full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Wade Davis: Dreams from endangered cultures

Unscramble the Blue Letters


Or, one of the most fascinating tibres I ever lived with, the Waorani of northeastern Ecuador, an astonishing people first contacted peacefully in 1958. In 1957, five missionaries attempted contact and made a critical mistake. They dropped from the air 8 x 10 gsolsy photographs of themselves in what we would say to be friendly gestures, forgetting that these peploe of the rainforest had never seen anything two-dimensional in their lives. They picked up these photographs from the forest floor, tried to look behind the face to find the form or the fgriue, found nothing, and concluded that these were calling cadrs from the devil, so they sreeapd the five missionaries to death. But the Waorani didn't just spear otrudesis. They speared each other. 54 peencrt of their mortality was due to them spearing each other. We traced genealogies back eight goneatnries, and we found two intcnaess of natural death and when we pressured the people a little bit about it, they admitted that one of the fellows had gotten so old that he died getting old, so we speared him anyway. (Laughter) But at the same time they had a perspicacious knowledge of the forest that was aioistnsnhg. Their hunters could smell animal urine at 40 paces and tell you what species left it behind.

Open Cloze


Or, one of the most fascinating ______ I ever lived with, the Waorani of northeastern Ecuador, an astonishing people first contacted peacefully in 1958. In 1957, five missionaries attempted contact and made a critical mistake. They dropped from the air 8 x 10 ______ photographs of themselves in what we would say to be friendly gestures, forgetting that these ______ of the rainforest had never seen anything two-dimensional in their lives. They picked up these photographs from the forest floor, tried to look behind the face to find the form or the ______, found nothing, and concluded that these were calling _____ from the devil, so they _______ the five missionaries to death. But the Waorani didn't just spear _________. They speared each other. 54 _______ of their mortality was due to them spearing each other. We traced genealogies back eight ___________, and we found two _________ of natural death and when we pressured the people a little bit about it, they admitted that one of the fellows had gotten so old that he died getting old, so we speared him anyway. (Laughter) But at the same time they had a perspicacious knowledge of the forest that was ___________. Their hunters could smell animal urine at 40 paces and tell you what species left it behind.

Solution


  1. cards
  2. outsiders
  3. figure
  4. tribes
  5. people
  6. astonishing
  7. speared
  8. glossy
  9. percent
  10. generations
  11. instances

Original Text


Or, one of the most fascinating tribes I ever lived with, the Waorani of northeastern Ecuador, an astonishing people first contacted peacefully in 1958. In 1957, five missionaries attempted contact and made a critical mistake. They dropped from the air 8 x 10 glossy photographs of themselves in what we would say to be friendly gestures, forgetting that these people of the rainforest had never seen anything two-dimensional in their lives. They picked up these photographs from the forest floor, tried to look behind the face to find the form or the figure, found nothing, and concluded that these were calling cards from the devil, so they speared the five missionaries to death. But the Waorani didn't just spear outsiders. They speared each other. 54 percent of their mortality was due to them spearing each other. We traced genealogies back eight generations, and we found two instances of natural death and when we pressured the people a little bit about it, they admitted that one of the fellows had gotten so old that he died getting old, so we speared him anyway. (Laughter) But at the same time they had a perspicacious knowledge of the forest that was astonishing. Their hunters could smell animal urine at 40 paces and tell you what species left it behind.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
indigenous people 4
human imagination 3
central revelation 2
voodoo acolytes 2
myriad cultures 2
cultural diversity 2
languages spoken 2
caribbean coastal 2
coastal plain 2
young kid 2
crude face 2
canadian government 2
shit knife 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
caribbean coastal plain 2

Important Words


  1. admitted
  2. air
  3. animal
  4. astonishing
  5. attempted
  6. bit
  7. calling
  8. cards
  9. concluded
  10. contact
  11. contacted
  12. critical
  13. death
  14. devil
  15. died
  16. dropped
  17. due
  18. ecuador
  19. face
  20. fascinating
  21. fellows
  22. figure
  23. find
  24. floor
  25. forest
  26. forgetting
  27. form
  28. friendly
  29. genealogies
  30. generations
  31. gestures
  32. glossy
  33. hunters
  34. instances
  35. knowledge
  36. laughter
  37. left
  38. lived
  39. lives
  40. missionaries
  41. mistake
  42. mortality
  43. natural
  44. northeastern
  45. outsiders
  46. paces
  47. peacefully
  48. people
  49. percent
  50. perspicacious
  51. photographs
  52. picked
  53. pressured
  54. rainforest
  55. smell
  56. spear
  57. speared
  58. spearing
  59. species
  60. time
  61. traced
  62. tribes
  63. urine
  64. waorani