Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
or non-living being of their universe, the numbers used to represent groupings and
measurements do not always simply indicate quantities (Green 1994, 2000). When
we say in Portuguese that there are 18 Indigenous Peoples in the north of the state
of Amapá, where the Palikur live, the number 18 indicates quantity within a decimal
system, and nothing else. Eighteen does not provide us with information about any
characteristics or traits about Indigenous Peoples, nor about their distribution in
space and time, or qualifiers applied to them, such as “Indigenous,” “human,” “real
people,” etc. In this case 18 as an Indo-Arabic numeral is essentially a quantifier.
Palikur numbers to the contrary, teach us how the Palikur people think about
themselves and the world around them. In addition to quantifiers, numbers are also
qualifiers, adding one, two, and three dimensions and their meanings to every being,
animated or not, that inhabits the cosmos at large. The Palikur number is contingent
upon the following attributes: 1.
Material
: animated (alive) or not, human or animal,
abstract or concrete; 2.
Gender
: feminine, masculine, or neutral; 3.
Format
: round,
long, cylindrical, flat; 4.
Position
: types of clusters - bunches, hordes, packs,
pairs; 5.
Quantity
: measurements - dimensions, collections, or plain plural form; and
6.
Specificity
: when the being or thing being represented does not fit within any of
the above categories. For each of these attributes, there is a prefix that attaches itself
to the numeral, acting like a qualifier (Green 1994, 2000; Ferreira 1998a).
Let's take, for instance, a girl or “one girl,” quantified and qualified by the Palikur
as a
paha-phru himano
- a single living feminine human, instead of just “a girl” or
“one person.” In this case, the number one for “girl” conveys three very specific
attributes: material (alive and human), and gender (feminine). This qualification is
quite different from “one box:”
paho-u-kiyes,
which classifies the one-masculine
(
paho)
box alongside other formats: square (
u)
objects, which could include a house
or topic (depending on its position). “One arm,” used as a length of measurement,
is
paha-ti i wanti
, because the arm (
wanti
) is cylindrical (
ti i)
. “One week” is
paha-i
paka
, a number one-feminine (
paha
) necessarily attached to the way in which week
(
paka
) is classified within other members of an abstract group (
i
).
“1 liter of honey” in the Pa'ikwené language spoken by the Palikur people,
is:
Paha-
t l
it ahayak nunu
(1-cylindrical liter bee honey), where “
t
” is the prefix
attached to the feminine numeral one (
paha
) indicating the object is cylindrical. One
can of manioc flour is:
Paho-
u
bom kuvak
(1-square can flour), where “
u
”
is the
prefix attached to the masculine numeral one (
Paho
), indicating the object is square
(
Fig. 4.16 )
.
The Palikur numerical decimal system, of base 10, is not simply a “counting system”
as one would imagine. The way in which the Palikur count is intimately connected to
their cosmology as a people. To understand Palikur mathematics, in particular their
numerical system, requires comprehension of a broader taxonomy - a cosmology,
which entails the relationship of the Palikur amongst themselves and with all other
beings in the universe. There isn't a way to think exclusively in “numbers” in the Palikur
language, as there is in English. Rather, one must think about numbers in theory and
in practice, especially in the lived experiences of this Indigenous nation, as the Palikur
