Spirits can tell the village what it should not have done or what it should not do. Spirits can single out individuals or simply talk to the group as a whole. Pirahãs listen carefully and often follow the exhortations of the kaoáíbógí. A spirit might say something like “Don’t want Jesus. He is not Pirahã,” or “Don’t hunt downriver tomorrow,” or things that are commonly shared values, such as “Don’t eat snakes.” Through spirits, ostracism, food-sharing regulation, and so on, Pirahã society disciplines itself. It has very little coercion by the standards of many other societies, but it seems to
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