Oral vs Written History

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Oral vs Written History

Post by count »

Oops. <br> <br>I am in the middle of doing some source reading on the Apache. I came across the following in I FOUGHT WITH GERONIMO by Jason Betzinez. Betzinez was a youth when his tribal band at San Carlos "volunteered" (actually were forced at gunpoint) to leave San Carlos with renegades under Geronimo and Naiche. He spent some time with Geronimo's last band before the surrender in '86. <br> <br>Betzinez later wrote an account of his life as both a "wild" and "tame" Apache. <br>What follows is the first sentence of his book... <br> <br>" To the Indian it is a curious thing that white people accept as fact only that which is written on paper, whereas events retold by word of mouth, even if of greater importance, are disparaged as mere folklore..." <br> <br>That single sentence, I beleive, cuts to the heart of the matter in almost all things LDM. Food for thought.
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Post by count »

It is even more important when word of mouth is recorded on paper, and then it is still a job to know what really happened, and in there lays our job , to decipher truth vs. legend. A journalist once said," when legend becomes more interesting than truth , print the legend." Peter, the statment is correct , one should not overlook the oral history, but very carefully one needs to consider the source
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Post by count »

I agree with you to an extent. However, <br>some cultures simply didnt write ANYTHING down (Amerindians for example) <br>and whatever tales we have from them pertaining to the Superstitions, whether they be related to caches, lost mines or battles, are today all second- (in some case third or fouth)hand accounts. Because this is so still does not make them false, though it does pay to be aware of who is handing down an Indian tale....are we, for example, more prone to beleive the basics of a story in the Bark Notes or Oren Arnolds GHOST GOLD? <br> <br>Our job is to wade thru the evidence and make judgements to the best of our ability.
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Post by count »

i dont think whether "history" is oral history or written history really matters.its where or from who it originates surely.anything that came directly or indirectly from sims ely and others -quite frankly id be loathe to believe a word of it. the same applies imho to indian legends most of which have been corrupted in some form or another by anglos.
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