Talk:Oral tradition

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Anecdote

Here's an anecdote you might be able to verify and add in: "No less impressive is the case of Iceland, where masses of verse have been preserved by no other means than that of oral tradition. William Craigie quotes a pertinent case. 'Another set of rimur composed by the same author (Sigurður Bjarnason) in 1862 has had a remarkable history. No manuscript of these has been preserved, but a younger brother learned them by heart at the age of fifteen, and at the same time noted the first line of each verse. Fifty-five years later, in Canada, and without having gone over them in his mind for thirty years, he dictated the whole of them, to the extent of 4000 lines, and they were printed at Winnipeg in 1919. This is not only significant for the history of Icelandic poetry but for that of some other literatures, where the possibility of such feats of memory has been gravely questioned by scholars of the present day.'"

Source: p117 of Chaytor, H. J (1974). From Script to Print; an Introduction to Medieval Vernacular Literature. Folcroft, Pa.: Folcroft Library Editions. p. 156. ISBN 0841435423. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: checksum (help) , quoting p32 of Craigie, William (1937). The art of poetry in Iceland. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Jodi.a.schneider (talk) 16:47, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

systematic hermeneutics

Can we have more on: "The theoretical development at present may be the construction of systematic hermeneutics and aesthetics specific to oral traditions." at least some references please Szczels 11:53, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Unsourced

Can we get specifics on what needs sourcing/refs? Not helpful just to say "unsourced". DavidOaks 13:09, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I wrote a bibliographical note meant to address the sourcing issue. The original account was not written fact-by-fact (which produces unreadable prose), but as a digest of the existing accounts; no specific proposition seems to have been found controversial in the time the article has been up. What do people think? DavidOaks 20:50, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

What are good sources for reading about this topic? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Giezellebriseno (talk • contribs) 21:32, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

Unclear reference

I have deleted the recent addition to the "Milman Parry and ALbert Lord" section --

"An excellent example of Parry’s work in recording oral tradition can be also be found in the recent (1998) book ‘Noah’s Flood – The New Scientific Discoveries about the Event that changed the World’ by William Ryan and Walter Pitman published by Simon & Schuster, New York, NY.."

The comment does not say what oral tradition is referenced, nor does it give a page number, nor yet is it the most obvious source for Parry's field recordings. But maybe with a solid citation and explanation of the relevance of the pages it should be restored. DavidOaks 03:17, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Suggestion to merge oral history and oral literature

Oral history is certainly a distinct field with distinct methods -- very inappropriate to merge. Oral literature is a better candidate, but because it's organized by ethnic, linguistic and geographic divisions, and is not generally regarded (yet) as being primarily the province of oral traditional theory, a link under "see also" would seem more appropriate (same for oral history). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by DavidOaks (talk • contribs) 22:29, 1 February 2007 (UTC).

• What? No. Merger of any of the three topics is a very bad idea. These are distinct topics. Just because they both include the word "oral" and relate to the past in (different) ways ... oral history is people's individual personal histories and recollections of the past. It's an academic discipline. Oral tradition or oral culture is the social tradition of transmission of cultural knowledge within a particular group of people. It's a social practice, not an academic discipline. Oral literature can include recitations of oral culture, but is also about performance art, the art of storytelling, etc. --lquilter 13:22, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Removing the merge tag. Clearly distinct categories and merge-proposer never bothered to explain or articulate a proposal or justification. --lquilter 13:30, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

• In talk pages (User_talk:Dbachmann#proposed mergers of oral culture/oral history/oral literature and User_talk:Lquilter#merging of oral topics) , the editor who proposed the merge explained that he was proposing the merge because the articles are not clearly written now and appear to have some subject overlap. I looked through these articles and am making the following changes in response to this problem:

• Oral history contained a lot of stuff about oral culture, presumably because "oral transmission of history" is one type of oral tradition and "oral history" is an old term for that. I deleted extraneous material from Oral history, moved it to Talk:Oral tradition, explained the distinction on Oral history and linked to Oral tradition.
• Added a clarifying sentence to the top of Oral tradition that explained that it was different from oral history.
• Oral literature seems fine to me; I don't see how it would be confused with oral tradition or oral history. The editor who suggested merger said "that's an oxymoron" but it's clearly explained in the brief entry. The article could do with some fleshing out, though.

(cross-posted to all 3 article talk pages) --lquilter 14:15, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

material from "oral history" article

There was some confusing material in the "oral history" article that really referred to "oral tradition", and was placed in the article based on the archaic usage of "oral history" to refer to "oral culture". I deleted it there and am pasting it here; if there is something useful it should be re-incorporated.

Oral history is considered by some historians to be an unreliable source for the study of history. However, other historians consider it to be a valid means for preserving history. Experience within literate cultures indicates that each time anyone reconstructs a memory, there are changes in the memory, but the core of the story is usually retained. Over time, however, minor changes can accumulate until the story becomes unrecognizable.

A person within a literate culture thus has presuppositions that may falsely affect his judgment of the validity of oral history within preliterate cultures. In these cultures children are usually selected and specially trained for the role of historian, and develop extraordinary memory skills known as eidetic or photographic memory.

==Usage==

Before the development of written language in a given society, oral history is the primary means of conveying information from one generation to the next. The most common form of this transmission is through storytelling and the recitation of epic poetry, with the stories and poems collectively known as the oral tradition of a people. The combination of this oral tradition with morals and rituals passed down by word of mouth is known as the folklore of a society. Although not as prevalent now as in the past, oral history is still very much alive among many North American native groups.

The information passed on has occasionally shown a surprising accuracy over long periods of time. For example, the Iliad, an epic poem of Homer describing the conquest of Troy, was passed down as oral history from perhaps the 8th century BC, until being recorded in writing by Pisistratos. Nonetheless, factual elements of the Iliad were at least partially validated by the discovery of ruins discovered by Heinrich Schliemann in 1870, thought to be those of the city described in the poem.

A famous example of oral history comes from the works of several authors who have, over the span of many hundreds of years, collected folklore which was ultimately put together in a collection of books known as the Old Testament. The New Testament Gospels were created by several different original authors whose slightly differing versions of many biblical events were combined. The Bible was therefore nearly entirely created using oral history.

lquilter 14:24, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

tag removed

Nannus removed the tag on March 5, noting in edit summary: "Removed merge tag, since oral literature forms only part of oral tradition (e.g. oral law is not oral history)". A very good point. --lquilter 21:45, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Link to Psychodynamics

I am currently attempting to establish the relevance of our current articles on Psychodynamics and the supposed subordinate field Psychodynamic psychotherapy. In that context I am investigating the links to the Psychodynamics article. One of them originates with the current article. At first glance the term appears to denote something different from what the Psychodynamics article details. Could someone more abreast with the current subject verify whether this link is relevant? __meco 15:59, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Hard to tell how much weight Ong would have put on the term, as far as suggesting that psychodynamics -- as a field -- would help to explain the contasts between oral and literate societies. Yet it was indeed his chosen term, and it was certainly an informed choice; his meaning in the passage certainly foregrounds the interrelatedness of various cognitive operations for individuals and societies, and how there are regular contrasts between the cognitive complexes characteristic of cultures with, and without, alphabets. In sum, I think Ong was talking about psychodynamics as it was understood at the time of his writing, but not as the more more systematized field which the psychodynamics article describes. I would leave the link, but perhaps find some way of conveying the fact that the term has a range of specificity? DavidOaks 19:25, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Removing the 'Unsourced' Tag?

I have added a few specific citations, mostly those already implied by the existing text. I have also made a few small elaborations that help to justify a couple of the citations.

Does anyone know how an 'Unsourced' tag can be removed?Brett epic 16:27, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I've removed the 'unsourced' tag as there seems no longer any reason to keep it.Brett epic 03:55, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Continuing Debates

To add balance to this article, there needs to a section that acknowledges serious criticisms of the Parry thesis and subsequent elaboration of it, and important splits within the emerging discipline. At present it still reads too much like a personal essay advocating a single POV.Brett epic 17:22, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Tags

Please never remove maintenance tags without discussing/resolving the issue. It is good that you added quite a few references. Of course, an ideal case is that each piece of information is referenced, but wikipedia:Verifiability rule is not absolutely strict: plausible, easily verifiable information may stay unreferenced until some other wikipedian/reader questions it. Regardless, the following things must always be referenced:

• basic definitions
• opinions
• Statements of non-trivial facts.

In your case,

• the intro is unreferenced
• opinions:
  • "but as part of the same scholarly moment, the turcologist Vasily Radlov" who says he was part of this movement?
  • "The idea met with immediate resistance"
  • "Ong's works also made possible an integrated theory of oral tradition"
  • "Foley effectively consolidated oral tradition"
  • etc.

In addition, wikipedia's tradition is to keep a neutral tone, so please remove all exalted epithets, such as "brilliant", "prominent", "provocative", "massive", etc. `'Míkka>t 18:34, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

I strongly suggest you to learn to be "devil's advocate" and not only enjoy your own written text, but also try to guess which pieces may cause doubt by people not so familiar with the subject: wikipedia is written for them. Experts don't reach wikipedia to gain more wisdom (yet). `'Míkka>t 18:40, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, didn't find any "etc." but I'm sure when you put an inline tag on it, we'll find a cite or remove. Now, anything else you want referenced? I'd say it's time for the general tag to go (again) and I strongly suggest you continue to be specific about exactly what it is you find fault with. DavidOaks (talk) 21:12, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

That's the whole point. When an article is sufficiently "saturated" with references, then we can start nitpicking. When big chunks of text are unreferenced, then a common tag on top of the page is far less ugly than text peppered with {{fact}} tags. I am done here. Good luck. `'Míkka>t 23:06, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Current state of the theory

In trying to generalize about the current state of the theory's acceptance, I added this:

While a number of individual scholars in many areas continue to have misgivings about the applicability of the theory or the aptness of the South Slavic comparison,[67] and particularly what they regard as its implications for the creativity which may legitimately be attributed to the individual artist.[68] However, at present, there seems to be little systematic or theoretically coordinated challenge to the fundamental tenets of the theory.

Now, I'm not sure if that requires documentaiton (I will try), but it presents the problem of documenting an absence. DavidOaks (talk) 13:24, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

" there seems to be little" is an opinion which must be referenced. Sorry, colleague, it is the policy of wikipedia that a wikipedian's word does not count. I see you have some trouble in understanding this fundamental difference of wikipedia from, say, Encyclopedia Britannica. Please read ath think about the rules summarized in wikipedia:Attribution. `'Míkka>t 14:47, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Will seek a ref. DavidOaks (talk) 16:16, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

OK, did it. Thanks for the kind words; it was hard enough to get you to follow simple requests to be specific, so I guess we can't hope for manners too.DavidOaks (talk) 16:38, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

It was not so hard, if you keep in mind that in wikipedia time flows differently compared to "real world". I started to write a detailed explanation immediately after your second deletion of tags, but meanwhile you beat me with your "hello again". As I see, you are not exactly a newcomer in wikipedia, so I am a bit surprized you did not run into strong requests to always provide references to whatever you write. I guess, in your areas of interest either there are too few wikipedians or all of them basically agree with each other and don't see possibly questionable phrases. My apologies to my manners, whatever it worth. I guess I was lucky to run into a patient and reasonable person. `'Míkka>t 17:36, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

I have been impatient and testy, for which, sincere apologies. Your requests for references have improved the article, for which, thanks. DavidOaks (talk) 17:56, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Need for revision of Oral Tradition article

I see that there is a proposal to merge the topic Oral-Formulaic Composition into this Oral Tradition topic. I don't think that is a good idea at present because the current article on Oral Tradition is very long and seems to me to lack structural balance, with parts of the article going into what seems to me to be lengthy and minute academic detail about debated aspects of some viewpoint or other. I think that before there is any move of material into the Oral Tradition article, it needs restructuring to become more understandable to someone outside the field. So some detail would be removed or be moved to new separate topics.--AlotToLearn (talk) 23:37, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it's a matter of too much info as too little attention to the difficulty non-specialists have in understanding the rhetoric of specialists (and I am certainly among the guilty) -- although we might note that non-chemists might have a little trouble with some of the articles in that field, ditto physics, structural engineering, economics. Oral tradition is in fact a rather technical field, and things are a bit clouded by the fact that non-specialists tend to enter into the discussion in ways that they don't in the case of (again) chemistry, physics, engineering, economics. Much of the technical stuff has to do for example with showing why the children's party-game of "telephone" is not in fact a good analogy to oral tradition. Still, there must be a way... DavidOaks (talk) 02:02, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Orphan quote

I wanted to insert "somewhere" a quote from William F. Albright, a respected scholar. "Again we must stress the fact that oral transmission of tradition is inherently more consistent and logical in its results than written transmission, since it sifts and refines. modifying whatever does not fit into the spirit of the main body of tradition." (From Stone Age to Christianity). This has certain ramifications for religion. It seems to summarize some of what is said but have no idea where it could go in the article. I would appreciate suggestions.

In part, this may have something to do with the above subtopic. The article seemed very scholarly but didn't seem to wind up anyplace or have room for a summary by a reliable "secondary source" author. Student7 (talk) 19:19, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Vansina intro

I undid A Lot to learn's good-faith revision of the intro, and then tried to work Vansina back in (though he's already cited). Problem is, Vansina is working with a concept that's essentially "verbal folklore, possibly with musical accompiniment," rather than with the sound-patterned material essential to the discipline that Parry & Lord defined. We could have a note that acknowledges the simple fact that people mean a great many things by the term. On another matter "orature" is a perfectly awful term, but it has a degree of currency. DavidOaks (talk) 04:55, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

David, please do not feel aggrieved that I have undone your undo of my edit. I have done so because I do not understand your stated reason for undoing my edit - your undo said merely that my edit had lost too much of what was previous conveyed. I did not remove any material. All I did was add a definition of Oral tradition with two supporting references. The previous unreferenced definition of the term was retained in the article. Aside from adding a referenced definition, the only other change I made was for comprehension purposes, by replacing the visible linked word "law" with "oral law" and "orature" with "oral literature". I would be happy to forgo that change if that is what you object to. If after consideration you still object to the definitions that I have found, please explain why, so the article can be improved and preferably give a reference for any definition you would prefer. Finally. I don't understand what you mean by referring to "the discipline that Parry & Lord defined". Do you mean that this article is primarily about that discipline? --AlotToLearn (talk) 23:44, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

David, if you have problems with the sentence "The messages or testimony are verbally transmitted in speech or song and may take the form, for example, of folktales, sayings, ballads, songs, or chants." I would have no problems in having that sentence improved to your satisfaction.--AlotToLearn (talk) 23:49, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

In scanning too quickly, I thought the original first paragraph had disappered, when in fact it was merely bumped forward. My apologies. However, I can't see that it's an improvement as an intro -- Henige's definition already subsumed Vansina's, and Henige was writing more recently, both more specificially and more comprehensively, and in the academic journal most specific to the field. Your revision, as I pointed out, makes Oral Tradition indistinguishable from "verbal folklore," specifying only speech-medium, and neglecting the key conditions of the absence of a written culture, and also sound-patterning (which is what makes it quite a technical field). For example, Vansina's definition would include the work of Studs Terkel or the FWP slave narratives, though these would not be encompassed in Oral-Formulaic theory. Now maybe that's an advantage, moving from the general to the specific, or maybe it creates a situation where this article should be a very short stub, indicating that "oral tradition" is a term used variously to designate folklore, oral literature, oral law, or Oral-Formulaic Composition (and probably a number of other things, oral history, orature...in essence, I'm suggesting that this be reduced to a sort of disambiguation page. Not going to do anything that radical without discussion/consensus, but I'm wondering if it's the best way to deal with a term that seems to mean so many things. DavidOaks (talk) 16:32, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your civil response, David. See below for continuation under new heading--AlotToLearn (talk) 09:30, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Scope of article

Is it correct that under the academic field of Oral Tradition, an item would not qualify once there is writing in the society concerned? If so, the field of study is narrower than the phrase as I would understand it, because I would regard the Vedas are oral tradition even though their tens of thousands of verses were preserved orally for centuries after the development of writing. Maybe we can resolve the scope problem by adding more "ordinary meaning/wider topic" material and subheads at the top, and then moving on to the narrower academic field of study further down article? Are the sophisticated rhythmic, tonal and gestural sequences used for teaching the mantras and sutras, etc of the Vedas part of the academic field? If not, maybe the topics need to be separated? --AlotToLearn (talk) 09:30, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

added words "mantras and" to above --AlotToLearn (talk) 02:58, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Most current scholarship on "orality" avoids a rigid division between "oral" and "written" societies, and instead recognizes that oral tradition and writing can co-exist. In fact, I would guess that scholars who work on oral tradition would agree with the idea that there are many forms of oral tradition in hyper-literate societies like 21st century America/Europe. You may be interested in looking at [oraltradition.org the website of the Center for Studies in Oral Tradition], as well as its journal Oral Tradition (freely available on the Center's website), which will give you an idea of how some current scholars study oral tradition. I'm not sure if there's anything on the Vedas in the journal, but I think they are often considered as an example of oral tradition. --Akhilleus (talk) 03:06, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Quite right, and I'm v familiar with these sources -- but a rough orality-literacy polarity (actually traditionality-textuality is preferred) remains, in the sense that the dynamics of oral tradition remain fundamentally different from those of text based societies or activities within a society, and that gets lost in a definition that specifies nothing more than verbal transmission. Which is why I think the common usage of "oral tradition" needs to be broken out so that we don't have either un-illuminating arguments or unreflective conflation of such things as, say, oral history and oral-formulaic theory. I think we really do have a scope-of-article challenge befoe us. DavidOaks (talk) 15:43, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

• David, I'm not so sure yet. The problem may may be that for someone coming to the article with a basic notion, the article does not spend any time at the beginning spelling out in simple, non-technical language what other practical aspects there are to oral tradition. For example, your statement that "the dynamics of oral tradition remain fundamentally different from those of text based societies or activities within a society, and that gets lost in a definition that specifies nothing more than verbal transmission." seems very fair to me - and I like the fact that it is not expressed too technically. I presume that was basically what Ong was on about? My problem is that the intro was & is too brief and that there should be some simple explanations of various practical aspects of the topics, even under subheads, up at the beginning of the article, and then perhaps there would be the discussion of the academic field. Do you see problems with that from a scope of topic point of view?--AlotToLearn (talk) 01:56, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Please! Clear the academic pollution!

Academics contribute a great deal to this site and that contribution is appreciated. But a growing problem is that academics seem to forget the purpose of an encyclopedia: it is to inform a general public, not to continue or extend or reflect academic conversations.

A person like myself comes to these pages looking for answers to such practical considerations as whether exact transmission of words was considered important or whether stories were merely told or retold, what methods of memorization were used, and how efficiency the oral tradition is considered to be. I cannot find the answers I am looking for in this discussion of theorists and their theories!

In my view, the chief theorists and their theories should never be mentioned in the body of an article. Yes, this is a heresy and an extreme and it doesn't have to be adopted forcefully. Its intent is to establish a discipline in WP where the sort of saturation of the articles with the names of academics of their theories doesn't occur.

Please, there are countless places for academics to write academically for other academics. Don't do it here!

Again, with appreciation for what your contributions. --216.13.187.110 (talk) 21:33, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

I suspect this was me 4 years ago, as I return here and have similar impressions.

The article still seems to be more of an (academically oriented) dump of current opinion. If there is indeed no agreement that an oral tradition has any value at all then that should be stated in the first paragraph and only a few footnotes added. But a key question seems to have not even been addressed to date: the accuracy of oral tradition. Yes, perhaps once it was established, and the text organized into a format best suited to oral transmission, a 'text' would be [reasonably?] accurately transmitted. But when it comes to the word of say the Buddha or even Jesus, where the omission of a single word or the change from one word to another could be critical to later interpretation, what are the estimates of end-to-end accuracy? Let us not forget either that at that critical starting point, the person hearing the Buddha's words might be rewarded later when competing versions were vying for selection as the "official" version, for his more compelling or exotic version. Such considerations were perhaps not as much of a factor in the transmission of the Vedas or the works of Homer, but whole philosophical forks have arisen from the interpretation/(possible) omission of a few words elsewhere. --70.79.64.157 (talk) 18:56, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

Oral traditions

Although the article points to Christian Oral Tradition, it fails to point to many other oral traditions. Examples might be:

• Messianic_Judaism#Jewish_oral_tradition
• Indian_mathematics#Oral_tradition
• Śrauta#Oral_tradition
• Daivadnya_Brahmin#Oral_traditions
• Perhaps also buddhist and zoroastrian related oral traditions

Shouldn't the most generic article about oral traditions (this one), eventually point to such? Thanks. 76.10.128.192 (talk) 04:40, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

How true! ...welcome to the bubble that is wikipedia and academia in general. What escapes them is that writing was 'invented' due to failing memory and that prior to the advent of Kali Yuga it was an unnecessary tedium. No-one can write let alone type at the speed of the mind yet academics marvel at themselves and the way they can arrange so many cumbersome words in sentences and paragraphs yet can hardly ever manage to memorise and quote verbatim more than a few phrases at a time.

The truth is that writing was unnecessary for the Ancients and that's why it wasn't used - not because they were brain-dead idiots or undeveloped cavemen as Eurocentric Institutions would have us believe. To illustrate my point, I'd like you or anyone for that matter to recite off the top of your head a dozen of the most important and often used phone numbers of your friends, business associates or randomly chosen contacts.

How'd you go? Did you even get three? I doubt it. When we stop using our brains for certain functions (that have been replaced by technology for example) we don't even notice the deficiency. Modern scholars cannot even conceive how our ancestors could have possibly retained huge banks of information because it is outside of their sphere of experience. There is a saying that a thief imagines everyone else to be a thief as well and is always suspicious of all members of the public. They do not trust anyone. Similarly, experts imagine that all humanity has a similar mental capacity to their own regardless of how limited that may be. It seems ignorance in academia knows no bounds... how ironic! 49.199.4.22 (talk) 12:33, 15 December 2019 (UTC)(banned from wonkipedia because I won't brown nose their autocracy)

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Native American oral traditions

Hello all, I've just added a subsection on Native American oral traditions within the 'History' section of the article. Included are three paragraphs: one on the significance of oral storytelling to Native American cultures, one on the actual mechanics of how stories were/are told, and one on the historical and scientific aspects of stories. Peer-reviewed citations are included. I think this might help add to the greater body of work on oral traditions by focusing in on particular geographies and cultures. I am however slightly unsure of the best way to approach the issue of talking about pre-European contact oral traditions and oral traditions today, when many Native languages have since developed written systems. I do not want to imply by frequently using past tense that Native oral traditions are no longer important. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jcharlton19 (talk • contribs) 15:19, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

How can the article be improved?

More information of African oral traditions would be important, such as the usage of Mali, Yoruba, and Benin oral histories. The use of performance as an oral history should also be discussed as it impacts the context stories are told with.Ngill13 (talk) 20:34, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

Maybe have some more information about Asia. Also, I'm sure some of it is out dated because of the date of the article. So, someone might need to go through and update anything that isn't current. Aaronmc817 (talk) 21:50, 6 May 2020 (UTC)Aaronmc817

It is said, "It does not require many words to speak the truth." That is the premise upon which American Indian oral traditions are built and maintained. Yes, we know the Earth was not created by a water beetle but there were practical lessons in every story told. Only the European-American sat around thinking of bigger words to use when writing. The American Indian had no use for writing when his/her mind was clear and could remember what was said. They lived with these traditions every day of their life and applied them. You can't sum that up in a few sentences or paragraphs. I appreciate what is being attempted here but it reads more like a college thesis paper than an actual record of oral traditions or their import to the various world cultures who passed information orally. That's my opinion. --Tsistunagiska (talk) 15:42, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

Proposed merge: Four Guns

Links: Four Guns (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) (recent AFD, discussion w/closer)

I propose merging with redirect Four Guns to Oral tradition#Native America, where Four Guns is already mentioned. It seems the only sources we have about Four Guns are transcriptions of a speech he gave in 1891 about the oral tradition of Native Americans [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]. One of those sources writes: [p. 75] With the possible exceptions of Pushmataha (Choctaw) and Four Guns (Sioux), these speeches are authentic, accurate transcripts, obtained from highly reliable sources ... Four Guns' speech is simply too pertinent to omit ... [p. 76] as one who shares the deepest concern for truth and accuracy of the spoken word, this series will be limited, excluding Pushmataha and Four Guns, to manuscripts from highly credible Native American sources. For all four WP:MERGEREASONs, our reader would be best served reading about Four Guns's 1891 speech at Oral tradition#Native American. Lev!vich 22:43, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

• Against merge 9 people said to keep the article, you and two others including the nominator said delete it. There is surely more to this person out there. Other famous sayings of his should be added to his article, and any additional information found about him. Dream Focus 22:58, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

  As soon as more sources are found, the redirect can be expanded back into an article. Right now, we have the transcript of one speech. Lev!vich 23:04, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

  Consensus was he was notable enough to have his own article. The entire speech he gave should be there, not just the quoted bit. https://archive.org/details/americanindianvo00harv/page/66/mode/2up?q=four+guns shows the entire thing. It wouldn't all fit here, nor could you put all notable oral traditions into one article anyway, and most importantly of all this article is for all oral traditions not just those of native Americans. Dream Focus 23:14, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

  Notability isn't the issue. All of the known sources about Four Guns are transcriptions of the same 1891 dinner speech (in whole or in part), and thus our entire article about Four Guns is just about that one speech. That speech is already in this article at Oral tradition#Native America, and that content could easily be expanded with what's at Four Guns (because it's not much, it won't add more than a sentence or two to this article). There's really not much to merge here beyond a sentence or two, because all we have is the speech, but if we wanted to also quote some part of the speech, there's room for that as well in this section. Lev!vich 23:14, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

  The speech is NOT in this article. All it has is Tribal stories are considered valid within the tribe's own frame of reference and tribal experience. The 19th century Oglala Lakota tribal member Four Guns was known for his justification of the oral tradition and criticism of the written word. You aren't merging anything, you are just deleting an article by replacing it with a redirect. Dream Focus 23:17, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

  It's probably better to wait until after the merge proposal to merge anything. Lev!vich 23:35, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose merge The overwhelming consensus was that this meets WP:N. During AfD all of the participants had a choice per our policy WP:DELETE: Keep, Delete, Merge, redirect, Draft. The AfD established this article as a strong Keep (The closer agreed). This discussion feels like an attempt to go around our policy of WP:CONSENSUS. I think we should ping the participants since this just closed as a keep yesterday. Inexpiable, Magnolia677, Andrew Davidson, GreenC, Netherzone, 7&6=thirteen, Tsistunagiska, DiamondRemley39. Lightburst (talk) 00:00, 9 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose - The AfD (which ended yesterday) had a strong consensus for Keep, not Merge or Redirect. The Four Guns article should remain intact, and will likely be developed. There are several editors working on that task. The material on Four Guns will get lost in the long Oral tradition article which is not Native American specific. Netherzone (talk) 00:24, 9 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose This article already has a single-sentence about Four Guns and that is enough given that he is a notable though relatively lesser known figure. This is a higher level article and not the best place to discuss in-depth the ideas, quotes and sources. Text would need to be cut due to WEIGHT and there wouldn't be room for growth. -- GreenC 00:29, 9 October 2020 (UTC)
• Comment Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in... I'll look him up in the books I've got, but I'm probably going to oppose this merge suggestion. Why suggest a merge before the work (research) is done? What a waste of time. DiamondRemley39 (talk) 02:38, 9 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose Four Guns observed that others would say many foolish things, write everything down but then fail to remember their promises. It would be too ironic if we also failed to honour the conclusion of the recent discussion. Andrew🐉(talk) 08:45, 9 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose This was closed as Keep. Miraculously, that result was changed to "no consensus" as a result of this discussion, apparently so merge would be left open. The result was "KEEP". "[C]onsensus was that the topic should have a stand-alone article, so any post-AFD merge/redirect proposal is disruptive." "... result was keep" means 'keep as stand-alone page', you know what I mean." 7&6=thirteen (☎) 11:40, 9 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose The AfD was closed as Keep. This proposed merge is disruptive and undermines the consensus of the participants in that AfD, as well as, the decision made by the closer. To have a new proposal to merge/redirect so soon after a proposed AfD is unconscionable. Four Guns deserves a stand-alone article as was the conclusion of the recent AfD. To further attack this man and his heritage with this nonsense is a personal affront to American Indian ancestry. I find the recent attacks on articles about Oglala Lakota Sioux and other Tribal Nations to be disgusting and ridiculous while not unprecedented because it's been going on for centuries. The result wasn't what they wanted from the AfD so now another way is found to attack and try to demean and diminish the import of American Indian heritage if not remove it altogether.Policy won out in the AfD. Leave it alone!--Tsistunagiska (talk) 12:17, 9 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose. Very encyclopedic and has good references. Right cite (talk) 17:01, 9 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose As I wrote in the not-even-cold-yet AfD, Four Horses has characteristics of both criteria of WP:POLITICIAN and there is a hint of WP:AUTHOR. If this merge suggestion in the wake of a keep vote is an attempt at irony, then hahaha. But seriously, it would be safer to follow the policy for "renominating for deletion" and wait six months before suggesting changing the outcome of keep. Yes, I know it says that's about renominating, but that's effectively what has been suggested. Respect the outcome of the discussion; don't try to get around it this way. DiamondRemley39 (talk) 20:58, 9 October 2020 (UTC)
• Support - No sense of notability beyond a few quotes. Readers would be better served by merging the article. Magnolia677 (talk) 15:28, 10 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose the AFD discussion that just closed already established many reasons for keeping this as a separate article.  oncamera  _{(talk page)} 13:08, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose Notability already has consensus per the recent deletion discussion. No one even mentioned "merge" in that discussion, so I don't see how it is a viable alternative to the consensus of that discussion. The reason given above to merge was because of "all four WP:MERGEREASONs", but there doesn't seem to be a case for any of them. I don't see "Duplicate" (they don't have the same scope or subject), don't see "Overlap" (they're too different topics), don't see "Short text" (neither article is a stub), and I don't see "Context" (both are readable on their own). They're two separate articles, without a compelling reason to merge. - Whisperjanes (talk) 01:22, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

  Four Guns is a stub, rated stub-class, which is why "short text" applies. "Overlap" doesn't mean "the same", and they do overlap, specifically everything at Four Guns can fit at Oral tradition, and that's where "duplicate" comes in as well. If I performed the merge, Oral tradition would duplicate Four Guns. "Context" doesn't mean "not readable on its own", it means determining which location provides better context. Some articles shouldn't be merged because, e.g., the smaller-article content would be undue at the larger article; this is not such a case. Here, since all we have about Four Guns is the one transcription of the one speech he gave, that speech will be better presented to the reader in the context of Native American oral tradition, i.e., at Oral tradition. So, yeah, all four MERGEREASONS do apply, and in fact, I am the only editor addressing MERGEREASONS at all. Every oppose !vote here is about notability (it was a keep! therefore don't merge!), and this isn't about notability. Lev!vich 07:20, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

@Levivich: with all due respect, you are incorrect. I did not address notability. Firstly, I stated that the consensus was keep, not merge. Secondly, I stated that this short stub article and the contents therein will get lost in the very long Oral Tradition article (and its associated Native American section.) Fact: Consensus here is that the majority of editors oppose your proposed merger. Suggestion offered in good faith: Let it go. Results: Peace. And, a short stub article that can be developed as (hard copy) book sources continue to be found & a perfectly-fine-as-it-is Oral Tradition article. Netherzone (talk) 13:43, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

Your first point is irrelevant. Your second point doesn't even make sense. "Get lost in"? What does that mean? If this proposed merge happens, Four Guns would be a redirect to the section, so no one and nothing would get lost. Also if you think Four Guns' speech won't be found in this Oral tradition article, how do you think it would be found on a separate page? If you're worried about people seeing the content, ask yourself which page gets more page views: Four Guns or Oral tradition? If more sources are ever found (doubtful), the redirect could always be expanded into an article. Fact: the oppose voters were all canvassed by ARS by pings and a post at RSL (which is why, like you, they're still stuck on "the result was keep!"). Fact: you're still not addressing MERGEREASONS, and neither are any of the other oppose voters. Look, if you have any MERGEREASONS or other policy-related argument, I'm all ears; otherwise please save your suggestions. I don't appreciate being told to "let it go" after one reply. Lev!vich 15:41, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

@Levivich: My first point is not irrelevant. You stated: Every oppose !vote here is about notability (it was a keep! therefore don't merge!). No, I am opposing the merger itself and the consensus of the merger discussion is "Oppose". Secondly,

MERGEREASONS states: Merging should be avoided if:

1. The resulting article would be too long or "clunky"

• That is exactly the point I was trying to make when I said, "get lost in". Sorry if you did not like the way I said it.

2. The separate topics could be expanded into longer standalone (but cross-linked) articles.

• Four Guns can be expanded as additional hard-copy book sources (and/or online sources) are found. There are several editors who are committed to that.

3. The topics are discrete subjects warranting their own articles, even though they might be short.

• Four Guns is a biographic article, however short; whereas Oral tradition is not a biographic article. They are discrete subjects, and discrete types of articles.

Therefore, all three "Merger should be avoided" reasons/rationale apply. Also, for the record, I am not a member of ARS. Netherzone (talk) 18:12, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

@Netherzone: Not beat a dead horse but the AFD result (keep) is irrelevant to this merge discussion, as discussed in the closing statement itself and at the closer's talk page, both of which are linked in the first line in the OP. This merger proposal was only launched at the AFD closer's suggestion. "The result was keep" is not an argument against merger.

Moving on to your other points, addressing the three WP:NOTMERGE reasons, which I don't think I've previously addressed:

1. "Too long or 'clunky'".
   • Now that you and I have both recently tweaked Four Guns, let's look at everything we know about Four Guns (the entire biographical content of the article Four Guns)
     1. Oglala Lakota tribal judge
     2. Gave speech at anthropologist Clark Wissler's dinner party in 1891
   • Everything we know about Four Guns' 1891 speech
     1. known for justifying the oral tradition and was critical of the written word
     2. used humor to identify with his audience
     3. reflects the primary characteristic of Indian speech making, that Indians chose their words carefully and placed great emphasis on remembering what was said
   • Everything about Four Guns in Oral tradition:
     1. The 19th century Oglala Lakota tribal member Four Guns was known for his justification of the oral tradition and criticism of the written word.

   So a merger would add a grand total of a sentence or two to the article Oral tradition. It's hard to see how such a small amount of content could make the article too long or clunky.

2. "separate topics could be expanded into longer standalone (but cross-linked) articles" - that means could be expanded now, with the sources we have now, not in the future. WP:NOTCRYSTALBALL means we don't write an article now because we assume more sources will be written to support the article in the future. The article Four Guns cannot be expanded with the sources we have. What I listed above is everything we know from all the sources. This is because the sources just quote his 1891 speech and provide a minimal amount of biographical info and analysis of the speech to go with the quote. I hate to repeat myself but if more sources are found, then we can expand the redirect into an article. Until then, the reader is better served reading about Four Guns's 1891 speech at Oral tradition, mostly for reasons in my next point:
3. "discrete subjects" - Sure, the scope of the topic "Four Guns" is biographical, but actually, we should look at the sources that are written, not look at what we want the article to be. In fact, the scope of all the Four Guns sources is "Native American oral tradition". Not one source is about Four Guns. All sources use the single 1891 Four Guns speech as an example of NA oral tradition. That's what we should do, too: use the FG 1891 speech as an example of NA oral tradition, by merging Four Guns with Oral tradition#Native America as proposed. And BTW, if we're to give our reader a quote of the speech, the best place is in Oral tradition, not buried away at Four Guns. The evidence for that is how many more pageviews Oral tradition gets than Four Guns: [8].

(FTR I didn't say you were an ARS member, I said you were canvassed by an ARS member, and you were, indeed, pinged to this discussion by an ARS member. Also FTR there's nothing wrong with being an ARS member, but I think the canvassing affects how votes should be weighed.) Lev!vich 19:47, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

@Levivich: I stand by my "Oppose Merge" !vote. No canvassing took place, as @Lightburst: pinged those on both sides of the AfD discussion, and it was neutrally worded. While it is not required that the Merger proposer (you) notify editors, I was grateful to receive a courtesy ping, otherwise I doubt I would have found this discussion. Netherzone (talk) 20:10, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

Africa - Alex Haley's testimony

Somewhere, perhaps in the preface to Roots, I read that Alex Haley had met with a man in Africa who memorized the stories of the people of his tribe, and that is where he heard their side of the story of his great grandfather Kunta Kinte being kidnapped. Perhaps this is relevant to the article? May the experts with a bit of time on their hands look into it? Thanks פשוט pashute ♫ (talk) 22:29, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Biblical evidence of oral traditions

Several times surrounding Samuel and David, there are mentions of messangers with messages that are to be told in very certain words. Actually there are 78 referrals of "and say thus to..." throughout the old testament.

In one case Jesse, David's father, sends him to the field where Goliath is cursing the Israelis. "The man of Israel" then repeats the king's promise: "Have you seen that man coming up? To curse Israel he is coming up, and the man who hits him, the king shal make him rich with great richness, and his daughter he will give to him, and his father's home he will set free in Israel.

In another, David sends 10 warriors (the correct translation of Ne2arim as Yigael Yadin explained) to Abigail with a message which is repeated word for word.

This may also be the explanation of the lengthy repetitions in the story of Eliezer, Abraham's servant. פשוט pashute ♫ (talk) 23:01, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Reliable sources?

'Red Earth, White Lies: Native Americans and the Myth of Scientific Fact' is a book that openly opposes what was and still is the consensus view of the history of the Americas, siding with Native American myths (as if these weren't incompatible with each other, too) against science, which in the author's view is just lies and fabrications of 'the white man'. As far as I'm concerned, this is nationalist activism and not scholarship. Why is it cited as a reliable source here? 87.126.21.225 (talk) 00:34, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

WP:WikiProject Oral tradition

Would people be interested in joining a wikiproject on improving and creating articles about oral tradition? Wikipedia's coverage on this appears to be very poor Kowal2701 (talk) 19:20, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

What would be the difference from WikiProject Folklore? Dimadick (talk) 22:49, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Folklore is not necessarily oral tradition, oral tradition is more of an institution Kowal2701 (talk) 06:37, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Sorry that was a shitty response, folklore is a subset of oral tradition, in societies that didn't have writing scripts or didn't choose to use them extensively, oral tradition was used to record history, literature, court proceedings,, constitutions (Kouroukan Fouga) etc. Kowal2701 (talk) 15:44, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

The project has initially been set up as a taskforce: WP:WikiProject Anthropology/Oral tradition taskforce. – Fayenatic London 08:02, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Historians general view of oral traditions

See African Historiography talk page Zoocat56 (talk) 00:28, 8 December 2024 (UTC)