oral tradition

GRMorton@aol.com
Thu, 5 Oct 1995 21:39:45 -0400

Recently, several people have questioned the ability of an oral tradition to
be passed down as long as might be required in my views of the flood.
Obviously we will NEVER be able to tell who is correct here. Neither side
has any examples and it is a very long term experiment if you want to answer
the question in that fashion. However, much of our modern skepticism at the
efficacy of oral tradition depends upon the modern person's view of our own
memory and its capabilities. There apparently are several differences
between the way modern, "advanced" mankind remembers things vs. how
"primitive" man remembers.

John McCrone wrote of iconic or Photographic memory:

"Althought fewer than one in a hundred adults in the West have this sort of
intense imagery, it is quite common in children and 'primitive" people. In a
1960s study in a Nigerian village, a slide projector was set up and the
tribesmen were shown some pictures for thirty seconds each, ranging from a
photography of a Nigerian bus stop to scenes from Alice in Wonderland. Over
half the villagers showed some level of photographic memory and about a fifth
had almost perfect recall, being able to do such things as trace out the
license-plate number of a car from their memory of a picture, even though
they were unable to read or write. In one instance, a subject who wrongly
stated that the Cheshire cat from the Alice in Wonderland picture was black
was greeted with cries of scorn from the other eighteen villagers who had
watched the test. All of them were looking at the blank projector screen as
if the picture still lingered there like an after-image from staring at the
sun, and when they were asked how many could see the original image, fourteen
hands shot up."~John McCrone, _The Ape that Spoke_, New York: William Morrow
and Co., 1991), p. 98-99

The Maori of New Zealand "firmly believed that anyone who recited an
important tradition incorrectly would perish before the wrath of the gods."
(Ivars Lissner, The Living Past, G.P.Putnam, 1957, p. 233.)
They also could tell you the names of the 40 generations which lay between
them and Kupe, who was the discoverer of New Zealand. Does anyone on this
list know their most recent 40 ancestors? I am doing good to go back to
Cromwell's day with one ancestor.

The transmission of information over any period of time depends upon how the
people remember and how important they believe the information is.

glenn