Re: oral tradition
Jeffrey Lee (jalee@cts.com)
Wed, 21 Jul 1999 20:53:12 -0700
> Many peoples have stated that it is improbable for oral tradition to pass a
> tradition for millenia upon millenia. Because this impacts how the origin
> of the Genesis account was formed, and the question of how long ago those
> events in early Genesis could have occurred, any evidence relating to the
> efficiency of oral tradition would be welcome. I just ran into an
> interesting example of a 62,000 year tradition that had to have been passed
> down from generation to generation with no writing. It concerns the burial
> practice of the Australian aborigines. Recently the Lake Mungo man was
> dated to 62,000 years ago. The Mungo man was found in 1974. His arms were
> stretched out on top of him, his fingers interlocked with the palms of his
> hands covering his genital area. The importance of this is seen in the
> following quote concerning the sex of the skelton.
>
> "Further, many Aboriginal people have commented to AT [Alan
> Thorne--grm]that they have no doubt that LM3 was a burial of a man, given
> the position of both hand skeletons with their interlocking digits (see
> Figure 1). Contemporary traditional burial included the positioning of a
> man's body so that the hands are clasping and protecting the penis, which
> suggests that such a mortuary practice has a very long prehisotry in
> Australia." Alan Thorne, et al, "Australia's Oldest Human Remains: Age of
> the Lake Mungo 3 Skeleton," Journal of Human Evolution 36(1999):591-612, p.
> 610
>
> Now, a mortuary practice among the aborigines must have been passed down
> from generation to generation orally. Aborigines never invented writing.
> Because of this, it seems to me that oral tradition may be far more
> effective than we have suspected heretofore.
> glenn
>
> Foundation, Fall and Flood
> Adam, Apes and Anthropology
> http://www.flash.net/~mortongr/dmd.htm
>
> Lots of information on creation/evolution
>
Over these sorts of time spans, I can't help you much, but on the general
topic of oral tradition, see Holy Writings, Sacred Text by John Barton. He
covers the issue quite convincingly.
--
Jeff Lee
Carlsbad, California
http://www.users.cts.com/king/c/cjlee/
http://www.stmichaelsbythesea.org/
Public Key: ftp://ftp.cts.com/users/king/c/cjlee/jal_key.txt
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