Article called "Backs to the Future"... (ha ha)

An amazing article about a culture where people's visualization of time is opposite to that of the rest of the world.

It seems all human cultures try to imagine time in a spatial way, and most of them visualize the past as physically "behind" them and the future as physically "ahead" of them. In fact, this way of picturing time is so common it was viewed as a universal trait of humans.

But they've found a South American culture where the opposite is true. Not only does their language use words meaning "front" or "forward" when referring to the past, and words meaning "back" when referring to the future, but they also gesture behind them when talking about the future, and in front of them when talking about the past.

The theory is that the past can be known, so it makes sense to place it ahead of you, where you can see it, and to place the unknown future behind you where you can't see it.

Which I think makes just as much sense as other cultures' way of reasoning-- that as you move through space, you're also moving through time, and the places you've been in the past are behind you and the places you will be in the future are ahead of you.

It fascinates me when different cultures have completely different and yet equally valid ways of seeing something. I loved the story "Shakespeare in the Bush."