Common questions about Oral tradition
Short answers, pulled from the story.
What is oral tradition and how does it function as a living library?
Oral tradition is the oldest and most widespread medium of human communication that functions as a living library where knowledge, art, beliefs, and culture are received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another. It exists only when it is spoken, sung, or called out on musical instruments, requiring the active participation of a human mind to keep history alive. Jan Vansina defines this as a message that must be oral statements spoken, sung, or called out on musical instruments only, with transmission by word of mouth over at least a generation.
Who are the griots in West African cultures and what roles do they perform?
Griots are individuals who hold a hereditary position that functions as a living archive for entire societies in Dyula, Soninke, Fula, Hausa, Songhai, Wolof, Serer, and Mossi cultures, though most famously in Mandinka society. These individuals constitute a caste that performs a range of roles, including historian, library, musician, poet, mediator of family and tribal disputes, and spokesperson, serving in the king's court much like the European bard. When Sundiata Keita founded the Mali Empire, he was offered Balla Fasséké as his griot to advise him during his reign, giving rise to the Kouyate line of griots who have kept records of all births, deaths, and marriages through the generations of the village or family.
How do Native American tribes and Aboriginal Australian people use oral tradition to preserve environmental history?
Native American tribes have preserved environmental history through oral traditions that describe natural disasters like earthquakes and tsunamis, with stories from the Suquamish Tribe suggesting that Agate Pass was created when an earthquake expanded the channel as a result of an underwater battle between a serpent and bird. In a study published in February 2020, new evidence showed that both Budj Bim and Tower Hill volcanoes erupted between 34,000 and 40,000 years ago, which could be interpreted as evidence for the oral histories of the Gunditjmara people, an Aboriginal Australian people of south-western Victoria, which tell of volcanic eruptions being some of the oldest oral traditions in existence. A basalt stone axe found underneath volcanic ash in 1947 had already proven that humans inhabited the region before the eruption of Tower Hill.
What is the oral-formulaic composition theory developed by Milman Parry and Albert Lord regarding Homer?
Research by Milman Parry and Albert Lord indicates that the verse of the Greek poet Homer has been passed down not by rote memorization but by oral-formulaic composition, a process where extempore composition is aided by the use of stock phrases or formulas that fit in a modular fashion into the poetic form. In the case of the work of Homer, formulas included eos rhododaktylos, meaning rosy fingered dawn, and oinops pontos, meaning winedark sea, which were used to express particular essential ideas under the same metrical conditions. This theory of oral-formulaic composition has been found in many different time periods and many different cultures, touching on over 100 ancient, medieval and modern traditions.
How was the Quran and the hadith transmitted orally before being written down?
The Quran, meaning recitation in Arabic, is believed by Muslims to be God's revelation to the Islamic prophet Muhammad, delivered to him from 610 CE until his death in 632 CE, and it is said to have been carefully compiled and edited into a standardized written form about two decades after the last verse was revealed. The hadith, meaning narrative or report in Arabic, is the record of the words, actions, and the silent approval, of Muhammad, and was transmitted by oral preachers and storytellers for around 150 to 250 years before being sorted according to accuracy, compiled, and committed to written form by a reputable scholar. Each hadith includes the isnad, the chain of human transmitters who passed down the tradition before it was sorted according to accuracy.
When did Jan Vansina publish Oral tradition and what impact did it have on historical research?
In 1961, Jan Vansina published Oral tradition in which he made the case for the validity of oral sources as historical sources, and it is regarded as one of the most influential works written about African history and oral tradition. Historians collect and transcribe oral traditions via fieldwork, a practice that was initially foreign to historians who would usually spend most of their time sifting through archives and libraries. Unfortunately, in Africa most of the early tapes and transcriptions weren't submitted to public depositories, gravely impacting verifiability and future critique of interpretation.