Oral Tradition as Source of Construction of History of Pre Literate Societies

Oral traditions are considered as a reliable source of historical writing. It represents collective experience and wisdom. But oral tradition is largely anonymous. It imperceptibly absorbs what comes from many sources—individuals, inside groups, and outside groups. In any society, oral tradition has the function of supporting the political structure, economic systems, religious aspects and the social and cultural moves of the group. The knowledge and experience of elders and lessons learned by several generations through experience are crystallized into it. In this paper, an attempt is made to analyse the importance of oral tradition, its elements and various aspects in association with utilization of oral tradition as important source material for the reconstruction of history. Paper also emphasize the need of carefulness and patience on the part of historian while using the facts and should go in to deep the roots of the oral tradition in order to ensure that the facts collected and gathered are authentic and genuine.

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THE SOCIAL AND CULTURAL VALUES TRANSMISSION OF AN ORAL TRADITION

Indonesian Journal of Social Research (IJSR) ◽

10.30997/ijsr.v2i3.70 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 2 (3) ◽

pp. 196-205

Author(s):

Luluk Ulfa Hasanah ◽

Novi Andari

Keyword(s):

Cultural Values ◽

Oral Tradition ◽

Local Community ◽

Oral Traditions ◽

Mutual Cooperation ◽

The Social ◽

History Of ◽

Qualitative Descriptive ◽

Descriptive Method

The purpose of this research is to explore the oral traditions that exist in the Becirongengor village as well as the social and cultural values contained in these oral traditions so that these values can provide learning for the local community. Starting from the problem that the oral tradition that develops in society is starting to lose its existence. Currently the role of oral tradition has begun to be replaced by the existence of social media that has mushroomed in the community. The question is how the oral tradition is able to provide social and cultural values among the community, especially the Becirongengor Village community. The qualitative descriptive method is the chosen research method. The results found that there are still oral traditions that develop in the community, namely (1) the history of Beciro and Ngengor; (2) Haul Mbah Janten and Mbah Surogati; (3) the Kleman Tradition; (4) Paseban Karang Jiwo; (5) MBET traditions; and (6) Slametan. The social and cultural values implicit in the oral tradition are the values of mutual cooperation, andap ashor, tepo seliro, aji mareng sesepuh, friendship, tolerance, religious, and historical values. Of course, oral tradition also provides benefits in social science and cultural education among people, who have experienced the process of transmitting social values that function for entertainment, reminiscing about the past (meaning to history studying), solidarity and togetherness, religious or religious functions, social control, and education.

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A Revised Late Holocene Culture History for Moloka'i Island, Hawai'i

Radiocarbon ◽

10.1017/s0033822200043186 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 49 (3) ◽

pp. 1273-1322 ◽

Cited By ~ 12

Author(s):

Mark D McCoy

Keyword(s):

Initial Period ◽

Oral Traditions ◽

Population Increase ◽

Radiocarbon Age ◽

Subsistence Economies ◽

Culture History ◽

The Social ◽

Social Landscape ◽

Strong Material ◽

History Of

Building directly upon a previous summary of 45 dates (Weisler 1989), this paper presents radiocarbon age determinations for 175 samples from archaeological and natural contexts and a revised culture history of Moloka'i Island, Hawai'i (cal AD 800 and 1795). Significant culture historical trends include an early settlement pattern apparently generalized with respect to ecozone; a remarkably long initial period of marine and endemic bird exploitation; strong material evidence for the concurrent intensification of subsistence economies, population increase, and the structuring of the social landscape through ritual; and links between island politics as described in oral traditions and site construction. Moreover, these results support a late chronology for the colonization of Hawai'i and demonstrate the value of spatial technology for building large chronometric databases.

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SEJARAH SYAIR GULUNG DI KETAPANG

MASA : Journal of History ◽

10.31571/masa.v1i1.1516 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 1 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Hera Yulita ◽

Agus Sastrawan Noor ◽

Yuver Kusnoto

Keyword(s):

Oral Tradition ◽

Primary Source ◽

Local History ◽

Secondary Source ◽

West Kalimantan ◽

Mass Society ◽

The Social ◽

Bird Beak ◽

History Of ◽

In The Beginning

AbstrakPenelitian ini berjudul “Sejarah Syair Gulung di Ketapang”. Adapun rumusan masalah dalam penelitian ini adalah bagaimanakah sejarah syair gulung di Ketapang. Hasil penelitian ini diharapkan dapat memberikan kontribusi bagi masyarakat dan peneliti sejarah lokal yang ada di Kalimantan Barat. Penelitian ini adalah penelitian sejarah maka peneliti menggunakan metode sejarah yang ditulis dengan deskriptif analitis dengan langkah atau tahapan, yaitu : 1). Heuristik, 2). Kritik Sumber, 3). Interpretasi, 4). Historiografi. Dalam memperoleh data-data penelitian ini, peneliti menggunakan metode sumber primer, sekunder dan tradisi lisan atau folklor di dalam heuristik dengan menggunakan metode sejarah lisan.Hasil penelitian syair gulung pada awalnya hanyalah sebuah bentuk karangan atau disebut kengkarangan yang berada di Tanah Kayong, Tanah Tanjungpura yang sekarang bernama Kabupaten Ketapang. Ada juga yang menyebutnya Syair Layang karena isinya hanya selayang pandang. Lambat laun berubah menjadi syair gulung dikarenakan ditulis di atas kertas kemudian digulung dan disimpan di dalam parug burung. Isinya berupa bait-bait kata yang mengandung nasehat dan petunjuk hidup kepada masyarakat Melayu. Terdapat tiga fase syair gulung, yakni fase Kerajaan Tanjungpura yang diwakili oleh Syair Pangeran Syarif, fase kedua fase syair gulung jenaka, fase ketiga fase syair gulung berisi kritik sosial. Kata kunci: sejarah, Syair Gulung, Ketapang AbstractThe tittle of of this research is “The history of Syair Gulung”. The main problem of this research is how the history of Syair Gulung in Ketapang. The results of this research hopely could giving a contribution for the mass society and the researchers of local history studies in West Kalimantan. The research is a historical research. The methods of the research is descriptive-analitic includes four stages : 1) heuristic 2) verification 3) interpretation 4) historiography. The methodologies of research have been with a primary source, a secondary source, and oral tradition or folklore in heuristic with the oral history methods.The results of this research is in the beginning with namely of Syair Gulung is Kengkarangan, in Kayong Land, Tanjungpura Kingdom in nowdays becoming popular with Ketapang Regency. The several society knowing Syair Gulung with Syair Layang. At this time people knowing with Syair Gulung due to writed in paper and then rolled up and saved in the bird beak. The contents of Syair Gulung is a stanzas with the advice and life wisdom for Malay societies. The Syair Gulung includes three phases, such as The Tanjungpura Kingdom phase with with Syair Pangeran Syarif, The witty phase, and the social critics phase. Keywords: history, Syair Gulung, Ketapang

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The Amazons of Dahomey

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History ◽

10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.013.274 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Agbenyega Adedze

Keyword(s):

Oral Tradition ◽

West African ◽

Oral Traditions ◽

Historical Evidence ◽

The West ◽

West African Coast ◽

African Coast ◽

History Of ◽

French Colonial ◽

Female Fighters

The Amazons in general come from Greek legend and myth without any palpable historical evidence. However, there is no doubt about the historical female fighters of the erstwhile Kingdom of Dahomey (Danhome or Danxome) in West Africa, which survived until their defeat by the French colonial forces in 1893. The history of the historical Amazons of the Kingdom of Dahomey stems from vast amounts of oral tradition collected and analyzed over the years, as well as written accounts by Europeans who happened to have visited the kingdom or lived on the West African coast since Dahomey’s foundation in the 17th century to its demise in the late 19th century. These sources have been reviewed and debated by several scholars (including Amélie Degbelo, Stanley B. Alpern, Melville J. Herskovits, Hélène d’Almeida-Topor, Boniface Obichere, Edna G. Bay, Robin Law, Susan Preston Blier, Auguste Le Herisse, etc.), who may or may not agree on the narrative of the founding of the kingdom or the genesis of female fighters in the Dahomean army. Nonetheless, all scholars agree that the female forces traditionally called Ahosi/Mino did exist and fought valiantly in many of Dahomey’s battles against their neighbors (Oyo, Ouemenou, Ouidah, etc.) and France. The history of the Ahosi/Mino is intricately linked to the origins and political and social development of the Kingdom of Dahomey. Ahosi/Mino are still celebrated in the oral traditions of the Fon.

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The Representation of Status in Mande: Did the Mali Empire Still Exist in the Nineteenth Century?

History in Africa ◽

10.2307/3171935 ◽

1996 ◽

Vol 23 ◽

pp. 87-109 ◽

Cited By ~ 18

Author(s):

Jan Jansen

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

Organizational Structure ◽

Oral Tradition ◽

Conventional Wisdom ◽

Oral Traditions ◽

Methodological Errors ◽

Widespread Acceptance ◽

History Of ◽

Source Of Information

For the reconstruction of the history of the aftermath of the Mali empire, that is, the period 1500-1800, oral traditions are the only source of information. The history of this period has been reconstructed by Person and Niane. Their work has gained widespread acceptance. In this paper I will argue that these scholars made significant methodological errors—in particular, in interpreting chronology in genealogies, and their reading of stories about invasions and the seizure of power by younger brothers.My reading of the oral tradition raises questions about the nature of both sixteenth- and nineteenth-century Mande (that is the triangle Bamako-Kita-Kankan (see map), the region where the ‘Malinke’ live), and the medieval Mali empire, because I think that Mande royal genealogies have wrongly been considered to represent claims to the imperial throne of the Mali empire. In contrast, my reading of oral tradition suggests in retrospect that the organizational structure of the Mali empire may have been segmentary, and not centralized, ranking between segments under discussion, each group thereby creating a hierarchical image.The conventional wisdom seems to be that the Mali empire collapsed/disintegrated in the period from 1500 and 1800. As Person put it:Dans le triangle malinké, on ne trouvera plus au XIX siècle que des kafu, ces petites unités étatiques qui forment les cellules politiques fondamentales du monde mandingue. Certains d'entre eux savaient faire reconnaître leur hégémonie à leurs voisins, mais aucune structure politique permante n'existait à un niveau supérieur. Beaucoup d'entre eux, dont les plus puissants et les plus peuplés, seront alors commandées par des lignées Kééta qui se réclament avec quelque vraisemblance des empereurs du Mali médiéval.

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Of Modernity and Public Sociology: Reflections on a Career So Far

Annual Review of Sociology ◽

10.1146/annurev-soc-110419-023001 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 46 (1) ◽

pp. 19-35

Author(s):

Claude S. Fischer

Keyword(s):

Social History ◽

Empirical Work ◽

Public Sociology ◽

Lessons Learned ◽

Social Consequences ◽

History Of Technology ◽

Personal Networks ◽

Middle Range ◽

The Social ◽

History Of

My research so far has followed an interest in the classic concern about the social consequences of modernization, which led me to study urbanism, personal networks, the history of technology, and most extensively, American social history. A commitment to public sociology led me to a book on inequality, Contexts magazine, contributions to general media, a blog, and badgering sociologists about their writing. Some consistent themes include trying to address big questions with middle-range empirical work, focusing on ordinary lives and living, insisting on rigorous evidence whatever the method, and communicating with as wide an audience as lucidly as possible. The article closes with a few lessons learned.

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Mindset and Guidelines: Insights to Enhance Collaborative, Campus-wide, Cross-sectoral Digital Humanities Initiatives

International Journal of Humanities and Arts Computing ◽

10.3366/ijhac.2016.0156 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 10 (1) ◽

pp. 8-21 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Chad Gaffield

Keyword(s):

Social Sciences ◽

Digital Humanities ◽

Lessons Learned ◽

Promising Practices ◽

Team Members ◽

Social Sciences And Humanities ◽

Digital Scholarship ◽

The Social ◽

Challenges And Opportunities ◽

History Of

At the heart of the emergence and development of the Digital Humanities has been the potential to move beyond the out-dated epistemological and metaphysical dichotomies of the later 20th century including quantitative-qualitative, pure-applied, and campus-community. Despite significant steps forward, this potential has been only partially realized as illustrated by DH pioneer Edward L. Ayers’ recent question, ‘Does Digital Scholarship have a future?’ As a way to think through current challenges and opportunities, this paper reflects on the building and initial use of the Canadian Century Research Infrastructure (CCRI). As one of the largest projects in the history of the social sciences and humanities, CCRI enables research on the making of modern Canada by offering complex databases that cover the first half of the twentieth century. Built by scholars from multiple disciplines from coast-to-coast and in collaboration with government agencies and the private sector, CCRI team members came to grips with key DH questions especially those faced by interdisciplinary, multi-institutional, cross-sectoral and internationally-connected initiatives. Thinking through this experience does not generate simple recipes or lessons-learned but does offer promising practices as well as new questions for future scholarly consideration.

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Of Hunters, Goats and Earth-Shrines: Settlement Histories and the Politics of Oral Tradition in Northern Ghana

History in Africa ◽

10.2307/3172113 ◽

2000 ◽

Vol 27 ◽

pp. 193-214 ◽

Cited By ~ 12

Author(s):

Carola Lentz

Keyword(s):

Oral Tradition ◽

Oral Traditions ◽

Northern Ghana ◽

Primary Concern ◽

Settlement History ◽

Agricultural Society ◽

Political Interests ◽

Core Elements ◽

History Of ◽

Working Out

The present paper deals with the settlement history of a West African agricultural society, that of the Dagara in present-day northwestern Ghana and southern Burkina Faso. In it, I shall be particularly interested in the appropriation of space, which is ritually legitimized through the acquisition of earth-shrines, and in the conflict-ridden relationships between the in-migrating Dagara and the Sisala, who were already settled in their new habitat. My primary concern, however, is not to examine the Dagara's expansion strategies or the history of interethnic conflicts as such, but their working out in disputed oral traditions. Using the example of the controversial settlement history of Nandom (see map 1), I wish to show how Africans, both today and in the colonial past, have used oral traditions in order to conduct politics. I shall discuss the methodological implications that this mutual constitution of oral traditions and political interests has for the reconstruction of settlement history and examine the possibilities of a thorough criticism of sources to detect core elements of the historical settlement process and appropriation of space as well as the presentday confrontations with history.Oral traditions have played an important role in research into African history and societies. This is because in many places it was European missionaries and colonial masters who first introduced literacy and writing, and because we have only a few written sources—sometimes none at all—for the period up to the end of the nineteenth century.

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Segeju and Daisũ: A Case Study of Evidence from Oral Tradition and Comparative Linguistics

History in Africa ◽

10.2307/3171605 ◽

1982 ◽

Vol 9 ◽

pp. 175-208

Author(s):

Derek Nurse

Keyword(s):

Middle East ◽

Oral Tradition ◽

Oral Traditions ◽

Comparative Linguistics ◽

Tana River ◽

History Of ◽

The Subject ◽

Northeast Africa

The history of “the” Segeju has been the subject of lengthy published debate. The discussion has been based almost entirely on interpretation of oral traditions as recounted by Segeju informants to various scholars. A newcomer with a linguistic bias is struck by certain aspects of much of this debate:a] the linguistic implausibility apparently involved. Baker, for example, recording fairly literally what he was told, started the history of “the” Segeju in the Middle East: this would presumably involve a community speaking Arabic or Persian. There follows reference to “segeju” travels and sojourns in mainland northeast Africa: linguistic affiliation unknown. This period terminates with their arrival at Shungwaya, in southern Somalia: linguistic affiliation unstated. Later “they” are found on the Upper Tana River: Kamba is mentioned. Finally “they” settle in their present location on the northern Tanzanian coast, where today the language affiliations of people referring to themselves as “Segeju” are various (see below).

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For Oral Tradition (But Not Against Braudel)

History in Africa ◽

10.2307/3171497 ◽

1978 ◽

Vol 5 ◽

pp. 351-356 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Jan Vansina

Keyword(s):

World War Ii ◽

Oral Tradition ◽

Oral Traditions ◽

World War ◽

History Writing ◽

The Past ◽

History Of ◽

The Waves ◽

Fernand Braudel

One wonders what Fernand Braudel and the school of the Annales have done to become a kind of Trojan Horse for the wholesale condemnation of the historical value of oral tradition. Yet they are the banner raised by W.G. Clarence-Smith in a recent article in his journal to preach jihad against its historical value. Clarence-Smith claims that the historiographical revolution effected by Annales has resulted in the definitive exclusion of oral traditions from the halls of Clio. Oral traditions are at best ambiguous “signs” about the past and are very much of the present. They lack absolute chronology and they are selective, so away with them. If they be worthy of attention at all, let anthropologists and sociologists be concerned, save in a few rare instances where a historian wants to check on some European printed source. And even then, caveat emptor. Significantly, the article is not just the expression of the views of one person; rather it is symptomatic of much of the criticism which has been leveled at oral tradition, mostly by fasionable anthropologists. And it brings this criticism to its logical conclusion.But first a word about Braudel, the Annales, and oral tradition in general. The Annales School was founded by Lucien Febvre and Marc Bloch before World War II. Fernand Braudel is its most distinguished exponent. His major theoretical pronouncements can be found in his Ecrits sur l'histoire, a collection of articles reprinted and published in 1969. This and his two major historical works should be read by those who want to know more about his views and ways of dealing with history. The basic tenets that members of the Annales School hold is that the history of events is but the spray of past developments; other time depths tell us more about the waves of the past. There is the time of the conjoncture, the trend, and the even longer time periods -- sometimes many centuries long -- the longue durée or long term. Successful history writing does not liminate the study of events, but analyzes them against the movement of these longer and deeper-running trends.

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