List and describe all the things the Piraha make.

Chapter 5 Material Culture and the Absence of Ritual
1. List and describe all the things the Piraha make.
2. What stands out about the things they make?
3. How do they get tools other than by making them?
4. What pattern emerges regarding Piraha material culture?
5. What story of canoes does Dan tell us?
6. What do the Piraha eat (list everything)? What do we learn about manioc
7. What is the Piraha’s attitude toward food?
8. How and when do the Piraha fish and when and how do they eat the fish?
9. What is the work schedule for these foragers. How much does each person
work?
10.Is it a human trait to continually improve technology? What do we learn about
this from the Piraha?
11. What belongings does a typical Piraha family have?
12.Describe the Piraha’s wet season/dry season living.
13.What do we learn about sex and marriage in this chapter?
14.Describe Piraha dance ‘parties’.
15.How does Dan summarize the P’s apparent lack of ritual at the end of the
chapter?
Chapter 6 Families and Communities (You can skip the transcribed dialogues)
1. How does Dan describe the Piraha at the beginning of the chapter?
2. What 5 kinship terms do the Piraha have? How does Dan describe the
Piraha’s kinship system? What are the implications?
3. What two occurrences shocked Dan? What else shocked Dan in this
chapter?
4. Why do the Piraha all seem to be intimate friends?
5. How are Piraha children taught? What effect does a Piraha upbringing have
on children?
pages 88-0-, 97-100, 105-6
6. What means of social control (what Dan calls ‘coercion’) do the P use?
7. What do we learn about Piraha sex and marriage in chapters 5 and 6?
8. What was the turning point in Dan’s evaluation of the Piraha? pp 107-110