Thursday, August 30, 2012

The Piraha tribe in the Amazon has no concept of numbering or counting



The Piraha tribe in the Amazon has no concept of numbering or counting!

The tribe seems to also have no words for colors and no form of a written language. Not only can they not count, they haven't been able to learn how to either! After spending months with them and teaching them about the basics of numerical systems, scientists were unable to get any of the 300 tribesmen to understand.

The Pir
aha never sleep for more than two hours at a time and have no collective memory going back more than two generations. They frequently starve themselves, even when they have food, and often change their names due to superstitions. The strangest part about the tribe is that they have been in contact with the outside world for 200 years and regularly trade with others. They are not an isolated people. Quite perplexing, isn’t it?

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