I am starting up with node This is from node.js README.md
Prerequisites (Unix only):
* GCC 4.2 or newer * Python 2.6 or 2.7 * GNU Make 3.81 or newer
Node.js is built with GYP — cross-platform built tool written in Python. Also some other build steps are implemented in Python. So Python is required for building node from source.
But you also need Python for building native addons.