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The oral history of illiterate aboriginal peoples is remarkable, not only for its elaborate content, but for the way it has been passed down by memory from generation to generation. It certainly puts to shame those who consider themselves as civilized and superior.
There are several kinds of narrative. Some are based on accounts of events that actually happened. They commemorate persons who actually lived, glorifying or vilifying those involved. Quite possibly the things they say and did are elaborated and exaggerated to reflect the judgment of history. Why were the stories told? As mere entertainment in times when there were no books or as lessons intended to pass on the moral values and traditions or to instill pride and a sense of identification in the deeds of the clan or nation or tribe?
Some of the oral material is mythological, not describing events or persons that were witnessed and the news passed on, but attempts to visualize and explain what was shrouded in obscurity: the origin or creation of the world, the appearance of the first humans, the mysteries of fire, weather, disease, life and death and the realization that somehow humans are dependent upon some unseen powers that seem to reward and punish and require acknowledgement and sacrifice.
Myths are not history, neither are they strictly fiction. They are symbolic attempts to make sense out of reality. How literally were these myths believed by those who listened to them we will never know, but we do know that they built real temples to honor and worship and ask for protection from the deities their myths commemorated.
There is also the possibility that some of the oral material was merely for entertainment, stories invented to amuse or instruct without any claim to authenticity or real events, like the Canterbury Tales.
The big civilizations had the advantage of written language. But I doubt that the myths and stories about times ancient to them began with someone writing on parchment or inscribing on stone. They were not original to their transcribers but what had been passed on orally for years before first being recorded. We should be grateful to those scribes who preserved the material so that we can enjoy and learn from their insights.
But there are still today “primitive” aboriginal tribes and cultures who still pass on orally the traditions and legends and beliefs of their people. But as the traditional ways are dying out and the cultures fading away into oblivion as civilization claims victim after victim to modernization, fewer and fewer of the storytellers are surviving, so that unless more efforts are made to record what they know, those oral histories and narratives and theologies and sciences and philosophies and pharmacies will be lost forever.
So what? Who cares? These losses don’t spell the end of civilization or threaten the survival of humankind, but they represent unique achievements of the human spirit. To compose these narrations and preserve in memory from generation to generation of storytellers is a truly superior human task.
It seems so strange to me how upset some people become when something seems to threaten the extinction of some rare inhuman species, but feel absolutely no concern for the impending demise of some human culture. I am not at all advocating the preservation of those cultures by isolating and keeping those peoples locked in their primitive, traditional ways, but we should at least show enough respect for their humanity and individuality to preserve the memory of their achievements and traditions.
Modern day scientists have the relics of archaeology and the fossilized remains of creatures that once roamed the earth. There will be no fossils of the oral histories of lost cultures, but we still have time to record those that still exist before they too are lost forever.
Here is a fable I wrote about the origin of an historical narrative handed down through the centuries.
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The Origin of An Epic
Once upon a time there was an ancient civilization that was very proud of its achievements. One day the king and his advisors were sitting around in the council chamber sipping wine and nibbling on some fruit and tidbits of food that their slaves were providing when a discussion arose about a recent battle they are victoriously won. One of the men began to recount his part in the battle, when he was interrupted by another.
“You’re wrong,” he said, “I was there and that’s not the way it happened.” Soon the whole meeting was in an uproar, each one trying to convince the others that things had happened his way.
Finally the king intervened. “No one is ever going to believe anything you say if you cannot agree on small details. From now on, the official version will be mine, the one that glorifies most the royal power and our local heroes and gods. What we should be discussing is how to memorialize this victory so that future generations will remember our exploits. Do you have any suggestions?”
“We could build an arch of triumph with scenes of the battle carved on it. Or a tall obelisk in the center of the market square carved with a narrative of the whole battle depicted on its sides.”
“But what’s the use of such a high structure? Anything above eyelevel will not be seen clearly enough.”
“We can build a temple with statues of the principal personages or paint murals on a long wall depicting the entire history of the battle.”
“Well,” replied the King, “those are excellent ideas which we can and will bring to reality. It doesn’t matter what is carved high up on an arch or obelisk. Anyone who sees them even from afar will be reminded of the victory they commemorate. Marble statues in a temple will carry our images down through time. Painted scenes on a wall can insure that each one of us gets his share of the spotlight.
“But there is one fundamental limitation in all these schemes. They are local. One has to be right here to see them. So far as the rest of the world is concerned they are out of sight and out of mind. What we need is something to make us household words, heroes known to everyone everywhere. What I propose is we hire some poet storyteller, some creator of epics like Homer to compose a masterpiece of literature that will spread throughout the world and be repeated to every generation to be memorized and told wherever the common people cannot read or do not possess books.”
What the King proposed was unanimously seconded by all the council, but what was so easily decided upon was very difficult to accomplish. Choosing the right band of writers wasn’t easy, neither was it easy to compose verses and include details of episodes that could be agreed upon by those who had taken part in them. By the time the epic was completed most of those it memorialized had passed on to the next life where they could no longer make objections or add amendments. Now there is no part of the world that has not heard of them.
There are lessons hidden here.
The epic that was produced
reflected all the king and his council wanted everyone to know,
so it glorifies the good and vilifies the bad.
It should be read with caution:
the good were probably not as good, nor the bad quite as bad.
Still it commemorates events that were truly great
and presents models of what to do and not to do
in similar circumstances.
Facts and figures appeal to few and are quickly forgotten.
Elaborate stories told in terms
that stir the imagination with graphic imagery
remain forever as fond recollections and significant lessons.
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