Part of my question was whether a list of individuals (in python) has a corresponding type in pig. I now see that it doesn't. Instead, it must be converted to a list of tuples.
There is a patch from Woody to make these translations easier. - https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/PIG-1942 Once there is some consensus on the details, we should have it in. (I hope to spend some time in next few weeks to drive that.)
-Thejas
