Oral Traditions: Whose History

1981 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 165-181 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Spear
Keyword(s):  
Oral Traditions ◽  
African History ◽  
Evolutionary Patterns ◽  
Initial Report ◽  
The Past ◽  
Primary Documents ◽  
History Of ◽  
One Year ◽  
Successive Generations ◽  
Tradition Orale

Historians rarely pause to reflect on the history and theory of our own discipline, but it is a salutary exercise, particularly when the discipline is as young as African history. Twenty years ago a majority of African peoples emerged from colonial domination and acquired their independence. In that same year their history was also symbolically liberated from domination by the activities of Europeans in Africa through the inauguration of the Journal of African History. And one year later the new African history was given what was to become one of its dominant methodologies with the publication of Jan Vansina's De la tradition Orale.African history was to be the history of Africans, a history that had begun well before the European ‘discovery’ of Africa. The problem was sources. Western historiography was firmly based on written sources which could be arranged in sequence and analyzed to trace incremental changes and establish cause and effect relationships in evolutionary patterns of change. Unlike written documents which were recorded in the past and passed down unchanged into the present, oral traditions had to be remembered and retold through successive generations to reach the present. Their accuracy was thus subject to lapses in memory and falsification in the long chains of transmission from the initial report of the event in the past to the tradition told in the present. To overcome these problems Vansina established an elaborate and meticulous methodology by which traditions should be collected and transcribed, their chains of transmission traced and variants compared, and obvious biases and falsifications stripped off to produce primary documents suitable for writing history within the western genre.

Community-Based Approaches to African History

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter R. Schmidt ◽  
Kathryn Weedman Arthur
Keyword(s):  
Oral Traditions ◽  
African History ◽  
Community Based ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
Material History ◽  
Other World ◽  
Historical Sites ◽  
Community Projects

Several trends in the historical scholarship of Africa require recognition and remediation. The first is a quickly shrinking interest in African history of the past two millennia, with a shift in emphasis to early hominins and to the modern period. The precolonial history of Africa, once a subject of considerable excitement for historians, historical linguists, and archaeologists, is fading from interest. The high cost of interdisciplinary research is one reason, but a deeper, more alarming cause is the rapid erasure of oral traditions by globalization, disease, and demographic changes. Archaeologists and heritage experts are faced with a need to find innovative means to investigate and recover historical information. One proven path is partnerships with communities that want to initiate research to document, recuperate, and preserve their histories. Community approaches in other world regions have shown important research results. Adapting some of the philosophy and methods of other experiments as well as innovating their own approaches, archaeologists and heritage managers in Africa are increasingly involved in community projects that hold out significant hope that the quickly disappearing oral and material history of Africa can be preserved and studied into the future. Two case studies—one from the Haya people of Tanzania and the other from the Boreda Gamo of Ethiopia—illustrate that long-term and trusting partnerships with local groups lead to important historical observations and interpretations. Such collaborations also lead to thorough documentation and preservation of historical sites and information that otherwise would be lost to posterity. Moreover, they account for the ability of local groups to initiate and to conduct their own research while recognizing local control over heritage and history.

scholarly journals The Power of Systematic Doubt in Historical Enquiry

1974 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 109-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Vansina
Keyword(s):  
Point Of View ◽  
Oral Traditions ◽  
African History ◽  
Historical Reconstruction ◽  
Historical Method ◽  
Common Reference ◽  
Historical Materials ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
Points Of View

Many readers have probably noticed that the manuals of historical method which deal with verbal societies are primarily concerned with the sources available and the application of a critique to them. This is true for McCall's or Gabel and Bennett's works on Africa. But what is to be done with the sources once they are ready for evaluation remains vague. How does one reconstruct the past? How does one explain, or eventually interpret, history? Of the two works mentioned, only the first pays some attention to the question of “historical synthesis.’ McCall lists three possibilities: (a) that the sources support each other; (b) that they contradict each other; and (c) that they have no common reference or meeting point. This last situation is the most common in African history and indicates merely that not enough is known and that eventually new data could lead to new interpretative situations-either (a) or (b). The manual stresses that sources should be classified by discipline so that comparison of sources yields either confirmation or contradiction, with obvious and known data reinforcing the validity of the result. Once this is achieved it would seem that the job is finished, except for the warning that historical reconstruction requires a certain type of mind: imaginative yet disciplined.Yet the job is not finished. By comparing we have only established the degree of validity of reported events or situations. We have only verified how the observation, to borrow a term from the scientific experimental method, is correct. The impression remains that historical research is fairly mechanical: to find sources, subject them to a critique, assemble them. Reconstruction follows, with suitable use of imagination. That is the craft. Yet anyone who works with historical materials knows that that is not the practice of the craft. Josephine Tey's novel The Daughter of Time features a police sergeant who more nearly exemplifies historical practice–he guesses, ponders, backtracks, and finds sources almost by intuition. If he had made a few more mistakes he would have been a recognizable historian at work. A recent volume, The Historian's Workshop, though impressionistic, also yields a more realistic picture. In the real world historians start out with a hunch, an idea which leads them to an interest in documents or in oral traditions. Then the data suggest what Popper calls a historical interpretation – “untestable points of view.” The practitioner feels that the interpretation is not enough. It should be doubted and controlled by reference to more data until the point is reached at which no more control is possible. Then the historian feels satisfied with the result–even though it still remains an interpretation, because there remains the selective point of view implicit in the idea that initiated the research.

COMBINING ORAL TRADITIONS AND BAYESIAN CHRONOLOGICAL MODELING TO UNDERSTAND VILLAGE DEVELOPMENT IN THE GULF OF PAPUA (PAPUA NEW GUINEA)

Radiocarbon ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Chris Urwin ◽  
Quan Hua ◽  
Henry Arifeae
Keyword(s):  
Papua New Guinea ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
Oral Traditions ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Spatial History ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
Gulf Of Papua ◽  
The Village

ABSTRACT When European colonists arrived in the late 19th century, large villages dotted the coastline of the Gulf of Papua (southern Papua New Guinea). These central places sustained long-distance exchange and decade-spanning ceremonial cycles. Besides ethnohistoric records, little is known of the villages’ antiquity, spatiality, or development. Here we combine oral traditional and 14C chronological evidence to investigate the spatial history of two ancestral village sites in Orokolo Bay: Popo and Mirimua Mapoe. A Bayesian model composed of 35 14C assays from seven excavations, alongside the oral traditional accounts, demonstrates that people lived at Popo from 765–575 cal BP until 220–40 cal BP, at which time they moved southwards to Mirimua Mapoe. The village of Popo spanned ca. 34 ha and was composed of various estates, each occupied by a different tribe. Through time, the inhabitants of Popo transformed (e.g., expanded, contracted, and shifted) the village to manage social and ceremonial priorities, long-distance exchange opportunities and changing marine environments. Ours is a crucial case study of how oral traditional ways of understanding the past interrelate with the information generated by Bayesian 14C analyses. We conclude by reflecting on the limitations, strengths, and uncertainties inherent to these forms of chronological knowledge.

The History of Africanization and the Africanization of History

2006 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
pp. 85-100 ◽  
Author(s):  
Esperanza Brizuela-García
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
Graduate School ◽  
American History ◽  
African Studies ◽  
African History ◽  
Not Given ◽  
Latin American History ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Challenges

The idea of Africanization is arguably one of the most important and prevalent in African historiography and African studies. I first encountered this notion some eight years ago when I started graduate school. With a background in Mexican and Latin American history, I found it necessary to immerse myself in the historiography of Africa. It was in this process that I encountered the idea of Africanization. It was not always identified in this manner, but it was clear that historians were, in one way or another, articulating a concern about how “African” was African history.The objective of this paper is to examine the history of Africanization in African historiography. It departs from two basic premises. First, the issues that come with the idea of Africanization are more pronounced in the field of African history. When compared to other fields, such as Latin American history, this indigenizing of history is not given nearly so much attention. Second, the idea that African history needs to be Africanized has been taken for granted, and has not been critically examined. Here I will contend that the historical conditions that have framed the emergence and development of African historiography have made it necessary to emphasize the issue of Africanization. I will also argue that those conditions have changed in the past fifty years, and that the questions raised in the quest to Africanize history should be redefined in view of the new challenges for African history and of historiography at large.

scholarly journals “Africa for the Africans?” – Mapmaking, Lagos, and the Colonial Archive

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 ◽  
pp. 275-296
Author(s):  
Ademide Adelusi-Adeluyi
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous Population ◽  
African History ◽  
The Past ◽  
Digital Representations ◽  
Early Colonial ◽  
Colonial Archive ◽  
History Of ◽  
Story Maps ◽  
Ownership Of Land ◽  
Place And Identity

AbstractIn early colonial Lagos, struggles over race, place and identity were played out over ownership of land, and ended with the displacement of sections of the indigenous population. “Africa for the Africans” combines texts and maps to narrate the history of 1860s Lagos. This article demonstrates how, with Geographic Information Systems (GIS), European colonial maps can be used to analyze the significance of changing urban spatial relationships in 1860s Lagos. Though much of this analysis employs GIS, it also leans heavily on other tools for making timelines, story maps and vector diagrams. This process of creating digital representations of the past also has pedagogical applications, as these methods can be extended to the classroom for undergraduates learning about African history.

scholarly journals Historians, are Archeologists Your Siblings?

1995 ◽  
Vol 22 ◽  
pp. 369-408 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Vansina
Keyword(s):  
Good Reason ◽  
African History ◽  
Historical Reconstruction ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
Archaeological Material ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Difference ◽  
In The Beginning ◽  
Relative Scarcity

The historian of pre-nineteenth century Africa…cannot get far without the aid of archaeology.Nevertheless, historians have good reason to be cautious about historical generalisations by archaeologists and about their own use of archaeological material…: it would be a rash historian who totally accepted the conclusions of Garlake and Huffman with the same simple-minded trust as I myself accepted the conclusions of Summers and Robinson.In the beginning, historians of Africa put great store by archeology. Was its great time depth not one of the distinctive features of the history of Africa, a condition that cannot be put aside without seriously distorting the flavor of all its history? Did not the relative scarcity and the foreign authorship of most precolonial written records render archeological sources all the more precious? Did not history and archeology both deal with the reconstruction of human societies in the past? Was the difference between them not merely the result of a division of labor based on sources, so that historical reconstruction follows in time and flows from archeological reconstruction? Such considerations explain why the Journal of African History has regularly published regional archeological surveys in order to keep historians up to date.

Northern Rhodesia Tax Stamps as an Aid to Chronology

1987 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 363-368
Author(s):  
Mwelwa C. Musambachime
Keyword(s):  
Oral Traditions ◽  
Colonial History ◽  
The Past ◽  
Mnemonic Devices ◽  
Early Colonial ◽  
History Of ◽  
Tax Payers

It is well known that historians studying preliterate societies, in which oral traditions are the main sources of data used in reconstructing the past, have experienced problems in ‘arranging’ events in their order of occurrence. To establish chronology, historians have used a number of aids such as mnemonic devices and occurrences of eclipses and droughts which are then correlated to the western calendar. This paper discusses an aid which, used together with oral traditions, can be very useful in reconstructing the early colonial history of Northern Rhodesia between 1910 and 1927. This aid is the tax stamp given to all tax payers during this period. To understand the importance of the tax stamps to chronology, perhaps it is best to begin with a description as to how events were recorded in the precolonial period.

scholarly journals Mycobacteriosis treatment challenges in patients with HIV-infection

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 35-45
Author(s):  
M. A. Savchenko ◽  
A. M. Panteleev
Keyword(s):  
Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy ◽  
Opportunistic Infections ◽  
The United States ◽  
Steady Increase ◽  
The Past ◽  
Highly Active ◽  
History Of ◽  
One Year

Over the past decade, in Russian Federation there has been a steady increase in the incidence of MAC-infection in patients with HIV (the growth of nosology over the past five years, on average, was 57% per year). This determines the interest in this problem, especially in terms of the high inefficiency of treatment for the disease, the long term and cost of treatment. The history of the study of Mycobacterium Avium Complex-infection (MAC) originates in the early eighties in the United States, when the prognosis for a patient with AIDS and mycobacteriosis was extremely poor: mortality within one year after the detection of pathogen reached 71%. The role of infection in the thanatogenesis of patients was, however, established only by the beginning of the nineties. The detection of macrolide activity against the pathogen significantly improved the prognosis for patients, especially in combination with highly active antiretroviral therapy. The widespread introduction of antiviral drugs into practice and the ability to achieve immune reconstitution prevented the development of opportunistic infections, but did not solve the remaining issues of the treatment of the MAC-infection. The main one is the treatment of patients with a clarithromycin-resistant pathogen. There is no consensus on the sensitivity of non-tuberculous mycobacteria to antibacterials.

scholarly journals A rare case of peritoneo-cutaneous fistula after laparoscopy converted to open failed cholecystectomy: meticulously managed by laparoscopy

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 1405
Author(s):  
Washim F. Khan ◽  
Yashwant S. Rathore ◽  
Gurpremjit Singh ◽  
Sandeep Jain ◽  
Devender Singh
Keyword(s):  
Subcutaneous Tissue ◽  
High Volume ◽  
Fistula Tract ◽  
Cutaneous Fistula ◽  
The Past ◽  
Serous Discharge ◽  
History Of ◽  
Normal Gallbladder ◽  
One Year ◽  
Gallbladder Fossa

Peritoneo-cutaneous fistula can occur following cholecystectomy due to leftover stones. However, cholecysto-cutaneous fistula has been found to be associated with complication of acute cholecystitis. But never before a fistula associated with abandoned cholecystectomy without spillage of stone have been described in literature. We describe a case report of a 25-year-old female presented with right upper quadrant serous discharge from a previous incision site for the past 8 months. The patient had a history of failed cholecystectomy one year back. The patient was evaluated radiologically with computed tomography sinogram and magnetic resonance cholangiopancreatogram (MRCP) and found to have a tract communicating with subcutaneous tissue and gallbladder fossa with normal gallbladder anatomy and a single calculus. The patient was managed laparoscopically. Laparoscopic cholecystectomy was performed successfully with excision of peritoneo-cutaneous fistula tract. All difficult and failed cholecystectomies should be attempted at high volume surgical centres by an experienced laparoscopic surgeon only.

scholarly journals Literary Narratives as a Tool for the Conservation of Indian Cultural Landscapes

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (6S4) ◽  
pp. 1108-1111
Keyword(s):  
Traditional Knowledge ◽  
Cultural Landscape ◽  
Cultural Landscapes ◽  
Oral Traditions ◽  
Site Location ◽  
Place And Space ◽  
Primary Documents ◽  
Complex Relationships ◽  
Successive Generations ◽  
Creation Stories

The large majority of conservation and preservation projects tend to examine physical artefacts as ‘primary documents’ to effectively comprehend the multiple layers of a cultural landscape. There is the expectation that this analysis provides better insights into the transformation of these cultural landscapes over chronological time. However, besides built artefacts which undeniably carry history in their form and making, the existence of life events can also contribute towards an understanding of ‘palimpsestic reality’. On these lines, cultures, beliefs, and traditions are encoded within recurrent social practices such as celebrations, festivals and superstitions, thereby creating strands of oral traditions. These oral traditions pervade the histories of place and space, becoming the essence of place and serving as forms of communication of a shared traditional knowledge of art, ideas and cultural materials transferred between successive generations. Song and dialogue – reflecting the content of historical and mythical time – including folklore, poetry, prose, verses, chants and ballads, are central to these transmissions. Deep narratives also allow landscapes to initiate their own creation stories with respect to the transformation and adaptation to the particulars of site location, society, culture and traditional knowledge systems. Through focused ways of examining the historical geographies of traditional Indian landscapes, this paper seeks to understand the diverse ways in which resident populations express their complex relationships with these landscapes, associating with the transformations of these landscapes and reformulating their relationships to society.

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