Tom Roeper writes:
I just returned from Michigan where I spoke to the Roeper High School Linguistics club on "the Recursion controversy in Brazil and its social consequences" on Jan 15th. The Piraha indian community would like the government to build them a schoolhouse, but the local officials (not federal) refused saying "Why should we build the Piraha a school, they can't learn". The Roeper Amnesty International Club is collecting letters from children in support of the PIraha children. At the same time, a number of indian leaders of many tribes in the area have been killed, most recently on December 3rd. Three outsiders disappeared, and the indians were blamed. The local FUNAI (indian affairs office) was burned down. Every kind of support for the indian groups is particularlyimportant now. Anyone interested could speak to me.
