Among pseudohistorians there is an overconfidence in oral traditions.  Detailed knowledge of the past is believed to be passed on for millennia.  To me this appears preposterous.  In excess of the limits of human memory one has to ask how much was in fact passed on.  The individual passing on the knowledge has to feel the need for this.  People may feel different needs and perceive things differently.

The interesting thing to me is instead how little is passed on.  Many adults are unaware of social changes taking place before their time.  Add wishful thinking and one gets something most closely resembling denialism.  I have read about people denying that well-documented social changes could have taken place.  This is about rising standard of living during the lifetime of the currently living.  However, I think they were ignorant rather than living in denial.  Parents and grandparents have never told them how bad it was.  Presumably their learning of history was wholly concentrated on rulers and wars.  Moreover, it may matter these individuals live in India.  This country still has gigantic problems with hierakism and unexpanded circles.  Poor peoples’ own points of view then becomes entirely neglected.

All forms of oral traditions are not entirely useless.  A great deal has been written down while they were still living.  Some of these stories have their basis in real events.  One example is the large earthquake in Cascadia in 1700.  There are stories of a tsunami taking place a winter night after most had went to bed.  Counting the number of generations back this would have been around 1700.  A tsunami without preceding earthquake is historically documented in Japan.  It took place in late January of 1700.  In Cascadia trees were drowned when the earthquake sank the land they grew on.  The growth-rings of tree-stumps has been compared to living trees of the same species.  This way they have been dated to the winter of 1699 – 1700.  So we know it was the same earthquake.

Oral traditions may give possible explanation for the otherwise unexplained.  The Maori have an oral tradition of how they came to New Zeeland.  It might not have happened just like that.  But it gives a possible explanation for them calling the country Aotearoa, meaning long-white-cloud.  When their ancestors first spotted North Island it looked like a long white cloud.  This explanation of the name appears plausible to me.

How long does oral traditions last?  The oldest one I know about applies to the ruins of Sandby Fortress.  All the way into the 20th century kids in the area was told to avoid the place.  They were told something horrible had once taken place there.  Modern archelogy has revealed what was the horrible which happened there.  In the late 5th century the place was hit by a massacre.  Everyone in the fortified village were killed or abducted.  The victims of this massacre never got any funeral.  I think this is how oral traditions sound before they entirely disappear.

The point is oral traditions not lasting as long as one likes.  One example is the idea of unicorns.  I don’t think they are based on the extinct Elasmotherium.  These animals have been extinct far too long for this.  Instead I think they are a mix-up of Indian rhino and screw-horned goat.  The rhino may have been mixed up with several different artiodactyls.  Several languages in East Asia have the same word for unicorn as for the mythical creature qilin.  It is described as a large, scaly quadruped with horns.  When Zheng He took home giraffes from East Africa they were perceived as the later.  Today both Japanese and Korean have the same word for giraffe and unicorn.  In China this is considered archaic and giraffe is nowadays called “long-necked deer”.  Something I don’t see as quite wrong.

Uploaded on the 13th of Mars 2024.