12:39.739 So if you die in the village at that time, 2682 02:12:39.800 --> 02:12:45.100 up until 1962, they keep your body. They call all 2683 02:12:45.149 --> 02:12:47.550 the relatives. Your body might sit there in the Amazon 2684 02:12:47.670 --> 02:12:50.750 sun for three days. And your relatives come from all over. 2685 02:12:51.250 --> 02:12:56.720 And then they cook you over a grill. And slowly 2686 02:12:56.859 --> 02:13:00.220 they roast the body. And then they cut it into 2687 02:13:00.279 --> 02:13:03.560 chunks and they eat them with like little toothpicks. And– 2688 02:13:04.149 --> 02:13:06.329 They eat it until everything is gone. They eat the bones. 2689 02:13:06.390 --> 02:13:08.130 They eat the brains. They eat everything. 2690 02:13:08.149 --> 02:13:09.210 They eat human brains. 2691 02:13:09.369 --> 02:13:12.710 Yeah, and the purpose, as best I've been able to 2692 02:13:12.750 --> 02:13:15.310 figure out, anthropologists have tried to answer this, so my 2693 02:13:15.369 --> 02:13:17.720 answer might not be theirs, but it's based on interviews 2694 02:13:17.729 --> 02:13:21.310 with the people, is to give your relatives eternal life 2695 02:13:22.619 --> 02:13:24.420 because they live in you and you're going to live 2696 02:13:24.439 --> 02:13:28.779 in somebody else, so you just continue living. But exocannibalism, 2697 02:13:29.039 --> 02:13:30.850 I kill a guy in warfare. I'm going to eat 2698 02:13:30.869 --> 02:13:32.750 him like an animal. I just chop him up and 2699 02:13:32.829 --> 02:13:34.529 grill him and eat it and throw the bones off 2700 02:13:34.590 --> 02:13:35.229 into the forest. 2701 02:13:35.470 --> 02:13:35.989 Boy. 2702 02:13:36.010 --> 02:13:36.949 So that's totally different. 2703 02:13:37.590 --> 02:13:39.609 Some Native Americans practice that. 2704 02:13:40.050 --> 02:13:41.210 Yeah. 2705 02:13:43.250 --> 02:13:45.720 It's been said. But eating the brain though, wouldn't that– 2706 02:13:45.810 --> 02:13:48.710 what is that disease? What is this called? Jakob Kretzfeld? 2707 02:13:48.909 --> 02:13:49.529 Is that what it's called? 2708 02:13:49.729 --> 02:13:51.609 Yeah, something like that. I should know that. 2709 02:13:52.029 --> 02:13:53.800 But it's mad cow disease essentially. 2710 02:13:53.880 --> 02:13:58.060 It's like that, yeah. So– but they don't eat people 2711 02:13:58.100 --> 02:14:01.739 all the time. They eat dead relatives. And if anybody 2712 02:14:01.760 --> 02:14:04.159 has ever gotten that disease, it's never been registered. 2713 02:14:04.359 --> 02:14:08.300 That's crazy. But I mean even if you're eating dead relatives, 2714 02:14:08.319 --> 02:14:10.560 you eat a dead relative, I would imagine you can 2715 02:14:10.579 --> 02:14:11.579 get prion disease. 2716 02:14:12.229 --> 02:14:15.569 Yeah, but it depends on how many die. There's a 2717 02:14:15.590 --> 02:14:17.670 whole etiquette about it. You're never allowed to say that 2718 02:14:17.970 --> 02:14:20.350 it just tastes really good. For example, you can't say that. 2719 02:14:20.369 --> 02:14:22.970 You can't say delicious. Yeah, you can't say that. Uncle 2720 02:14:22.989 --> 02:14:23.470 Tom is yummy. 2721 02:14:23.550 --> 02:14:25.810 And I've talked to some of the older men who 2722 02:14:25.850 --> 02:14:29.279 have eaten their dead and they say, oh, the The 2723 02:14:29.319 --> 02:14:32.060 babies taste really good, but you can't say that. 2724 02:14:33.300 --> 02:14:35.960 The babies taste really good. It's rough. 2725 02:14:36.779 --> 02:14:42.300 It's like human veal. But the Brazilian government and missionaries 2726 02:14:42.359 --> 02:14:44.340 put a stop to that in 62. 2727 02:14:44.340 --> 02:14:47.640 Good move. Why do they let it sit for three 2728 02:14:47.659 --> 02:14:48.479 days before they cut it? 2729 02:14:48.479 --> 02:14:50.300 Because it takes that long for the relatives to come 2730 02:14:50.800 --> 02:14:52.539 because they might be in other villages. So they've got 2731 02:14:52.560 --> 02:14:54.319 to send runners out to bring the whole family together. 2732 02:14:54.340 --> 02:14:55.939 Doesn't the meat start rotting? Yeah. 2733 02:14:56.159 --> 02:14:58.029 It starts to smell pretty bad. And there are a 2734 02:14:58.029 --> 02:15:00.710 lot of stories about people puking after every bite. 2735 02:15:02.829 --> 02:15:06.050 These are people that can drink that puke beer. Yeah, yeah. Oh, 2736 02:15:06.090 --> 02:15:06.810 my God. 2737 02:15:07.109 --> 02:15:14.350 Yeah. So you realize cultural differences aren't that superficial. 2738 02:15:14.439 --> 02:15:17.739 What's also probably meat is probably extremely valuable to them. 2739 02:15:18.199 --> 02:15:20.279 And they just probably think, look, there's no reason for 2740 02:15:20.300 --> 02:15:22.039 this to go to waste when it can sustain us. 2741 02:15:22.380 --> 02:15:24.720 It would be very interesting to go back in time 2742 02:15:24.779 --> 02:15:28.279 and see how the customs started. They could have started 2743 02:15:28.340 --> 02:15:30.340 out of hunger and then you dress it up with 2744 02:15:30.380 --> 02:15:34.420 some religious beliefs. Or the religious beliefs could have come 2745 02:15:34.479 --> 02:15:37.960 first and you started doing it. But they do have 2746 02:15:38.060 --> 02:15:42.470 oral histories about it. But the oral histories never say 2747 02:15:42.520 --> 02:15:45.210 we were short of meat so we ate Joe. We 2748 02:15:45.250 --> 02:15:50.569 ate our buddy. But they do say we want to 2749 02:15:51.170 --> 02:15:52.890 help them live in us and we will live in 2750 02:15:52.930 --> 02:15:55.210 somebody else. So that's the explanation you get. 2751 02:15:55.529 --> 02:15:56.090 Wow. 2752 02:15:56.329 --> 02:15:56.970 Or that I got. 2753 02:15:57.659 --> 02:16:01.340 Wow. Well, when you got there a few years after. 2754 02:16:02.460 --> 02:16:04.699 Yeah, I didn't start working with them until 1985. 2755 02:16:04.699 --> 02:16:04.939 OK. 2756 02:16:04.960 --> 02:16:07.659 So it was 20 something years. 2757 02:16:07.689 --> 02:16:09.470 But they still had stories about. Oh, yeah. 2758 02:16:09.489 --> 02:16:11.050 They still had a lot of stories about it. And, 2759 02:16:11.689 --> 02:16:14.470 you know, anybody over 30 had had done it. 2760 02:16:15.090 --> 02:16:17.770 Is there any kind of cannibalism that goes on in 2761 02:16:17.789 --> 02:16:18.649 the Amazon still? 2762 02:16:19.840 --> 02:16:23.000 Probably, but none that I know of. But there are 2763 02:16:23.020 --> 02:16:26.239 still some uncontacted tribes there. And there are still tribes 2764 02:16:26.260 --> 02:16:28.779 that behave one way when foreigners are around and another 2765 02:16:28.819 --> 02:16:33.000 way when they're not. I have a friend. She died 2766 02:16:33.040 --> 02:16:35.959 last year, but she was a missionary among those people 2767 02:16:36.579 --> 02:16:41.649 from the 50s. So she remembers the cannibalism. And she 2768 02:16:41.729 --> 02:16:44.569 told me, although some anthropologists deny this, but I think 2769 02:16:44.649 --> 02:16:47.229 she knows them better than any anthropologist who's ever been there, 2770 02:16:48.170 --> 02:16:50.290 that she said, I think when nobody's around, they still 2771 02:16:50.329 --> 02:16:52.629 do that. Yeah. 2772 02:16:53.340 --> 02:16:54.479 I bet they do too. 2773 02:16:54.739 --> 02:16:55.459 They don't have warfare. 2774 02:16:55.479 --> 02:16:57.659 They listen to someone else. They don't have warfare. 2775 02:16:57.899 --> 02:17:00.819 Not anymore. They did. But that's been stopped and they 2776 02:17:00.860 --> 02:17:04.120 have– they're isolated from other groups that they used to 2777 02:17:04.159 --> 02:17:07.549 be enemies with. But there are still some who believe 2778 02:17:07.590 --> 02:17:12.149 the old-time religion. And the old-time religion says, eat your dead. 2779 02:17:14.290 --> 02:17:18.170 So it's quite possible that it happens. But what you 2780 02:17:18.250 --> 02:17:22.370 find is that since the 80s, Most of the groups 2781 02:17:22.409 --> 02:17:25.989 that have regular contact with the outside have undergone a 2782 02:17:26.110 --> 02:17:34.739 very rapid process of enculturation into Brazilian society. So even 2783 02:17:34.799 --> 02:17:37.860 among the Pita Hasnauth in the decade since I was 2784 02:17:37.899 --> 02:17:41.719 there regularly, I see pictures of them because my ex-wife 2785 02:17:41.780 --> 02:17:43.020 still lives right next to them. 2786 02:17:43.510 --> 02:17:43.909 Oh, wow. 2787 02:17:44.069 --> 02:17:47.170 And she sends me short videos and pictures of them 2788 02:17:47.190 --> 02:17:49.950 when they come up to her little wooden shack on 2789 02:17:49.940 --> 02:17:53.399 … on the Trans-Amazon Highway by their river. And they're 2790 02:17:53.440 --> 02:17:57.100 dressing very differently now. And some of them are speaking 2791 02:17:57.180 --> 02:18:00.100 some Portuguese. Not very well, but they're speaking some Portuguese. 2792 02:18:00.120 --> 02:18:02.100 And your ex-wife is still a missionary? 2793 02:18:02.299 --> 02:18:05.729 Yeah, she's still trying to convert them. No conversions. 2794 02:18:06.190 --> 02:18:06.549 Yeah. 2795 02:18:07.069 --> 02:18:08.010 They're not going to convert. 2796 02:18:08.030 --> 02:18:12.360 Boy, you've got to give it up to her for having, like, stick-to-itiveness. 2797 02:18:12.959 --> 02:18:15.319 I mean, that's really determined. 2798 02:18:15.760 --> 02:18:20.379 She is absolutely a New Testament first century Christian in 2799 02:18:20.440 --> 02:18:21.219 terms of her faith. 2800 02:18:21.459 --> 02:18:22.059 Wow. 2801 02:18:22.079 --> 02:18:24.719 And she doesn't deviate, and she's not afraid of anything. 2802 02:18:25.360 --> 02:18:29.500 I mean, we've been in many life-threatening situations, and I 2803 02:18:29.540 --> 02:18:32.559 don't tend to get afraid, and she definitely is not afraid, 2804 02:18:32.639 --> 02:18:33.159 not ever. 2805 02:18:33.780 --> 02:18:36.020 So is that because of her belief that she believes 2806 02:18:36.059 --> 02:18:38.100 that God is looking out for her and if she dies, 2807 02:18:38.139 --> 02:18:39.340 she's going to go to heaven anyway? 2808 02:18:39.579 --> 02:18:44.899 Yeah. The constant– a common refrain among Christian missionaries is 2809 02:18:45.959 --> 02:18:50.489 I'm immortal until my task is done. God will protect 2810 02:18:50.549 --> 02:18:52.170 me until he's done with me. And so if he's 2811 02:18:52.190 --> 02:18:53.729 not done with me, I don't have to worry about it. 2812 02:18:53.729 --> 02:18:54.850 And if he is, great. 2813 02:18:55.629 --> 02:18:58.389 Wow. There's a lot of power in that too. I 2814 02:18:58.510 --> 02:19:01.129 mean how many people just live in this constant state 2815 02:19:01.149 --> 02:19:02.530 of existential angst? 2816 02:19:03.030 --> 02:19:04.920 Yeah. That's something she's never had. 2817 02:19:05.200 --> 02:19:05.680 Wow. 2818 02:19:05.739 --> 02:19:06.680 She doesn't have that. 2819 02:19:06.799 --> 02:19:08.040 There's a lot of value to that. 2820 02:19:08.200 --> 02:19:10.579 It's what attracted me to her so much besides the 2821 02:19:10.600 --> 02:19:13.760 fact that she was really cute. That attracted me to 2822 02:19:13.809 --> 02:19:14.979 her a lot when we first met. 2823 02:19:14.989 --> 02:19:17.190 Were you bummed out when she wanted a divorce because 2824 02:19:17.209 --> 02:19:18.090 you lost your faith? 2825 02:19:18.909 --> 02:19:21.469 Well, by that time, we weren't getting along that well 2826 02:19:21.510 --> 02:19:26.530 because she's very anti... She's not anti-science per se, but 2827 02:19:26.590 --> 02:19:32.399 she's anti- helicopter science. She feels that too many people 2828 02:19:32.440 --> 02:19:36.090 who do studies of indigenous groups and languages, come in 2829 02:19:36.129 --> 02:19:38.629 for a short time, go out and just speak a 2830 02:19:38.670 --> 02:19:41.229 lot of bullshit that nobody's ever going to test. And 2831 02:19:41.270 --> 02:19:43.370 so she hates that. And she's seen it happen with 2832 02:19:43.409 --> 02:19:46.510 the Piraha. I've seen it happen with the Piraha. I've 2833 02:19:46.549 --> 02:19:48.549 seen a couple of anthropologists and linguists go in and 2834 02:19:48.569 --> 02:19:51.430 do doctoral dissertations on them that are like totally ridiculous. 2835 02:19:51.969 --> 02:19:56.069 But if I say something, I'm a gringo and I'm 2836 02:19:56.110 --> 02:19:57.930 jealous because it disagrees with me. 2837 02:19:58.530 --> 02:20:00.790 Do you think that they do that because no one 2838 02:20:00.850 --> 02:20:02.750 is going to check and so they just say, I 2839 02:20:02.950 --> 02:20:04.770 want to just write whatever I want to write? 2840 02:20:05.229 --> 02:20:10.090 That does happen. That definitely happens. It's also because people 2841 02:20:10.149 --> 02:20:12.629 realize– it sounds really good to go study an indigenous 2842 02:20:12.670 --> 02:20:14.889 culture or an indigenous language. When you get there and 2843 02:20:14.909 --> 02:20:17.930 you find out this is so damn hard. I had 2844 02:20:18.030 --> 02:20:21.049 no– I have no words to put in how hard 2845 02:20:21.090 --> 02:20:21.610 this is. 2846 02:20:21.670 --> 02:20:22.370 So they bullshit. 2847 02:20:22.530 --> 02:20:26.639 Yeah, because you want to say to a Piraha, what 2848 02:20:26.690 --> 02:20:29.440 is this? And so how do you ask that? Well, 2849 02:20:30.299 --> 02:20:33.780 the phrase in Pirahas, he go, but where do you 2850 02:20:33.819 --> 02:20:36.719 get that phrase? You can't ask somebody how to ask, 2851 02:20:36.920 --> 02:20:39.329 what is this? Right. If you don't know the language. 2852 02:20:39.760 --> 02:20:42.729 So you have to watch them very carefully and somebody 2853 02:20:42.770 --> 02:20:45.250 might get something new or you might even give them 2854 02:20:45.329 --> 02:20:48.049 something new that they've never seen, hoping somebody is going 2855 02:20:48.069 --> 02:20:50.129 to ask them, what is this? So you can write 2856 02:20:50.170 --> 02:20:51.750 it down and then test it. And that's how I 2857 02:20:51.799 --> 02:20:52.120 got it. 2858 02:20:52.659 --> 02:20:56.280 And so now you're fluent in Pirahas. Yes. So you 2859 02:20:56.319 --> 02:20:58.620 can go and have a conversation with them so you 2860 02:20:58.639 --> 02:21:02.479 can explore some of these more nuanced subjects and do 2861 02:21:02.520 --> 02:21:03.579 it in their language. 2862 02:21:03.799 --> 02:21:04.020 Yes. 2863 02:21:04.440 --> 02:21:06.479 So you can kind of translate things in a way 2864 02:21:06.500 --> 02:21:08.840 that they're going to understand what you're saying. Yes. 2865 02:21:09.260 --> 02:21:11.579 And that's what takes the most practice. So when I 2866 02:21:11.649 --> 02:21:15.729 first translated the Gospel of Mark into Pitaha, I thought 2867 02:21:15.750 --> 02:21:18.469 I had done a marvelous job. And I would read 2868 02:21:18.510 --> 02:21:20.569 bits out to the Pitaha, and they could explain it 2869 02:21:20.610 --> 02:21:22.590 to me, and it seemed like they were understanding it. 2870 02:21:23.950 --> 02:21:27.489 But I used... a grammar that was largely based on English. 2871 02:21:27.530 --> 02:21:29.850 So when I read to them large sections, they were 2872 02:21:29.889 --> 02:21:32.590 totally lost. They couldn't understand it at all. And what 2873 02:21:32.610 --> 02:21:35.190 does that mean? It means I got it wrong. It 2874 02:21:35.250 --> 02:21:37.809 means that I haven't figured out the language as well 2875 02:21:37.850 --> 02:21:40.270 as I thought I did. And that's very humbling when 2876 02:21:40.290 --> 02:21:42.899 you've spent so many years trying to do it. So 2877 02:21:42.940 --> 02:21:46.200 I had to start from the ground up again. And 2878 02:21:46.219 --> 02:21:48.760 these are all, you know, before you can learn a language, 2879 02:21:48.780 --> 02:21:51.719 you have to murder it. And before you can carry 2880 02:21:51.760 --> 02:21:54.799 on a conversation, you just feel like an idiot for years. 2881 02:21:56.170 --> 02:21:59.870 And for one thing, people who go in to do 2882 02:21:59.930 --> 02:22:02.450 a PhD dissertation on a language like this are going 2883 02:22:02.489 --> 02:22:04.870 to take one to two years of their life, and 2884 02:22:04.930 --> 02:22:08.479 that's it. And that's not enough time. It takes a 2885 02:22:08.540 --> 02:22:10.159 year to get fluent in the language. And I know 2886 02:22:10.219 --> 02:22:13.819 many people who've written about many different Amazonian languages who 2887 02:22:13.860 --> 02:22:16.159 can't speak a word of the language or speak very 2888 02:22:16.239 --> 02:22:18.829 little of it. They'll tell people they speak it, but 2889 02:22:19.000 --> 02:22:21.709 you go with them and you realize they don't speak 2890 02:22:21.729 --> 02:22:23.879 it that well. So if you don't speak it that well, 2891 02:22:23.920 --> 02:22:27.639 how can you ask them to distinguish subtle meaning differences? 2892 02:22:28.139 --> 02:22:33.870 You can't. And that means that a lot of this 2893 02:22:33.930 --> 02:22:37.409 kind of field work, which is so vital, is not 2894 02:22:37.469 --> 02:22:39.409 as reliable as we would like to think it is. 2895 02:22:40.149 --> 02:22:44.770 That's unfortunate. Yeah. Especially if a young student is coming 2896 02:22:44.809 --> 02:22:47.879 along and they're interested in pursuing it further and they're 2897 02:22:47.979 --> 02:22:50.700 starting off with some faulty assumptions. Yeah. 2898 02:22:51.280 --> 02:22:54.879 Yes, and the other problem is people learn a theory 2899 02:22:55.399 --> 02:22:59.659 in graduate school, and they take it as their job 2900 02:22:59.700 --> 02:23:02.899 of their dissertation, and this isn't limited to just linguistics 2901 02:23:02.940 --> 02:23:04.780 and anthropology, but they take it as the job of 2902 02:23:04.819 --> 02:23:10.360 their dissertation to support that theory. So, you know, it's 2903 02:23:10.379 --> 02:23:12.600 like Paul Simon says, a man sees what he wants 2904 02:23:12.639 --> 02:23:16.659 to hear and disregards the rest. When you're trying to 2905 02:23:16.680 --> 02:23:21.870 do theoretical research, field research research, shouldn't be that theoretically motivated. 2906 02:23:21.909 --> 02:23:24.670 It should be basically descriptive. And then you can do 2907 02:23:24.709 --> 02:23:27.200 the theory later. But most people bring the theory into it. 2908 02:23:27.989 --> 02:23:34.290 And you can't totally divorce those two. But you see 2909 02:23:34.329 --> 02:23:36.809 a fact. So, for example, I've worked with Pinaha, and 2910 02:23:36.829 --> 02:23:39.750 I'm asking for a certain kind of data. And they 2911 02:23:39.790 --> 02:23:43.610 don't give me what I wanted. And I thought, this 2912 02:23:44.139 --> 02:23:45.860 guy's not giving me what I want. What's wrong with him? 2913 02:23:45.899 --> 02:23:49.219 What am I saying wrong? Is he stupid? And then 2914 02:23:49.760 --> 02:23:52.120 As I learned to speak the language better, I realized, oh, 2915 02:23:52.180 --> 02:23:54.500 he's giving me exactly what I needed and I was 2916 02:23:54.559 --> 02:23:58.059 too stupid to know it. And so that's hard. You're 2917 02:23:58.100 --> 02:24:00.909 the one working for the PhD. He's just a hunter-gatherer 2918 02:24:00.920 --> 02:24:03.010 and it turns out he's at least as smart as 2919 02:24:03.049 --> 02:24:04.930 you are and often he's able to know what you 2920 02:24:04.950 --> 02:24:08.090 need better than you do. And that's another part of 2921 02:24:08.129 --> 02:24:10.629 the humbling experience of doing field research. 2922 02:24:11.629 --> 02:24:15.389 Wow. The amount of commitment that's involved in going as 2923 02:24:15.469 --> 02:24:17.729 deep as you went with this is really crazy. 2924 02:24:18.879 --> 02:24:21.420 Yeah, I give demonstrations, and you can find some on 2925 02:24:21.440 --> 02:24:23.840 the internet, where I take a language that I know 2926 02:24:23.879 --> 02:24:26.940 nothing about, and I switch to Pinaha, which I know 2927 02:24:26.959 --> 02:24:29.780 they know nothing about, and within 20 or 30 minutes, 2928 02:24:30.180 --> 02:24:33.540 I'm able to explain to the audience some basic facts 2929 02:24:33.600 --> 02:24:35.959 about how their grammar works and what their basic vocabulary, 2930 02:24:35.979 --> 02:24:37.879 you know, a lot of basic vocabulary. And I do 2931 02:24:37.920 --> 02:24:39.799 this to linguists. I've done it in front of as 2932 02:24:39.840 --> 02:24:45.379 many as 500 linguists at a time. And then I 2933 02:24:45.440 --> 02:24:47.620 tell them, a lot of people think this is magic, 2934 02:24:47.639 --> 02:24:50.290 this is really cool. I said, What you're seeing here 2935 02:24:50.350 --> 02:24:52.629 is me working for about an hour. Now, you just 2936 02:24:52.670 --> 02:24:55.569 do that every day for two years, and you're in. 2937 02:24:56.850 --> 02:25:00.209 And that's the part. It's intensive. I get a headache 2938 02:25:00.549 --> 02:25:04.469 when I do these demonstrations because my concentration is so hard. And, 2939 02:25:04.510 --> 02:25:09.149 you know, you miss obvious things, and you say bad things, 2940 02:25:09.309 --> 02:25:13.909 and you're just self-correcting all the time. You're just constantly, 2941 02:25:13.930 --> 02:25:15.670 you start off this wide, and you're trying to get 2942 02:25:15.709 --> 02:25:18.329 this narrow, get down to this point of what it 2943 02:25:18.389 --> 02:25:21.809 actually means, And as you work through that, there are 2944 02:25:21.930 --> 02:25:25.510 no shortcuts. There's no shortcut to doing that. And you 2945 02:25:25.549 --> 02:25:27.989 need to be well-trained and you need to be very 2946 02:25:28.030 --> 02:25:29.840 committed and you need to have a little bit of 2947 02:25:29.899 --> 02:25:34.319 talent and work really hard. And when people see how 2948 02:25:35.639 --> 02:25:37.579 easy it looks and then they try it, they realize 2949 02:25:38.579 --> 02:25:41.219 they're seeing me at 20 years down the road from 2950 02:25:41.260 --> 02:25:46.389 when I started. But, yeah, there are methods to use 2951 02:25:46.469 --> 02:25:48.709 to learn a language where there's no language in common. 2952 02:25:48.989 --> 02:25:49.680 But it's got to be. 2953 02:25:50.190 --> 02:25:56.579 Very difficult to achieve a fluent understanding of their language 2954 02:25:57.200 --> 02:25:59.600 and the way you did it from the ground literally 2955 02:25:59.680 --> 02:26:02.700 from starting from what is this how do you say 2956 02:26:02.739 --> 02:26:06.329 that and then remembering it piecing it together and then 2957 02:26:06.370 --> 02:26:08.229 you have to write it down then you're writing it 2958 02:26:08.290 --> 02:26:12.229 down right oh my goodness and then like imagine if 2959 02:26:12.270 --> 02:26:14.290 a guy like you didn't do that like how many 2960 02:26:14.329 --> 02:26:18.000 people are willing to do that especially how many people 2961 02:26:18.020 --> 02:26:22.879 that are you're a linguist. You want to be a 2962 02:26:23.319 --> 02:26:26.500 working intellectual. You don't necessarily want to get into malaria. 2963 02:26:26.920 --> 02:26:28.399 You don't want to get eaten by a jaguar. You 2964 02:26:28.420 --> 02:26:29.680 don't want to live in the jungle. 2965 02:26:31.020 --> 02:26:32.940 So there are people who would like to spend that 2966 02:26:32.979 --> 02:26:38.229 much time, but they don't have the funding. So the 2967 02:26:38.329 --> 02:26:42.250 National Science Foundation and the Brazilian National Science Foundation and 2968 02:26:42.290 --> 02:26:45.809 the British equivalent of the National Science Foundation have all 2969 02:26:45.870 --> 02:26:49.350 funded my research over the years. But the bulk of 2970 02:26:49.420 --> 02:26:52.819 my research was funded by being a missionary. And so 2971 02:26:52.899 --> 02:26:55.340 I had all these years because churches were supporting me. 2972 02:26:55.879 --> 02:26:57.159 But today... But did. 2973 02:26:57.100 --> 02:26:59.190 They ever ask, how come you haven't converted anybody yet? 2974 02:26:59.840 --> 02:27:02.100 Well, they ask me that all the time. I've had people... 2975 02:27:02.219 --> 02:27:05.059 I showed slides of the Pidaha to a church here 2976 02:27:05.100 --> 02:27:10.420 in Texas, in Dallas. And the people started getting up 2977 02:27:10.479 --> 02:27:13.159 and leaving. And I thought they were interested. They gave 2978 02:27:13.219 --> 02:27:15.600 me money to work in these people. And I said, 2979 02:27:15.620 --> 02:27:18.180 what's the problem? And they said... You're no good at all. 2980 02:27:18.700 --> 02:27:20.469 And I said, well, what are you seeing that you 2981 02:27:20.489 --> 02:27:23.569 don't like? They said, these people are naked. And if 2982 02:27:23.610 --> 02:27:25.930 you're a Christian missionary, why haven't you taught them to 2983 02:27:25.950 --> 02:27:29.110 wear clothes? And I said, well, they don't want to 2984 02:27:29.129 --> 02:27:31.489 wear clothes. I said, what in the Bible says you 2985 02:27:31.510 --> 02:27:35.370 have to wear clothes? They said, Adam saw Eve's nakedness 2986 02:27:35.450 --> 02:27:39.030 and they were ashamed of each other. You must wear clothes. 2987 02:27:39.209 --> 02:27:41.629 You're not even teaching. them the basics of Christianity. And 2988 02:27:41.670 --> 02:27:44.299 I thought, you know, I guess I'm not, you know, 2989 02:27:44.350 --> 02:27:46.420 I didn't realize that's not part of the basics of 2990 02:27:46.430 --> 02:27:50.840 Christianity for me. But yeah. How do you tell a 2991 02:27:50.860 --> 02:27:53.579 guy who wears a loincloth that it's three inches too short? 2992 02:27:58.299 --> 02:28:00.540 Something is peeking out there. So it's not– they don't 2993 02:28:00.559 --> 02:28:03.840 wear it for modesty. They wear it to keep from 2994 02:28:03.940 --> 02:28:08.200 sticks getting poked in your penis. And so modesty has 2995 02:28:08.239 --> 02:28:11.520 nothing to do with it. Why would you– to the 2996 02:28:11.600 --> 02:28:14.620 average pitaha, a woman's breast is about as erotic as 2997 02:28:14.659 --> 02:28:18.760 an elbow. You see a woman. She's nursing her baby. 2998 02:28:19.389 --> 02:28:21.770 And then the baby stops nursing and she's still talking 2999 02:28:21.790 --> 02:28:24.270 to you and her tits hanging out. And it doesn't 3000 02:28:24.309 --> 02:28:25.950 mean anything to her. And after a while, it doesn't 3001 02:28:25.969 --> 02:28:27.909 mean anything to you either. You know, what's the big deal? 3002 02:28:28.569 --> 02:28:31.379 And so to get across the idea that it may 3003 02:28:31.420 --> 02:28:35.219 be clothes that's causing this problem instead of going naked, 3004 02:28:35.280 --> 02:28:40.139 which then eliminates the problem of lust. I mean, it's 3005 02:28:40.159 --> 02:28:42.879 a hard concept for some churches, but churches tend to 3006 02:28:42.920 --> 02:28:46.350 get very impatient. But then the National Science Foundation, for example, 3007 02:28:46.389 --> 02:28:48.719 if I say I'm going to go study language X, 3008 02:28:49.250 --> 02:28:52.209 And I need funding for five years. Oh, no, we 3009 02:28:52.250 --> 02:28:55.049 fund those and that's a year's funding. Yeah, but nobody 3010 02:28:55.069 --> 02:28:57.049 who goes out for a year really learns it that well. 3011 02:28:57.469 --> 02:28:59.450 I need to learn it a lot better. Oh, yeah, 3012 02:28:59.469 --> 02:29:01.229 we'll go somewhere else. We're not giving you the money 3013 02:29:01.270 --> 02:29:01.530 for that. 3014 02:29:02.530 --> 02:29:04.930 Oh, that's ridiculous. Are there really a lot of people 3015 02:29:04.950 --> 02:29:07.100 that are willing to do that kind of extensive work? 3016 02:29:07.319 --> 02:29:08.219 I wouldn't say a lot. 3017 02:29:08.600 --> 02:29:10.170 But enough to do it? 3018 02:29:10.500 --> 02:29:17.319 Well, there's 8,000 languages and there's maybe 2,000. 3,000– let's 3019 02:29:17.360 --> 02:29:21.100 say 5,000 linguists in the whole world and only a 3020 02:29:21.319 --> 02:29:23.219 small percentage of them want to do this kind of work. 3021 02:29:23.799 --> 02:29:25.340 The rest of them– most of them want to do 3022 02:29:25.399 --> 02:29:27.219 Chomsky's kind of work where you sit at your desk 3023 02:29:27.639 --> 02:29:30.159 and you say language has this property and it must 3024 02:29:30.340 --> 02:29:33.829 also have this property. And so the rubber is never 3025 02:29:33.889 --> 02:29:37.569 meeting the road. I mean if you can do your 3026 02:29:37.610 --> 02:29:41.270 field research on database– I shouldn't say that because that's 3027 02:29:41.290 --> 02:29:43.530 what my son does. He's also a linguist and he 3028 02:29:43.549 --> 02:29:46.809 grew up in an Indian tribe. And he also did 3029 02:29:46.850 --> 02:29:49.010 a dissertation on another tribe that he learned to speak 3030 02:29:49.030 --> 02:29:52.020 the language. But nowadays he goes through databases and comes 3031 02:29:52.100 --> 02:29:57.180 up with statistical generalizations. And it's pretty interesting. But he'll 3032 02:29:57.219 --> 02:29:58.680 tell me flat out. He said, yeah, I don't want 3033 02:29:58.700 --> 02:30:01.760 to do that fieldwork anymore. That's really demanding even though 3034 02:30:01.780 --> 02:30:04.090 he grew up there. So– and that's the way most 3035 02:30:04.129 --> 02:30:04.569 people are. 3036 02:30:05.110 --> 02:30:10.090 How many more cultures that have completely different languages and 3037 02:30:10.129 --> 02:30:14.829 completely different sets of rules and structure– are out there 3038 02:30:14.899 --> 02:30:15.719 that we're not aware of? 3039 02:30:17.739 --> 02:30:21.340 Well, when I was– back in the 80s, they used 3040 02:30:21.360 --> 02:30:24.639 to say there's about 5,000 languages. So 20 years later, 3041 02:30:24.639 --> 02:30:30.319 21 years later, we're saying– or 31 years later, we're 3042 02:30:30.360 --> 02:30:34.329 saying there are 8,000. Languages die out at the rate 3043 02:30:34.389 --> 02:30:37.930 of about one every two weeks. So they're dying. And 3044 02:30:38.409 --> 02:30:41.149 once they die, we can never recover that information. But 3045 02:30:41.290 --> 02:30:44.930 also languages are being born. On a regular basis because 3046 02:30:45.590 --> 02:30:48.510 you talk like who you talk with. So why are 3047 02:30:48.549 --> 02:30:53.239 Portuguese and Spanish separate languages? Because you've got the Eber 3048 02:30:53.280 --> 02:30:56.159 River and you've got natural divides between– in that part 3049 02:30:56.180 --> 02:30:59.159 of the Iberian Peninsula. And so they stop talking to 3050 02:30:59.200 --> 02:31:01.819 each other and so their speech diverges. That's how Latin 3051 02:31:01.860 --> 02:31:07.659 became French and Romanian and Germanic became English. So they 3052 02:31:07.680 --> 02:31:10.260 stop talking to each other. So as soon as people 3053 02:31:10.299 --> 02:31:14.500 stop talking, their language evolves. And they have different languages. 3054 02:31:14.540 --> 02:31:18.840 So British English and American English have evolved apart. And 3055 02:31:18.879 --> 02:31:21.340 yet at the same time, we have television and movies 3056 02:31:21.399 --> 02:31:25.540 and things that keeps them sort of together. But if 3057 02:31:25.579 --> 02:31:28.840 you don't have media and you don't have that, then 3058 02:31:28.899 --> 02:31:32.889 eventually they're talking– they're not talking with each other at 3059 02:31:32.940 --> 02:31:36.170 all and they become different languages. And that's where most 3060 02:31:36.209 --> 02:31:36.989 languages come from. 3061 02:31:37.350 --> 02:31:40.930 Wow. And there's got to be a lot of these 3062 02:31:40.969 --> 02:31:42.979 tribes that aren't talking to each other. And how many 3063 02:31:43.000 --> 02:31:46.159 of these tribes have been investigated and how many people 3064 02:31:46.180 --> 02:31:48.840 have been embedded in the– are there tribes out there 3065 02:31:48.860 --> 02:31:51.670 where there's– no one has ever examined the language? No 3066 02:31:51.729 --> 02:31:53.750 one has ever embedded themselves in their culture? 3067 02:31:55.409 --> 02:31:58.690 There are– there probably are over 1,000 where no one 3068 02:31:58.709 --> 02:32:01.209 has gone there. But there are a couple of thousand 3069 02:32:01.549 --> 02:32:04.549 where no scientist has gone there to study their language 3070 02:32:04.649 --> 02:32:05.290 or their culture. 3071 02:32:05.389 --> 02:32:06.209 A couple thousand. 3072 02:32:06.350 --> 02:32:08.850 Yeah, a couple thousand I would say, if not more. 3073 02:32:09.360 --> 02:32:11.920 And they probably have completely different languages. 3074 02:32:12.239 --> 02:32:15.920 Yeah, you know, we're worried, and we should be, about 3075 02:32:15.940 --> 02:32:19.159 the disappearance of certain bird species and all these other 3076 02:32:19.180 --> 02:32:22.200 kinds of species. And we should be concerned about that. 3077 02:32:22.909 --> 02:32:26.250 But we're not concerned enough about the disappearance of these 3078 02:32:26.309 --> 02:32:30.270 languages and how the new languages are arising. And why 3079 02:32:30.290 --> 02:32:32.649 should we be concerned? Well, for one thing, every language 3080 02:32:33.409 --> 02:32:37.409 is like a library. It's a repository of information that 3081 02:32:37.510 --> 02:32:41.399 is lost when they switch to Portuguese. Because Portuguese doesn't 3082 02:32:41.430 --> 02:32:43.559 have all the same knowledge embedded in it. It doesn't 3083 02:32:43.600 --> 02:32:46.020 have the same way of talking about the world. There's 3084 02:32:46.079 --> 02:32:50.680 a lot that's missing. Every pitahã, every child, every woman, 3085 02:32:50.760 --> 02:32:54.520 every man knows the name of every species of plant 3086 02:32:54.659 --> 02:32:58.079 and animal in their environment. They will never just say tree. 3087 02:32:58.420 --> 02:33:00.760 Like I walked with the pitahã into the jungle and 3088 02:33:00.780 --> 02:33:03.239 they said, this is what we call this. And so 3089 02:33:03.260 --> 02:33:05.170 I write it down. What do you call it? Tree. 3090 02:33:05.180 --> 02:33:07.370 What do you call that over there? Tree. 3091 02:33:07.389 --> 02:33:07.569 Tree. 3092 02:33:08.190 --> 02:33:09.000 And what's that over there? 3093 02:33:09.270 --> 02:33:09.500 Tree. 3094 02:33:09.590 --> 02:33:11.500 They said, you just have one word for all these things. 3095 02:33:12.319 --> 02:33:15.659 But they're calling them by the species name. And I'm thinking, well, 3096 02:33:16.200 --> 02:33:17.840 I told them, I said, well, there's some Americans who 3097 02:33:17.879 --> 02:33:19.520 do know all the different names, but I'm just not 3098 02:33:19.600 --> 02:33:21.700 one of them. But they find it hard to believe 3099 02:33:21.739 --> 02:33:24.799 that any American could get by without that knowledge of 3100 02:33:24.940 --> 02:33:30.219 their environment. So when that language goes, we've lost the difference. 3101 02:33:30.239 --> 02:33:33.020 So a friend of mine did a study on how 3102 02:33:33.360 --> 02:33:36.340 a group in the Amazon classify birds and And they 3103 02:33:36.379 --> 02:33:39.959 don't classify them based on their anatomy like Western science. 3104 02:33:40.940 --> 02:33:44.129 They classify them based on what they eat. And so 3105 02:33:44.270 --> 02:33:46.530 if you know their classification, you know what all these 3106 02:33:46.569 --> 02:33:48.950 birds eat. And you know how to deal with those 3107 02:33:48.989 --> 02:33:52.270 birds to capture them or to follow them. And when 3108 02:33:52.309 --> 02:33:55.739 that language is gone, all that knowledge is gone. So 3109 02:33:57.540 --> 02:34:01.579 it's like the Library of Congress has been blown up 3110 02:34:01.659 --> 02:34:04.299 or something when you lose a language. And why do 3111 02:34:04.340 --> 02:34:06.969 new languages come into being? What are the conditions? And 3112 02:34:06.989 --> 02:34:09.270 what does all this mean for us being human beings? 3113 02:34:09.309 --> 02:34:10.989 How do we know ourselves better? How are we to 3114 02:34:11.049 --> 02:34:15.290 understand our species if we don't study all the different 3115 02:34:15.350 --> 02:34:19.610 exemplars of our species? And that's the challenge, and that's 3116 02:34:20.629 --> 02:34:23.350 what keeps the work exciting, but it also is what 3117 02:34:23.389 --> 02:34:26.510 makes it a challenge because you tell a really bright 3118 02:34:26.530 --> 02:34:32.579 25-year-old or 24-year-old PhD student, Okay, now you have to 3119 02:34:32.620 --> 02:34:35.549 take off to the jungle for three years or four. 3120 02:34:36.209 --> 02:34:39.250 And they're thinking, I could get a job without doing that. 3121 02:34:40.250 --> 02:34:41.790 I don't need to go spend four years in the 3122 02:34:41.829 --> 02:34:44.389 jungle to get a job. And a professor is a 3123 02:34:44.409 --> 02:34:48.500 pretty cushy job. It doesn't pay well, but it's also– 3124 02:34:48.930 --> 02:34:51.649 it's not like real labor. And I told– people tell 3125 02:34:51.670 --> 02:34:53.750 me how hard professors work. I said, yeah, well, it 3126 02:34:53.770 --> 02:34:55.430 does take a lot of hours, but I'd rather do 3127 02:34:55.479 --> 02:34:57.520 this than run a jackhammer because I ran a jackhammer. 3128 02:34:57.959 --> 02:34:59.379 And I'll tell you, this is a lot easier than 3129 02:34:59.420 --> 02:35:04.040 running a jackhammer. So– But you go off to the 3130 02:35:04.100 --> 02:35:07.549 field and you spend this time– ironically, anthropologists seem more 3131 02:35:07.600 --> 02:35:09.870 prepared to do this than linguists. And the other ironic 3132 02:35:09.909 --> 02:35:13.549 thing is I know– this is anecdote. I know more 3133 02:35:13.610 --> 02:35:16.450 anthropologists who speak the language fluently than I know linguists 3134 02:35:16.489 --> 02:35:19.950 who speak the language fluently, which I have to put 3135 02:35:20.010 --> 02:35:24.450 down to the pernicious influence of certain theories and linguistics 3136 02:35:24.969 --> 02:35:26.770 that makes people think they don't have to learn a 3137 02:35:26.829 --> 02:35:28.270 language to know how it works. 3138 02:35:28.670 --> 02:35:28.899 Right. 3139 02:35:29.709 --> 02:35:31.670 And I tell people, when you're going off to do fieldwork, 3140 02:35:31.709 --> 02:35:33.430 I did write a field manual. And I say, the 3141 02:35:33.469 --> 02:35:36.149 first six months, just work on learning the language. Don't 3142 02:35:36.709 --> 02:35:39.850 take many notes. Take notes of words and stuff. So 3143 02:35:39.870 --> 02:35:41.450 I had a goal where I wanted to learn 10 3144 02:35:41.450 --> 02:35:44.049 new words a day. And I kept a little spiral 3145 02:35:44.829 --> 02:35:48.290 notebook clip in my belt buckle. And I would walk 3146 02:35:48.350 --> 02:35:49.930 around learning these things. And I want to learn new 3147 02:35:49.950 --> 02:35:53.129 words and write those down. And then I would spend 3148 02:35:53.149 --> 02:35:55.430 the evening memorizing those words. And I would try them 3149 02:35:55.530 --> 02:35:57.010 out again the next day. And I'd try to make 3150 02:35:57.059 --> 02:35:59.709 sentences with them. And when people start laughing at you, 3151 02:35:59.750 --> 02:36:02.010 you know that I didn't get that right. And sometimes 3152 02:36:02.030 --> 02:36:04.690 they like to teach you dirty words, right? They think 3153 02:36:04.729 --> 02:36:09.829 that's hilarious. You'll ask– so then I– how do you 3154 02:36:09.870 --> 02:36:12.409 learn the words for genitals, for example? That's kind of 3155 02:36:12.450 --> 02:36:14.770 an embarrassing thing if you stop and think about it. 3156 02:36:15.149 --> 02:36:17.370 So I started to ask the guy. I said, what 3157 02:36:17.389 --> 02:36:19.170 do you call that? I pointed to his dick and 3158 02:36:19.190 --> 02:36:22.959 he said– and he calls– he says, I'm not going 3159 02:36:23.000 --> 02:36:24.520 to tell you. But he calls a little boy over 3160 02:36:24.559 --> 02:36:26.870 who's naked. And he shows me every part of his body. 3161 02:36:26.909 --> 02:36:28.350 And he said, you call this this and this that 3162 02:36:28.379 --> 02:36:31.659 and this that. And then he says, but the names 3163 02:36:31.739 --> 02:36:36.620 change once they start to grow hair. So penis as 3164 02:36:36.659 --> 02:36:39.260 a boy is different from penis as a man and 3165 02:36:39.299 --> 02:36:41.690 vagina as a girl is different from vagina as a woman. 3166 02:36:42.190 --> 02:36:44.370 And so, you know, how do you get those words? 3167 02:36:47.010 --> 02:36:48.610 You've got to count on close friendships. 3168 02:36:51.409 --> 02:36:53.100 Like I said at the beginning of this, man, you've 3169 02:36:53.139 --> 02:36:57.649 had a fascinating life. You really have. It's very, very interesting. 3170 02:36:57.870 --> 02:37:01.110 I really appreciate you sharing everything today. It was really, 3171 02:37:01.389 --> 02:37:01.889 really fun. 3172 02:37:02.510 --> 02:37:03.579 Thank you very much for having me. 3173 02:37:03.579 --> 02:37:08.899 I enjoyed it. Jamie, pull up his book. Well, books, 3174 02:37:09.040 --> 02:37:13.680 I should say. This one, Daniel Everett, Don't Sleep, There 3175 02:37:13.719 --> 02:37:20.340 Are Snakes. The Life and Language in the Amazon Jungle, 3176 02:37:20.489 --> 02:37:21.389 Amazonian Jungle. 3177 02:37:21.870 --> 02:37:23.899 That's what they say to each other each night before 3178 02:37:23.920 --> 02:37:25.620 they go to bed. Don't sleep, there are snakes. 3179 02:37:30.379 --> 02:37:32.020 Amazing. Thank you very much. 3180 02:37:32.100 --> 02:37:33.010 Thank you so much for having me. 3181 02:37:33.090 --> 02:37:34.729 It was awesome. Bye, everybody.