Núñez now believes that he has definitive evidence that the Aymara have a sense of the passage of time that is the mirror image of his own: the past is in front of them, the future behind.
Thirty years ago, Miracle and Yapita pointed to the often incredulous responses of Aymara to some written texts: “‘Columbus discovered America&rsquo—was the author actually there?” In a language so reliant on the eyewitness, it is not surprising that the speaker metaphorically faces what has already been seen: the past. It is even logical, says Lakoff.
“H ow time flies [1]”
A very interesting article about a group of people in Chile who view time differently than we Westerns do. Of course the past is in front of them— they've seen the past. And the future? You can't see behind you, so of course the future is back that-a-way.
[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/feature/story/0,13026,1423455,00.html