Oral history

What is Veeky Forums thoughts on oral history? Of course it should be well noted that oral history should not be treated without proper skepticism, but here are a few questions to get some discussion going:
>what are some fallbacks of oral history
>what are some benefits of oral history
>what can be done (e.g. in terms of skepticism methods) to incorporate oral history into the field of written history
>how best to capture the histories of aboriginals and those cultures with no written histories

Other urls found in this thread:

theconversation.com/the-memory-code-how-oral-cultures-memorise-so-much-information-65649
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I guess I will bump with a few ideas.

I think that there should be a concentration on first-hand oral histories, though these are particular rare for the cultures alluded to in the OP.

This brings up a question on whether second-hand oral accounts are useful to history at all.

catholic missionaries almost ended oral history in many cultures however it bounced back in the mid 20th century.

>those lips
>oral sex history
>bump
>second-hand oral
>catholic missionary position
W-wew, you're so lewd, Veeky Forums.

Oral history should be considered, however it REALLY needs to be corroborated by things other things like archaeology, dendrochronology, geology, population genetics, etc.

Think of it as kind of like religious texts: more pieces of the Old Testament are seeming to be true, but ONLY because we can corroborate with other pieces of evidence.

The benefit of oral history is that you can pass on history if you don't know how to make paper and write things on it
if you know how to make paper and write things on it it's literally the worst
If the indigenous peoples of australia and the americas were able to write shit down, they would have.

>The initial draft of your paper seems to lack a diversity of source material, undergrad. For your revised submission, I think I can provide you some interesting oral histories that I'm sure you'll find....educational

faithful bump

Oral tradition only negative is that the saying were never written down or that the oral tradition is separate from the context in which the narrative takes place.

The large benefit from oral tradition in history is that it was the most reliable source of memory due to the repetition that people would go to to remember things. For example the Bible has multiple genealogies written down, for commoners they would recite their family history to people to show who they were and if they were the right person, since anyone then could be that person and only the family would know their lineage.

The problem some cultures and their histories like nomadic cultures is how much information they give for their time period. For example, though I'm not to aware of Aboriginal oral tradition, I would assume since their myths were antediluvian in nature and lacked a historical location. Second some cultures like the Zoroastrians didn't have written texts for a very long time, the earliest manuscripts are dated to the 10th century AD and written in Avestan, and many ideas were more less likely to come from the early origin source. Though many of their oral tradition contains older Vedic(?) phrases which still indicates that some of the work is from a early date.

you mean like oral sex history???

>most reliable source of memory
But in my experience you get the broken telephone game, which contradicts this idea of yours.

You know, the game where people whisper in eachother's ears down a line what they heard the previous person whisper, and then at the end you get to see how messed up it is.

purple monkey dishwasher

>But in MY EXPERIENCE you get the broken telephone game, which contradicts this idea of yours.
>MY EXPERIENCE

Again this relies on a faulty view of the ancient world reliance of oral history. You are basing it off your experience that you don't have but the ancient people had, so it is therefore anachronistic to assume that, ancient people were train since early ages to memorize. Secondly we cannot assume a broken telephone when doing history because it would be psychologizing the writer and their source, this then means that you would have (omniscience). Again the best way to doubt the oral source, is if the oral source contradicts with the context of history.

Another note: If oral tradition is so faulty, then how can one get information about WW2 or the Korean War or the Vietnam war from people who experienced it 50+ years ago? We don't assume the illegitimate narrative unless it fully contradicts with the context and event that unfolded, the same as the ancient people.

You seem to be just assuming the contrary to what I suggest is my experience for the sake of saying "WELL YOU CANNOT KNOW THAT THEY DIDN'T DO IT DIFFERENTLY!".

What we know is now and the relatively close past. We trust people's first hand accounts first and foremost, and then these experiences are written down, supplemented by a plethora of objective written documents (not experiences written down) which further prove the context and the historicity of non-subjective details from oral records.

Problem is is that with the aboriginals they have no written documents that can be used as support for historical context. So it is only reasonable to assume a broken telephone is possible (and perhaps even likely) since we all are only human, not machines.

People in oral cultures have amazing memories. They can't, and/or don't, use writing to give the tools of survival to their children.

Imagine having a near photographic memory of The Illiad and the Odyssey. You're able to quote off any line in those stories. That's what oral cultures have.

But you're right about the telephone problem in a sense. If there is a story swapped by shaman to shaman apprentice, what happens when the shaman is unexpectedly killed in a tribal raid? The knowledge of that story is lost forever.

BUT written cultures can obviously put information in media that can last for ages. The problem is that written cultures are far more suspect to the telephone effect than oral cultures. Written cultures promote replication outside memory and recycling memory space for new stories and facts. Not faithful photographic memory.

CONT

And of course written cultures still use means of oral communications. What happens when Teacher A has a vague recollection of what was written in book B? He could communicate a twisted version of what was meant but still be free of malicious intentions.

Unless the recipients are willing to read B for themselves, they have sloppy knowledge of the information in B.

What evidence do you have that oral communications for these people were "near photographic memory"? Any papers you can refer me to?

I guess you could say that I have sloppy knowledge from reading misc. articles and texts.

:^)

But seriously, it took me two seconds on google to find something.

theconversation.com/the-memory-code-how-oral-cultures-memorise-so-much-information-65649

Problem with oral history is you have no way to tell if the person is making shit up, I mean based on the batshit crazy things africans say about their past its obvious you would have to be crazy to believe any "historical fact" without written evidence.

>what are some fallbacks of oral history
A plauge, war or natural disaster can permanently end that history, we can dig up scrolls and frescos but not minds.

>what are some benefits of oral history
Better memories and doesnt require any technology or resources.

>what can be done (e.g. in terms of skepticism methods) to incorporate oral history into the field of written history

Why would you want to?

>histories of aboriginals and those cultures with no written histories

Either record it for them or given that many refuse to do so pump a whole bunch of money into reviving those languages and paying htem to teach others

>theconversation.com/the-memory-code-how-oral-cultures-memorise-so-much-information-65649
Sorry, you might have misunderstood. I was asking for papers on verification of historicity of oral histories. I already have read several papers on the methods of memorization.

It doesn't help that a lot of stories are justifications and/or mnemonics for some tribal behavior/custom or for constellation patterns or for weather patterns or for innumerable other "facts" that are needed to maintain a culture.

IIRC, some tribes in Siberia relate tales about the hunter following the great deer. Meaning becomes a mnemonic for describing a constellation. Problem is that the stories are describing a pattern that shifted over 26,000 years ago.

>Why would you want to?
Because it is history we don't have recorded on paper?

>I was asking for papers on verification of historicity of oral histories.

oral histories are less sterile than written text in that they're a lot of "just so" stories meant to keep a culture cohesive without the crutch of text being able to keep the knowledge relatively intact.

Stories about constellation patterns are far easier to assign a date and figure out some sort of chronology.

"...relatively intact. Sloppy, but intact."*

Well the problem with oral history is that it is extremely hard to verify often. You either have people like who are like "take my word for it, they have amazing memories!" or you have people on the other side of it that who are extreme skeptics.

>You either have people like (You) who are like "take my word for it, they have amazing memories!"

Well yeah, they have amazing memories of the stories they're told. How much of the story is mnemonic or allegorical unfortunately depends on the first person to come up with the story. But truth, as we know it from having outside containers of verifying information, is less important than something like : "We do not drink from Rurab watering hole because the great mountain spirit pissed in it to spite the water queen's lack of response to his advances..."

The point is not to drink the watering hole. The "excess" brings human-level meaning to the injunction.

>all japanese history up to chinese contact is oral
>all native american history up to european contact is oral
>most history in europe up to roman contact is oral

Now, from the digital age forward, the only acceptable proof will be timestamped and exifed.

Hor up, didn't the Japanese have the Nihon Shoki, which is like the super-ancient book of Japanese history? That ain't quite oral and predates Chinese contact.

>they have amazing memories of the stories they are told.
They had good memories, nothing super human though. You have a group of even a hundred people collectively telling stories, you are going to get small variants along the way, the stories evolve. This is why you have many differences in the types of stories told. You can certainly tell the older stories from the newer ones since the newer ones are less likely to be polluted by fables.

The Nihon Shoki is originally written in Guwen, traditional Chinese script...

Yeah, in case you never noticed, Japan stole china's writing system.

bump for interest.

>Because it is history we don't have recorded on paper?

Why would you want to incorperate it rather than convert it?

Conversion /is/ incorporation.

>Imagine having a near photographic memory of The Illiad and the Odyssey. You're able to quote off any line in those stories. That's what oral cultures have.

Scholars like Parry managed to prove, using Slovenian folk music and oral poetry, that Homer had been transmitted for several centuries prior to it being written down, and so must have been based on real events.

i.e. Homer is an unoriginal fuck, and cyclopses and giant sea monsters used to run amuck?