The mysterious tribe only sleeps 20 minutes a day

Hidden deep in the Amazon rainforest in Brazil, the Pirahã tribe leads a simple and carefree life, just like the flora around them. What’s impressive is that the Pirahã people only sleep about 20 minutes a day and their children change their names every 7 years. The Pirahã people are the last remaining small group of the Mura people, residing in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest, with a current population of about 800 people.

The Pirahã tribe did not use numbers and there are no records or folklore about their history. Socially, the Pirahã lack a complex hierarchy, and their community revolves largely around family relationships—parents, siblings, and extended family. In the family there is no hierarchical distinction between siblings. In the Pirahã community, there is no concept of private property, no law, and no theft because theft is non-existent.

What’s more interesting is that the Pirahã people have no concept of numbers greater than two. Their entire number system consists of the words “one”, “two” and “many”. Even these terms are used loosely, as the word “one” can also mean “a number”. The Pirahã language is equally unique, consisting of only three vowels and seven consonants. According to a study by the University of Oslo in Norway, a bystander with an average memory would need about ten years to achieve basic communication in Pirahã.

Members of the Pirahã tribe live separately from the outside world, surviving by hunting and gathering like in primitive times. They have an impressive ability to remember the names and characteristics of thousands of species of plants and animals. The Pirahã people live in simple huts, they only have some basic cooking utensils and they do not hoard food. Their main means of subsistence is hunting and gathering, the most primitive form of human society. They traveled on the Maici River by boat. 

Pirahã men wear T-shirts and shorts received from traders, while women make their own plain cotton dresses. The tribe’s knowledge of the natural world around them is vast, with members able to identify thousands of species of plants and animals in their area. The concept of drawing is unfamiliar to them; When asked to draw a person, an animal, a tree or a river, they will draw simple lines.

Pirahã life has no strict rules or mandatory obligations. They happily sang, danced together and built simple huts that served as both a home and a place to store tools. Their cooking is very basic and they do not store large quantities of food. The Pirahã people traded nuts for consumer goods and tools such as machetes, gunpowder, powdered milk, sugar and whiskey.

And one extremely unique and new thing about the people of this tribe is their sleep. They rarely sleep through the night, usually napping for about 15-20 minutes, with the longest sleep period lasting only about two hours, day and night. Pirahã people live completely in the present, paying little attention to the past or future. This focus on the “now” is probably why they are considered one of the happiest tribes in the world.