The Odissey: a Baltic tale?

[Razgovory]

Viper, I think the evidence is conclusive there was no writing other than in Meso-America.  Sadly a lot of the oral history of the Indigenous North Americans has been lost, but what remains is remarkably accurate in terms of describing tribal boundaries.

Do you have examples of this remarkably accurate tribal boundaries thing?

Yeah, the Nuxulk Nation on the BC Central Coast has a rich oral history which recites not only the boundaries of the Nation but also the boundaries of each Family within the Nation.

That oral history has been accepted as evidence in our courts and is corroborated by the archeological evidence.

So did they use longitude and latitude or what?

How do you describe locations?  When you describe where you live have you ever referred to longitude and latitude?

Of course you don't.  Why would you expect a non seafaring people to do anything other than refer to landmarks.

Okay, did they have standardized measurements?  Better question:  When were the oral traditions written down?  Did other tribes recognize these boundaries?

[The Brain]

Hey Raz - here's an article claiming that Australian Aboriginal history accurately described a 10,000 year old sea rise (including landmarks that were submerged at that time): https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ancient-sea-rise-tale-told-accurately-for-10-000-years/

I remember reading that when it was posted before. I haven't delved into the details, but I got the impression then that they seemed a bit quick to accept things. Do I accept the possibility that info was passed down for 10,000 years? Yes. Does available evidence strongly support this? Possibly, but I'm not completely convinced.

The article says that the stories preserve the original names of islands. How do we know that those names are the original ones?

Has it been established that the people living in the area when the stories were recorded were descendants of the people living there 10,000 years ago? Maybe DNA from ancient remains shows this? In general 10,000 years is a fairly long time for a group of humans to be living in the same area.

Have possible alternative explanations been fully explored? Sea level change in general, like tides or tsunami events, could have inspired stories. A bit like "normal" floods inspiring megaflood myths. Or simply imagination of course.

This area of research attracts weirdos, so caution is advised.

[Tamas]

Re. floods: didn't most civilisations/first cities began near rivers? So: rivers flood, which is a huge deal if you live right next to it but it's far from Biblical proportions. But if you were like 4th generation passing down the story that initially covered "how my father's shed got collapsed by the flood" then likely by then it had morphed into "there was this massive flood that covered everything known to man".

[Josquius]

What I find interesting is less what stories are created- of course people living next to a river would have a story or two about floods- and more which stories survive, grow, spread, and become really important.
Completely believable some plains Indian guy of the 17th century would come up with a creation story about a pig shitting out the earth.... but that just didn't click with his people. What really engaged them was the other guy's story about horses. Horses are cool.

Certainly there's flood stories from basically every culture. From the top of my head the Chinese one seems to have a very definite particular local basis in history but the others are a bit more open to interpretation.

That the Mesopotamians would be into stories about floods is a given. But its really curious the story would spread and become so foundational to the Jews and others whose life is less based around mammoth flood prone river systems.
I wonder if there's any evidence if the Jews picked it up in Babylon or they already had it before then?

[crazy canuck]

Viper, I think the evidence is conclusive there was no writing other than in Meso-America.  Sadly a lot of the oral history of the Indigenous North Americans has been lost, but what remains is remarkably accurate in terms of describing tribal boundaries.

Do you have examples of this remarkably accurate tribal boundaries thing?

Yeah, the Nuxulk Nation on the BC Central Coast has a rich oral history which recites not only the boundaries of the Nation but also the boundaries of each Family within the Nation.

That oral history has been accepted as evidence in our courts and is corroborated by the archeological evidence.

So did they use longitude and latitude or what?

How do you describe locations?  When you describe where you live have you ever referred to longitude and latitude?

Of course you don't.  Why would you expect a non seafaring people to do anything other than refer to landmarks.

Okay, did they have standardized measurements?  Better question:  When were the oral traditions written down?  Did other tribes recognize these boundaries?

As already mentioned in this thread there was no writing.  In fact an alphabet was only recently created.  That is what it means to have an oral history.

Archeology has proven the oral history's claim of exclusive use to be accurate.

And why the  fixation on units of measurement?

[Razgovory]

Measurements are typical when coming up with legal boundaries.  If the oral tradition was never recorded, how do you know what it is?  You didn't personally hear it.  Presumably someone recorded it.  Perhaps a folklorist, or maybe the speaker knew how to read or write.  Now it makes a huge difference if when it was recorded.  What would prevent the teller of the oral history from looking at map and tailoring his story fit the borders he wants?  I don't know how archeology can prove invisible lines on a map.  It doesn't do it for other cultures, why should it do it for these guys?  The tool kits and DNA for one group of Hunter Gatherers is going to be very similar to that of their neighbors.

[crazy canuck]

Typical but not necessary

You are creating a restriction that is not necessary except to deny how others perceive the world

[Josquius]

Surely there is a measurement inherent in saying "The X boundary runs along the course of Y stream until Z hill".
There would of course be some debate in where exactly the hill starts, does it mean through the middle of the stream or edge, etc... but we've seen this problem time and again in western societies drawing boundaries.

As to  archaeology proving invisible lines on a map... lots of places where that could easily be done in Europe if we somehow forgot the continuous written records that we have. The Danelaw for instance.

[garbon]

The point wasn't it relies on horses, but that the myths aren't very old.  They are designed the explain the present, not to recount history.

I'm understanding you correctly, that you're saying myths and oral histories as a general rule are only accurate for about a century and a half, and anything prior to that has in fact changed to reflect current concerns?

And you believe this to be an accurate for oral histories in general?

Generally yeah.  Some stories may have accurate details in them, for instance the boar-tusk helm of Odysseus, but you can't readily distinguish what is true and what is false.  Take for example the Song of Roland.  Some basic elements are true.  Charelmagne was a real person and the battle of Roncesvalles took place a guy name Roland (well Hrundelund) died there.  The rest is hogwash.  The battle involved Franks and Basques, but the poems has Muslims as the attackers.  The Muslims are described as polytheists who worship fictional gods.  Charlemagne, in the poem, conquers Spain.  He didn't really do that.

But isn't that part of the domain of history, figuring out what in records is true*? Part of my dissertation right now involves writers playing fast and loose with the historical record to justify goals for their own day - and one in particular (Bede) was writing with a lot of written records at his disposal but still massaged historical figures to fit his narrative/instructive ends.

What distinction are you drawing for oral histories in terms of truth content?

*well and I guess in our postmodern era, gazing at the idea of objective truth and subjecting it to skepticism

[Razgovory]

Typical but not necessary

You are creating a restriction that is not necessary except to deny how others perceive the world

 I am creating a restriction of what can be demonstrated true or not.

[Razgovory]

Surely there is a measurement inherent in saying "The X boundary runs along the course of Y stream until Z hill".
There would of course be some debate in where exactly the hill starts, does it mean through the middle of the stream or edge, etc... but we've seen this problem time and again in western societies drawing boundaries.

As to  archaeology proving invisible lines on a map... lots of places where that could easily be done in Europe if we somehow forgot the continuous written records that we have. The Danelaw for instance.

or if the stream changed course, or if it disappeared, or people changed the name, or two people call it by other names or if two people argue over whether it is the same stream...

Can you use archeology to prove  invisible lines on a map?  If so what are the borders of the polity that built stone henge?

[Razgovory]

The point wasn't it relies on horses, but that the myths aren't very old.  They are designed the explain the present, not to recount history.

I'm understanding you correctly, that you're saying myths and oral histories as a general rule are only accurate for about a century and a half, and anything prior to that has in fact changed to reflect current concerns?

And you believe this to be an accurate for oral histories in general?

Generally yeah.  Some stories may have accurate details in them, for instance the boar-tusk helm of Odysseus, but you can't readily distinguish what is true and what is false.  Take for example the Song of Roland.  Some basic elements are true.  Charelmagne was a real person and the battle of Roncesvalles took place a guy name Roland (well Hrundelund) died there.  The rest is hogwash.  The battle involved Franks and Basques, but the poems has Muslims as the attackers.  The Muslims are described as polytheists who worship fictional gods.  Charlemagne, in the poem, conquers Spain.  He didn't really do that.

But isn't that part of the domain of history, figuring out what in records is true*? Part of my dissertation right now involves writers playing fast and loose with the historical record to justify goals for their own day - and one in particular (Bede) was writing with a lot of written records at his disposal but still massaged historical figures to fit his narrative/instructive ends.

What distinction are you drawing for oral histories in terms of truth content?

*well and I guess in our postmodern era, gazing at the idea of objective truth and subjecting it to skepticism

Oral histories are inherently less reliable.  They are highly mutable and can be created on the whim of the speaker.  Preserving a factual account is not really what they are for.  The point of Song of Roland was not to record the past but to entertain and flatter some lord patronizing the artist.  With written records I can compared what was written in the past to what is written currently. 

"Duke Dunderhead killed 300 enemies at battle of Bingo-Bongo" 

"Yeah, the grave stone of Duke Dunderhead says he died three years prior to the Battle of Bingo-Bongo"

Can't really do that with oral history.

[Jacob]

I think you're underestimating the way historians use combinations of the material record, written sources, and oral histories in their work.

[garbon]

The point wasn't it relies on horses, but that the myths aren't very old.  They are designed the explain the present, not to recount history.

I'm understanding you correctly, that you're saying myths and oral histories as a general rule are only accurate for about a century and a half, and anything prior to that has in fact changed to reflect current concerns?

And you believe this to be an accurate for oral histories in general?

Generally yeah.  Some stories may have accurate details in them, for instance the boar-tusk helm of Odysseus, but you can't readily distinguish what is true and what is false.  Take for example the Song of Roland.  Some basic elements are true.  Charelmagne was a real person and the battle of Roncesvalles took place a guy name Roland (well Hrundelund) died there.  The rest is hogwash.  The battle involved Franks and Basques, but the poems has Muslims as the attackers.  The Muslims are described as polytheists who worship fictional gods.  Charlemagne, in the poem, conquers Spain.  He didn't really do that.

But isn't that part of the domain of history, figuring out what in records is true*? Part of my dissertation right now involves writers playing fast and loose with the historical record to justify goals for their own day - and one in particular (Bede) was writing with a lot of written records at his disposal but still massaged historical figures to fit his narrative/instructive ends.

What distinction are you drawing for oral histories in terms of truth content?

*well and I guess in our postmodern era, gazing at the idea of objective truth and subjecting it to skepticism

Oral histories are inherently less reliable.  They are highly mutable and can be created on the whim of the speaker.  Preserving a factual account is not really what they are for.  The point of Song of Roland was not to record the past but to entertain and flatter some lord patronizing the artist.  With written records I can compared what was written in the past to what is written currently. 

"Duke Dunderhead killed 300 enemies at battle of Bingo-Bongo" 

"Yeah, the grave stone of Duke Dunderhead says he died three years prior to the Battle of Bingo-Bongo"

Can't really do that with oral history.

But, of course. Most primary sources were not written to objectively record history. They were always about something else. Even Bede, the main source historian of the Anglo-Saxons, wasn't trying to write an objective history. That's a much more modern goal.

Also why can't oral histories be compared with archeological records?

[Razgovory]

You can compare it to archeology, but that is really hit and miss.  Finding a site is hard, correctly attributing to a particular tribe is even harder and a site is only going to give you limited amount of information anyway.  You can't locate where a tribe was 1000 years ago, or even if the tribe existed at that time.