#2547 - Daniel Everett
The Joe Rogan Experience
Daniel Everett, a linguist and former Christian missionary, shares his remarkable journey from selling LSD at a Jimi Hendrix concert to beco
Key takeaways
- Everett's transformation from a rebellious youth to a committed missionary was driven by personal connection with a missionary family and fascination with jungle life.
- The rigorous survival training in Chiapas, including a week-long solo hike without food or supplies, prepared him for the challenges of living in the Amazon.
Main topics
- The transition from secular youth to Christian missionary
- Survival training in jungle environments
Notable quotes
"Don't sleep, there are snakes." – The nightly warning used by the Pidahai people.
Conclusion
Daniel Everett's life story exemplifies how personal transformation and deep
Transcript preview
Speaker 2 (0:01) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. Speaker 1 (0:03) The Joe Rogan Experience. Train Speaker 2 (0:06) by day, Joe Rogan Speaker 1 (0:07) podcast by night, all day. Speaker 2 (0:13) Good to see you, sir. Good to be here. Thank you very much for doing this. I'm really excited to talk to you. I've been looking forward to this a lot. Thanks very much for having me. You have a very, very unique life story. So I want to start with how did you become—let's lay it out for people. What got me interested in you is you became a Christian missionary and then went to the jungle. and met these people, let me say this right, the Pidahai? Pidahai. Pidahai. And stopped being a missionary and lived with them for how long? Speaker 1 (0:51) Well, the total time that I lived with them is about eight years in the jungle with them over a period. But I've been working with them for 40 years. I go back a lot. Speaker 2 (1:00) Wow. But you lived with them for eight years, and during that eight-year time period, you kind of... Is it safe to say you're an atheist? Yes, Speaker 1 (1:10) it's safe to say that. Speaker 2 (1:11) And so let's take it back to the beginning. How did you become a missionary? Did you come from a religious family? Speaker 1 (1:17) No, I came from a very unreligious family. In fact, I was standing out in front of a Jimi Hendrix concert in 1968 trying to sell LSD to get in. And this guy that I knew from high school that was really straight-laced came up with his sister. She was very cute. And so I went up to try to sell them some LSD. They didn't use drugs. And so I said, well, you got any change? I need to get some money to get into the concert. And I saw that she went to the same high school that I did. So after the concert, which she didn't like, but I loved, I went to see her in high school. I went to sit by her during lunchtime and found out that she was a missionary and had been raised in Brazil. And that really intrigued me because it was the 60s and I was, you know, didn't want to have just the typical U.S. life. And living in the Amazon sounded really cool. But then I became, you know, a genuine, strong, believing Christian. Went to Bible school. I did my undergraduate degree in Bible and theology. And I was an ordained minister in the Wesleyan Church and very active in church. was preached on street corners and did all that kind of thing. Speaker 2 (2:30) How did you make this transition from being a guy with a bag of acid in front of a Jimi Hendrix concert to... Speaker 1 (2:38) Well, her father, who had been a missionary now for 20 years, was the most influential person outside my family in my life. And he and I would sit up late at night talking. And, you know, I was 17, and I found everything he said to be very convincing and very interesting. But mainly I loved his stories of the jungle and what it was like to live in the jungle. And I wanted to do that. And I became a believer. It was a gradual process. Well, actually, no, it wasn't that gradual. My father was just astounded. He said, you know, from one minute I'm worrying about you getting arrested, and now you're going to church every Sunday with these people I don't even know. He wasn't that happy about it. He'd rather you just get loaded in front of the Hendrix concert? Yeah, he would have, actually, because he was a heavy drinker and a construction worker, and he considered that to be part of the masculine experience, you know. But acid? Was acid okay with him? I don't think he knew I was doing acid. Oh, okay. But he knew I was doing, you know, weed and things like that. And he didn't mind that? No, that was—he didn't want me doing it in the house, which I did, but— So Speaker 2 (3:44) your rebellion was to become an outstanding citizen and a Christian missionary. Speaker 1 (3:49) Right. That was my greatest form of rebellion against the life I had been leading, yeah. Interesting. Speaker 2 (3:54) Yeah, that's what Speaker 1 (3:55) happens when Speaker 2 (3:55) parents push their kids into a certain Speaker 1 (3:57) direction. Speaker 2 (3:58) Right, right. Little people don't Speaker 1 (4:00) like being told Speaker 2 (4:00) what to do. Yeah. So you immediately, it seems like, go become a Christian. And then how long before you are actually doing missionary work in the jungle? Speaker 1 (4:13) Well, there's Speaker 2 (4:13) a Speaker 1 (4:13) lot of training you have to do. So first I had to do four years of college, Bible and theology. And then I had to do some linguistics training. And then. Not a graduate degree or anything like that, just some linguistics training from the missionary organization because I wanted to be a Bible translator. And then we did jungle training in southern Mexico. So we went to the jungles of Chiapas and had to do survival training and all of this. Whoa. What did you have to do there? Well, there are several phases to it. The family goes and the family is part of it. But the hardest thing is— To really see how much you've learned, they take you on what's called survival hike, and they leave you alone for about a week in the jungle. You're not allowed to take any food or any supplies of any kind. For a week? Yeah, for a week or more. You don't know. It's going to be at least a week. In my case, it was about 10 days. And you've got to set up. Your camp, how best you can figure out how to get a fire going. Do they teach you how to do all this stuff? They don't just like figure it out. This is like the final exam. So you've had almost four months of training before they finally take you out on this survival. Do you have water? You have maybe a quart of water when you leave, but you're going to be out there for 10 days. So you've got to find water. So we learned which vines have water and how to cut the vines. We did have a machete. So I was able to jump up and cut a vine at the top first and then at the bottom. And no Speaker 2 (5:41) one's monitoring you? They're just leaving you out there and they're not making sure you're okay? No, Speaker 1 (5:46) they just come along when the time's up. And if you're there, you're there, you know. Oh, boy. And if you're not, you're dead? Speaker 2 (5:52) You Speaker 1 (5:52) could be. So they didn't even—that's insane. Yeah, well, this is what happens when you live by faith. You know, you're out there. And God's supposed to be supervising your training, but it's really rigorous training. So by the time I actually got to the Amazon, which was eight years after I converted, it took that long. Speaker 1 (6:13) It felt like I was coming home. I wasn't surprised by things. Well, Speaker 2 (6:17) the training was good then. I mean, I would imagine if you really want someone to be able to survive alone in the jungle, best way to do it is to test them by making them survive alone in the jungle so that you get an actual version of the experience. It's not simulated. You actually are getting water from vines. What were you eating? Well, I learned different kinds Speaker 1 (6:37) of plants that you could eat. And then I learned how to make... with a stick, you know, make a stick the size of a toothpick sharpened on both ends. And I did have some fishing line, and I would attach that to that. And I was so proud of myself because I brought up two fish that were about three inches long, and I ate those. Most of the time I ate plants and went hungry. So when I see programs like Alone, that wouldn't bother me. That's the kind of stuff we had to do. They didn't even give you fish hooks? No. You can't have that kind of stuff. You have to learn to cope on your own. You've got to make your own. You've got to be able to recognize the plants, which ones are poisonous, which ones are not poisonous. Did you Speaker 2 (7:23) try to make like a bow and arrow or anything? Yeah. You did? Speaker 1 (7:26) I did. I made a bow and arrow. Speaker 2 (7:27) How did you Speaker 1 (7:28) do that? Speaker 2 (7:29) Well, I had a machete, and that's what I had. It's crazy they give you a machete. They won't give you fish hooks. Like, come on, guys. Yeah, yeah. Fish hooks are so Speaker 1 (7:37) much Speaker 2 (7:37) easier to carry. Speaker 1 (7:38) Right. But the machete you need for firewood, you need for lots of things. You know, when I got to the Amazon. Do you have a lighter? Speaker 2 (7:47) No. How are you making fires? Speaker 1 (7:49) Well, I had just, they let me take just a few matches. Oh, Lord. And so no lighter, but a few matches, which you kept in a 35 millimeter film. Those little, people don't know about those things, those little Speaker 2 (8:03) containers. Speaker 1 (8:04) Yeah. How many matches did they give you for Speaker 2 (8:06) 10 days? Speaker 1 (8:07) Well, you had one of those little containers with about 10, 15 matches in it at the most. Oh, Speaker 2 (8:13) boy. So you've got to match a day. Speaker 1 (8:14) You've got to keep your fire going all the time. You always have to keep that fire going. So before you start it, you spend half the day just cutting firewood. And Speaker 2 (8:22) I would imagine it's very wet. Speaker 1 (8:25) It's all wet. So you've got to find something dry to get it going. And as they told us— You've Speaker 2 (8:31) got to Speaker 1 (8:31) keep it going. Yeah. They said once it's hot enough, it'll burn anything. Until it gets hot, you can't just throw that wet wood on there. It'll put it out. So, you know, you have to spend a lot of time exploring, trying to find dry, crackly wood and leaves and things and get it going and then slowly introduce the thinner pieces of wet wood until finally you can throw on a sopping log. So a big Speaker 2 (8:53) part of your day essentially is making sure that fire stays lit. Yeah. It's a big part of your day, and you can't get too far from it. Speaker 1 (9:00) No. You have to stay fairly close to it, and at night you definitely want to keep it going. So I remember one night waking up and hearing heavy steps around my camp. Oh, Speaker 2 (9:09) yeah. Speaker 1 (9:10) And I was up immediately blowing on that fire for everything I was worth to get that thing up. Speaker 2 (9:16) Yeah. Speaker 1 (9:17) Was it jaguars? I suspect that it could have been, although I didn't see it. I had my machete, which when I got to the Amazon and actually saw jaguars, I realized that would have been a pretty pathetic thing to try, go against a jaguar with a machete. They would rip your head off before you— Everybody Speaker 2 (9:35) likes to think they have a chance, though. Speaker 1 (9:37) Yeah, yeah. But what I found out is jaguars, you know, they get up to 400 pounds, and they're the third biggest cat in the world after the lion and the tiger. And they often hunt in pairs. Oh, yeah. And so you wouldn't have a chance against a jaguar unless you were one of the pitaha. I know that guys alone by themselves have killed jaguars. Really? Speaker 2 (9:59) Yeah. Speaker 1 (9:59) What are Speaker 2 (9:59) they Speaker 1 (10:00) using to kill a jaguar? Well, they're always with their bows and arrows. A bow and Speaker 2 (10:06) arrow range for a jaguar. That's crazy. Well, you better have it ready because it Speaker 1 (10:09) sneaks up on you. There's another group that I worked with for quite a while, several months, called the Bonowah. And they use poison darts and poisoned arrows. So there's this story of this guy who went out hunting. And he reached a clearing in the jungle. And he saw a deer come out running straight for him. And at first he was happy and he was going to kill the deer. And then he realized deers don't just come running out of the jungle towards people. And then right behind the deer came a jaguar. And the jaguar saw him, the guy, and he was bigger than the deer. So the jaguar just took off straight for him and jumped up. And the guy got his blowgun out in front of him. They're about seven or eight feet long, these big blowguns. And they're very sturdy. And the jaguar, he holds it away. The jaguar's back legs are tearing the meat off of his legs. And the jaguar's head just keeps snapping at his face, trying to get his face. And what saved his life was the jaguar jumped off to go around the back and try to get him from the back. But he had a poisoned arrow and he stabbed the jaguar with it. And that hurts. And the jaguar started to run off. And then he shot it with a poison arrow. Speaker 2 (11:19) But Speaker 1 (11:19) he passed out. And his family found him a couple of days later with his legs just infected and torn to pieces. But he Speaker 2 (11:30) survived. Speaker 2 (11:33) And so these pita hot, would they go hunt the jaguars? Speaker 1 (11:37) If they saw that it was a danger, if a woman went out and a jaguar or a mountain lion scared her, the men would go out to kill it. So I've eaten jaguar. What does it taste like? Well, this one was sort of, this was a sick jaguar. But it's stringy meat. I mean, it's very muscly meat. Is it a sick one? Yeah, that's how they wound up killing it, I found out later. I was really impressed, you know, they killed a jaguar. And they have killed many jaguars, but this one turned out to be a sick jaguar, which is why he attacked the woman. Speaker 2 (12:12) Like he was starving to death or something? Yeah, he Speaker 1 (12:14) was starving. So the men killed it and ate it. But my children were with me this whole time, so I told my children, I said, just remember who's eating whom out here. Speaker 2 (12:24) So Speaker 1 (12:24) do you remember what it tastes like? Well, it's a stringy meat. It's really hard to describe all the taste. Stringy, Speaker 2 (12:32) like very sinewy? It's tough. Speaker 1 (12:33) Yeah, sinewy and very tough. And my general rule of thumb, I eat anything that they kill, but my general rule of thumb is I usually have a bottle of Tabasco sauce. And if you put Tabasco sauce on it, it's okay. Speaker 2 (12:47) And so these pita ha, am I saying it right? Yeah, that's right. They don't preserve anything, right? No. kill things and cook them. Speaker 1 (12:57) Yeah, they don't, you know, many, many different groups smoke the meat or salt the meat if they have salt or dry it. And the pitahas know how to do that. I don't know where they learn how to do it because they never do it except if they want to trade the meat with Brazilian boats who come up. But among themselves, they don't preserve any meat. You know, I was talking to a guy one time and, you know, why don't you preserve your meat? And he says, oh, I preserve it in the belly of my brother. So they share it. And if I get meat, I give you some. And if you get meat, you give me some. So why would I? Speaker 2 (13:30) Right. So there's no need to store. And also, I guess it's very abundant. There's a lot of life where they live, like Speaker 1 (13:37) in terms of fish and game. There have been. Yeah. I mean, they live on this river, the Mice Sea River. And they're the only humans that live along the river for. almost 300 miles of the Curvy River. And it's Speaker 2 (13:51) a Speaker 1 (13:51) relatively large river by U.S. standards. In Brazil, it doesn't even make many of the maps. But it's Speaker 2 (13:56) a Speaker 1 (13:56) couple of hundred yards across. And in the rainy season, it can be as much as 75 feet deep, 100 feet deep. So there's plenty of fish for them. In recent years, that's changed because the Brazilian government has allowed the construction of dams across various rivers. Not their river, but... They affect the water level so much that it's taken all the fish, most of the fish out of their river. So now they're starving. And this has led to conflict with Brazilians who live not too far away. And they've killed a few people stealing food from their farms and things. Oh, Speaker 2 (14:33) man. Can you imagine you just have this kind of harmonious existence with nature and someone just decides to make a dam? Like you've got it so dialed in that you don't need to preserve your food. Right. Because everyone's just like happy and eating fish right out of the river. Speaker 1 (14:50) Right. And, you know, that's – they don't know where the dam is. They've never seen the dam. I told them that they built something that crosses the river like a wall. And they say, why did they do that? And I said – Well, they want electricity, which they barely understand. They've seen, I have a generator. I never had one for the first 20 years I was working with them, but I eventually got a generator and they could see what electricity was. And I said, so that's where they get the lights. But they don't understand it. And it's effect, you know, it's for the first time in their history, and they've been living there as far as I can tell for almost 300 years on this one river. For the first time in their history, they can't. be self-sufficient in protein. Speaker 2 (15:37) That's crazy. And how long ago did they build this dam? Speaker 1 (15:42) I think it was about 10 years ago. But they didn't, when it first went into operation, then it flooded the entire, lots of farmland, lots of settlements and things up on the Madera. But what was shocking was that way down river from the dam, it affected the water levels so much that when their river, the Mai Sea, goes to its lowest point in the dry season, there's still, Only a few places where you can see the bottom of the river. Most of the places, even when it's at its lowest, you can't see the bottom of the river. But in the last couple of years, it's gotten so low you can walk across. Oh, wow. And the fish don't stay there. Speaker 1 (16:27) So what are these people eating? Well, they go hunting, which they don't like to do. But, of course, when the fish are gone and when the river is gone, you lose a lot of the game from the jungle. So they have to go, instead of going a mile into the jungle, they have to go many miles into the jungle. And they're still not successful. Speaker 1 (16:47) It's busting up communities. Some people are moving out of their normal area to other areas to try to, you know, back on bigger rivers. But then that means they're surrounded by Brazilians and they're no longer leading the life that they used to lead. Speaker 2 (17:03) So when they move into these civilization areas, are they integrating or are they trying to stay as a tribe removed from urban society? Like Speaker 1 (17:14) how are they doing it? Well, up until about five years ago, they would never have thought about integrating. They would live. In like ghettos, if they were out near some town, they would live in the jungle away from the town because that whole part of Brazil is covered in jungle. Even the cities are bordered by jungle. But nowadays, because there's no food anywhere, they're trying to integrate more. They're trying to learn Portuguese. And it's a very unfortunate situation for them right now. Speaker 2 (17:47) God, it's such a bummer. That sucks so hard. So when you first got there, your aim was to try to convert them to Christianity. Speaker 1 (17:59) That's right. I went there to translate the Bible and plant a church and get everybody believing. Speaker 2 (18:04) And why Pitaha? Why did you go to those people? Speaker 1 (18:07) Well, we were in our training, and the missionary organization, the Wycliffe Bible Translators, offered us three areas. They said, you can go to New Guinea. We need people in New Guinea. You can go to Mexico or... You can go to Brazil. And in Brazil, there's this tribe called the Pitahã that we've had two teams assigned to, and nobody's been able to figure out the language because it's not related to any other known living language. And so they said, if you're up for that challenge, and we know you did well in linguistics, we'd be happy to have you take that group. I thought, well, sure, I'm up for a challenge. So we took that. Speaker 2 (18:41) And so this was 1977? 1977. Speaker 1 (18:47) We were assigned there in 76, and I made my first trip in in December of 1977. And so how much of the language did you Speaker 2 (18:54) know before you got there? Nothing. Nothing? No. What do we know in terms of like before you got there? Was it recorded? Was it something that people understood? Take your training to the next level with AG1's new product, AG1 Pro. It's back, and it's already sold out once, so get it now. AG1 Pro takes the original next-gen formula, the vitamins, minerals, adaptogens. pre and probiotics and more and packs in even more support for physical performance. It adds five grams of Crea Vitalis, creatine, monohydrate and HMB to reduce protein breakdown and support recovery. They've also added zinc carnosine for even more gut support. It's one drink more effective and it's NSF certified for sport. So you know exactly what's in it. The training's only half of it. Recovery is where the gains actually compound. AG1 Pro is built for both. Go to drinkag1.com slash joerogan to get a free AG1 Pro shaker in your Pro Welcome Kit. That's drinkag1.com slash joerogan. Speaker 1 (20:04) Yeah, in 1784, Portuguese explorers made contact, and they didn't take... lists of words. They wrote a few descriptive things about the language and about the people, and those things still fit them today. And then in 1821, a German explorer went there, and he took a long list of words, which was amazing because he didn't have linguistics or anything like that, and his list of words is pretty good. And then in 1920, another German who naturalized Brazilian, the founder of Brazilian anthropology, went there and took a much larger word list. And that one is very good. And so I had those little word lists. They're not much. And there's no, how does the grammar work or anything like that. It's just lists of words. So I had looked at those, but it's a tone language. And so they hadn't written the tone. So I had no idea how to pronounce the words. To give you an example of what a tone language is, So if I want to say friend, I say magiai. And if I want to say enemy, it's magiai. What's the difference? So if I whistle it, friend is whew. And if I whistle enemy, it's whew. If you can't hear the tones, you don't know what's going on. So the word for me is che. And the word for shit is che. So, you know, you can be talking about yourself and everybody starts laughing because you've called yourself shit. Because you have the wrong tone. Because you have the wrong tone. So, you know, there are a lot of tone languages in the world. Mandarin is tonal. Korean is somewhat tonal. And many languages of Africa are tonal. For those of us who speak European languages, this is just really weird and it's hard to hear. A complete mind Speaker 2 (22:02) shift. Speaker 1 (22:03) Yeah. So you've got to be able to pay attention to those tones. Speaker 1 (22:10) But the first thing you have to do is start just collecting words. So I would point at things my first day, my first hour. I was pointing at things and writing down what they said, and that was the basic linguistics I had had, phonetics, how to write down sounds of the world's languages. And when you got there, so on day one, how do you make a Speaker 2 (22:29) connection? Do you just show up, Speaker 1 (22:31) hey, brought Speaker 2 (22:32) you Speaker 1 (22:32) the Speaker 2 (22:32) Bible, everyone have a seat? How do you do this? Speaker 1 (22:35) Well, I got off and I started handing candy to the kids. Good move. That works. And the people were very curious because I'm this white guy with red hair. At that time, I had bright red hair, and they found me curious to look at. And so they came around. They could tell, you know, at least I think they thought they could tell that I was no danger to them. They know how to deal with that very quickly if they sense danger. So then I would just start pointing at things. I had my pen and paper. I would get a stick and I would say in English, you know, stick. And they know that I'm trying to communicate something. So they would say back, eh. And I thought, it probably means stick. And I would write that down. And then I would take the stick and drop it. And they would say, eh, he make a cowbell. And that means stick fell to the ground. And that's what I thought it meant. So that's how I started. That's Speaker 2 (23:32) what you thought it meant. What is the reaction to this person coming in and demanding that they teach the language? Well, I didn't demand. Well, you know, you have a requirement. You can't communicate, but you're there. So they're kind enough to welcome you. Yes. Are you in the actual camp with all these people? Yeah, Speaker 1 (23:52) I'm in the middle of their village. The plane let me off on, you know, landed on the river. I got out. You Speaker 2 (23:56) don't Speaker 1 (23:56) even Speaker 2 (23:57) ask? You just, like... wander into their camp? Speaker 1 (24:00) There's no way to contact them ahead of time. This is crazy. Yeah. And you're just assuming they're not going to kill you. Is this you? This is the Pitaha. This is a Pitaha village. Yep. Speaker 2 (24:08) And so this is what it looked like when you showed up. You're like, hi, what's a stick? Speaker 1 (24:12) Yeah, yeah. You land on the river and you get there and that is, that's the Pitaha. Wow. And so they're very friendly and they start talking. Speaker 1 (24:25) But, of course, I don't know what they say. They just see me as a very— Guy's got a Speaker 2 (24:28) Ferrari t-shirt on. What's up? Speaker 1 (24:30) Yeah, they—riverboats go in and give clothes. If a riverboat hasn't been there in a long time, they'll all be naked. Speaker 2 (24:37) Oh, wow. So— And so, like, day one, they just accept the fact that this redheaded dude just showed up and is hanging out with us now? Speaker 1 (24:50) Yeah, there were a couple of things that counted in my favor. I was all by myself, and so giving out candy was a big factor. They like to chew tobacco, and I had been told this by somebody who had been there. So I took in a big, long horn of tobacco. I don't know if it was a really old-fashioned way to— A horn? Speaker 2 (25:09) Yes. Like an animal horn? Speaker 1 (25:10) No, it looks like an animal horn, but it's probably 8 feet, 9 feet long, just rolled up tight, tobacco wrapped in latex. Really? Yeah, and you just cut it off for them, and they chew it, and they like it. So I would, you know, the ones who would help me, I would give them a little bit of tobacco or candy. And I also brought canned food for me, and I would trade that to them for fish and other things that they got. And they liked that. How long did you stay initially? The first time. Was just to see what it was like before I brought my family. So I stayed 10 days. And then I came back with my family and we stayed a year at that time. We just stayed there the whole year. Speaker 2 (25:56) When you say family, so your wife and how many kids? Three kids. There they are. How old were the kids when you got there? Speaker 1 (26:02) Well, my oldest daughter, who there was about 12, was nine. And the middle daughter was six. And then my son was three years old. So this is around that time. And so my kids grew up among the Pitahon. Both my older daughters learned to speak the language fairly quickly. Speaker 2 (26:23) Wow, that's a risky move. It was. Speaker 1 (26:26) You Speaker 2 (26:26) brought your little kids to the jungle. Yeah, Speaker 1 (26:28) so my Speaker 2 (26:28) son got— What is that decision like? Was that a difficult decision? Speaker 1 (26:32) Well, today it would be, but I was a Christian, and I believed in miracles, and I believed God would take care of us. And so I went there and figured he was in charge. He would take care of us. So my son got meningitis. My two daughters got malaria. I got malaria. In fact, after a few years, I went to San Diego and I came down with malaria. And in University Hospital San Diego, they were thrilled because I was the only person they'd ever seen with all three strains of South American malaria at the same time. Did Speaker 2 (27:05) you have a relapse of malaria or was that – because I have a friend who got malaria in the Congo and it came back. Speaker 1 (27:14) It can come back, and I've had relapses, but it's been a long time now that I haven't had relapses. I've taken so much medicine that supposedly it won't come back anymore, but I can never give blood because it's always in my blood. What do they give you? Speaker 2 (27:28) Like what medicine are they giving you? Speaker 1 (27:29) Well, Daraprim, Primaquin, straight quinine. When my wife almost died, she weighed 100 and— 15 pounds and then she got malaria and almost died. She got down to 76 pounds. And the doctor told me she's going to die tonight. We don't have any way to keep her alive. Oh my God. And they put her on blood transfusions because you lose a lot of blood. It kills the blood cells. And they put her on blood transfusions and also straight quinine, which caused her to be in agony for several days of just constant retching. Quine 9 is a really bad experience. But at the end of it, she pulled through. She pulled through. Oh, my God. Yeah. Speaker 2 (28:13) We all pulled through. You had to be like questioning your decisions. I mean this has to be a trialing, you know, very difficult time because you chose to be there. Speaker 1 (28:25) Yeah. And so we were leaving the village to find help because my wife and daughter were dying of malaria at this time where she got down to 76 pounds. And my daughter lost. a lot of weight too. She was just skin and bones. And I'm getting my boat out of there. And I had never been out by boat. In fact, I didn't have a boat. I had no idea how to get out of there. So this Catholic priest came up to see what the Protestant missionaries were doing. And I said, can I borrow your boat? I've got to get my family out of here. He had this very narrow aluminum canoe with a six-horsepower Johnson. And I got my whole family in there, and he just stayed there in the jungle and let my family take off in his boat. And I didn't know where we were, but I was thinking, you know, I've read all these books about missionaries, and now I'm having a missionary experience. But it wasn't fun. It was really— That sounds horrific. It was a horrific experience, and I just didn't know what was going to happen. Speaker 2 (29:22) So your goal was to convert these people, and Speaker 1 (29:26) how long were you there for? Well, I was there in 1980. I spent the whole year there. In all the other years from 1977 to 2013, I was there for three to six months every year. So I was there a lot and got sick every time I went. I had typhoid fever and all this stuff. But attacked by snakes and stuff like that. Speaker 1 (29:56) It was just a mind-altering experience. Things didn't go the way I thought. And the people started questioning me. They started asking me about, why do you believe in this Jesus? You keep telling us about what's he like. Speaker 2 (30:11) And you're doing this also, you're translating these concepts from English to Pidaha. From Greek to Pidaha. Speaker 1 (30:20) Going from the Greek New Testament, because I was translating the New Testament. So going from Greek. to Pitahum, but I'm referencing English and Portuguese at the same time. Oh, my goodness. I'm staying in there. Speaker 2 (30:31) And you expect these people to understand what you're saying. Speaker 1 (30:34) Yeah. So, you know, if you're in the middle of the jungle and Jesus does something out in a desert, how do you describe desert? Speaker 2 (30:42) Isn't their language a completely different language than ours? Like in terms of like they have no words for color. Right. They have no words for direction. They don't have a left or a right. Speaker 1 (30:52) Right. So. And this all takes time to find out because when I went there, I thought everybody had words for colors. Everybody had words for numbers. Everybody had a concept of God. Right. They don't have words for numbers. That's so Speaker 2 (31:04) crazy. Speaker 1 (31:05) Yeah, they don't have. Do they have numbers? No. No numbers. They don't count. How many fish Speaker 2 (31:10) did you catch today, Mike? A lot. That's it. That's it. A lot or a little? A lot or a little. Or a good amount. Speaker 1 (31:17) Yeah, yeah. So, in fact, that claim was really controversial. I've had. psycholinguists and cognitive scientists come down with me to do experiments. Didn't Speaker 2 (31:28) you get into it with Chomsky about that? Speaker 1 (31:30) Well, I got into it with Chomsky about their grammar. Speaker 2 (31:34) Yes. Oh, that's right. Speaker 1 (31:36) Chomsky made this claim. I've gotten other people. There are people who find every claim controversial. So there's some people who can't believe they don't have numbers, some people who don't believe they don't have a concept of God, other people who don't believe they don't have colors. Speaker 1 (31:52) But Chomsky claimed that all languages are built on a common property called recursion. And recursion is this, English has it all over the place. So it's the ability to put one unit inside another unit of the same type. So take a noun. If I take the noun truck and the noun driver. And I put them together, I can form a third word, truck driver. And so that's recursion. I put one noun inside another and I get a third noun. Or with a sentence, I can say John spoke. There's no recursion there. I can say John said that Bill spoke. And now that's got recursion because Bill spoke is a sentence inside John said that. Speaker 2 (32:35) And Speaker 1 (32:35) so Chomsky claimed, and in my opinion, without... doing a lot of homework on this. I mean, he just was basing it on languages that he happened to know, which aren't many, that all languages were built on this. It made sense. And he had principles built into his theory that required this. So when I came along and said, they don't have it, and now I know there are other languages that don't have it, this was like saying you're wrong. And for me, a relative nobody, to tell the most famous linguist in history, somebody that Chomsky was called by the New York Times the most important intellectual alive, to tell him that he's wrong. A lot of people found that very weird, you know, unbelievable. Yeah, problematic. But facts are facts. Speaker 2 (33:27) Yeah. I mean, it should be exciting for a linguist to look at something that violates all the laws of other known languages. It Speaker 1 (33:33) was exciting for some linguists and really off-pissing for a lot of other linguists. Isn't that Speaker 2 (33:39) gross? That's so gross. Yeah. That is one of the grossest things about intellectuals, this gatekeeping of information and this appeal to authority that they're the only person who could possibly know, especially when you're talking about languages. Speaker 1 (33:53) Like how many languages are there? There are about 8,000 separate languages in the world. Okay. How Speaker 2 (33:58) the fuck could you know all the rules to 8,000 languages? We Speaker 1 (34:04) don't have data on more than about 1,200 or so. Speaker 2 (34:07) Well, isn't there also an issue with the aboriginal tribes of Australia? My good friend Adam Greentree, he's from Australia, and he was running a mine there for a while and worked with a lot of aboriginal people. really learned a lot about their cultures. And they're called mobs, like their tribe, they call it a mob. And there could be a mob that's just like 30 kilometers over that way. They have no idea what they're saying. They don't know the language and it's not written anywhere. And there's hundreds of these. They're all over the place. Speaker 1 (34:39) Right. And the bit of fieldwork that has been done, there are some really good Australian linguists trying to figure out these things. But the fieldwork that has been done has found properties. that aren't like anything else we know about. So languages can vary so much that it's really premature, in my opinion, to be writing laws that languages are supposed to follow, all 8,000 of these languages. Speaker 2 (35:03) Well, all you'd have to do is say, as far as we've observed. And then you're OK. Right. But as soon as you say it has to have this and if someone says actually a language that doesn't have this and then there's a controversy, you're a bad guy for Speaker 1 (35:17) pointing this out. And you're, you know, well, I had a Speaker 2 (35:20) heretic. Speaker 1 (35:21) I had one of Chomsky's followers who was Brazilian write to the Brazilian Indian agency, which is where I get my authorization to visit these tribes and say. This Dan Everett guy, he's a racist. That's what they always say. Yeah. Speaker 2 (35:36) Isn't that the fun one? Yeah. The moment they want to get rid of you, you're a racist. Speaker 1 (35:40) Yeah. Well, she was silly because she said he's trying to reduce the Piedahas to primates. And I said, well, in fact, I am because we're all primates. I'm a primate. You're a primate. But it's the thing. If Chomsky says that all languages have X. And I say here's a language that doesn't have X, then either A, Chomsky's wrong, or B, these aren't humans. And so the only person who would claim Speaker 2 (36:01) they're Speaker 1 (36:02) not Speaker 2 (36:03) humans is a racist. That's such a crazy way to put it. It's so stupid. Speaker 1 (36:08) But this is typical in science. As I got more and more into science, it's very unfortunate. It's men. Speaker 2 (36:15) It's men and their egos. That's what it is. And I'm sure women as well, but primarily men. Speaker 1 (36:22) Well, you know, you don't get a lot of money when you're Speaker 2 (36:25) a Speaker 1 (36:25) scientist. It's not a money-making profession. You go into what is the biggest rate of exchange among scientists? It's ego. Speaker 2 (36:32) But it's just so crazy to think that if it doesn't have this one characteristic of language that you're calling them primates. It's not a value judgment. You're saying it's a different kind of language. And this is fascinating. Speaker 1 (36:43) Exactly. That's my take. And many anthropologists took that. This, you know, so for example. They originally said that Homo erectus had no capability for human speech. And I thought that was kind of a questionable statement since, you know, I've read a lot on Homo erectus, read a book about it. And they don't. Speaker 1 (37:08) And all their accomplishments, they had to have pretty advanced language to account for the fact that the ocean was never a barrier for them. And so I said that Homo erectus had language, and I think the evidence supports that. But they don't have the kind of language Chomsky says necessarily. And so an archaeologist at the University of Liverpool wrote me, and he says, my specialty is Homo erectus, and I think you're right. So we wrote a paper together. Speaker 2 (37:34) And Speaker 1 (37:35) then after we wrote the paper. He discovered last year the oldest wooden structure known in all of human history, 500,000-year-old structure built by Homo erectus in Zambia. And he showed that it has interlocking pieces and parts that nobody ever expected Homo erectus to be able to do. And their brains weren't that much smaller than ours. You know, the average size of a modern human's brain is about 1,200 cc for men and about 950 to 1100 cc's for women. And since we know that men aren't more intelligent than women, the size of the brain can't be what's determining that. Homo erectus had brains of 950 to 1000 cc's, you know, cubic centimeters. You measure that by taking the skull and filling it full of sand and seeing how much sand fits in there. Speaker 1 (38:30) So they were able to make these complex structures, and they were able to make boats, and they were able to do all these things. Yeah, that's what Larry Barham from the University of Liverpool discovered, this structure. You see the cross piece? And he recently gave a talk to a world association of archaeologists to get their judgment on what this could be. Not archaeologists, but architects, to get their judgment. professional judgment, and they were really impressed by this. They said, that's actually a pretty advanced structure for building a walkway or a house. We actually Speaker 2 (39:04) discussed this yesterday. I had a guy on named Michael Button. He's got a fantastic YouTube channel. It's all about sort of the mysteries of human history. And we talked about the seafaring aspect and how much evidence there is that these people were seafaring as much as a million years ago. Speaker 1 (39:21) Yeah, yeah. And in my book, How Language Began, I have— They had Speaker 2 (39:25) to be communicated. Speaker 1 (39:26) Yeah, you can't—there's an archaeologist in Australia, Bednarik is his name, and he showed— He did experiments, and they're not exact because you can't find humans today that don't have any language, normal humans. But he got humans from different languages who couldn't communicate with each other that well to see if they could build