Oral Tradition and Oral History: Reviewing Some Issues

NOTES AND COMMENTS ORAL TRADITION AND ORAL HISTORY: REVIEWING SOME ISSUES Compelling questionsare being raised- in the massmedia, in museum exhibits, andin bothpopularandacademic writings - abouthowhistorical depictions of cross-cultural encounters are constructed andgainauthority. One issuein thesedebates concerns thestatus of indigenous oraltraditions, specifically howoraltraditions cancontributeto documenting thevarieties of historicalunderstanding in areasof theworldwherewrittendocuments areeitherrelatively recentor evenabsent. In manyways,historians and anthropologists are converging in their approachesto historicalreconstruction, pointing to the need to unite anthropological attentionto culturalcategories, cosmologies, and symbols withhistorians' disciplined controlofwrittenrecords? A relatedquestion, though,concerns whogetsto frameand to tell the story- whosevoicesare prominentin thesediscussions and whoseare marginalized.Increasingly, indigenouspeoplesare demandingthat their oral traditionsbe taken seriously aslegitimateperspectives on history.The issue,for them, centres on who controlsthe imagesandthe representations of their livesportrayed to the largerworld.While thereisgrowingawareness in Canadaaboutthe need to re-evaluatethe historyof Native-whiterelations,it is clear that Aboriginalpeoples'viewsof their own historyrarelyappearin academic literature. This debateis as much aboutepistemology asabout authorship.Indigenouspeoplewhogrowup immersed in oral traditionfrequentlysuggest that their narrativesare better understoodby absorbingthe successive personal messages revealed tolisteners in repeated tellings thanbytryingto analyse andpubliclyexplaintheirmeanings. Thiscontrasts witha scholarly approach whichencourages close scrutiny of textsandwhichcontends that, I Studies pointingouttheneedto investigate symbolic andmetaphorical elements in both writtendocuments andoralaccounts include,for example,RenatoRosaldo ,Ilongot Headhunting5 1883-1974(Stanford: Stanford University Press 1980); RichardPrice,FirstTime: TheHistorical Vision ofanAfro-American People (Baltimore: JohnsHopkinsUniversity 1983);Anne Salmond,TwoWorlds: FirstMeetings between MaoriandEuropeans, 1642-1772 (Aukland: Viking1991);Gananath Obeyesekere, TheApotheosis ofCaptain Cook: European Mythmaking in the Padtic(Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press 1992);AnthonyPagden, European Encounters withthe NewWorld: FromRenaissance toRomanticism (New Haven and London: YaleUniversityPress1993 ). Canadian HistoricalReview,LXXV, 3, 1994 0008-3755/94/0900-0403 $01.25/0¸ University ofTorontoPress Incorporated 404 THE CANADIAN HISTORICAL REVIEW byopenlyaddressing conflicting interpretations, we mayilluminatesubtle meanings and enrich our understanding? The challenge,then, is to acknowledge thisdilemmawithoutdismissing it asinsoluble, to respect both the legitimateclaimsof FirstNationsto tell their ownstories and the moral andscholarly obligation towriteculturally grounded histories thatcanhelp uslearnfrom thepast. This shortarticleattemptsto do three things.First,it summarizes how anthropologists andfolklorists haveshiftedtheirevaluations aboutthekinds of historical evidence embedded in oraltradition.Second, it provides some cross-cultural perspective abouthowcontemporary peoplesare currently usingoral traditionsto speakpubliclyabout their past.Finally,it asks whethersuchan overview provides anyethnographic instruction. What,if any,guidelines emergefor historians re-examining the historyof colonial encounters in Canada? Historical Approaches toAnalysis ofOralTradition The terms'oraltradition'and'oralhistory' remainambiguous because their definitionsshiftin popularusage.Sometimes the term oral traditionidentifiesa bodyof material retainedfrom thepast.Other timesweuseit to talk abouta process bywhichinformationistransmitted from onegenerationto the next. Oral historyis a more specialized term usuallyreferringto a research method wherea soundrecordingismadeofaninterview aboutfirsthandexperience occurring duringthelifetimeof an eyewitness. s Because everyculturehaspassed essential ideasfrom one generationto anotherbywordof mouth,the serious study of oral traditionspans more thana century. 4A briefreview of thisliterature suggests thateventhough thequestions areold,theykeepresurfacing andthesamekindsof answers keepbeingreinvented asthoughtheyaresomehow original. 2 A thoughtful discussion of thispointismadewithreference toYup'iknarrative in Alaska in aworkingpaperbyPhyllis Morrow,'On ShakyGround:Folklore, Collaboration, andProblematic Outcomes,' Department ofAnthropology, University of Alaska,Fairbanks. 3 Fora discussion of thedifferingdefinitions of oraltraditionandoralhistory see JanVansina,OralTradition asHistory (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press 1985),12-13;TrevorLummis,'OralHistory,'in RichardBauman,ed.,Folklore, Cultural Performances andPopular Entertainments (NewYorkandOxford:Oxford University Press 1992),92-7. 4 A concise historical overview of theoretical approaches combining perspectives fromBritishsocial anthropology andNorthAmericanfolklorestudies canbe foundin RuthFinnegan,OralTraditions andtheVerbal Arts: A Guide toResearch Practices (LondonandNewYork:Routledge1992),25-52. NOTES AND COMMENTS 405 In the nineteenthcentury,for example,Europeanfolklorists saworally narratedaccounts asdisembodied 'things'tobecollected, muchasmuseum collectors viewedobjectsof materialculture.Folklorists treatedoral narratives asculturalartifacts thathadsurvived fromearlierperiods - asakindof freeze-dried history-andhopedthatthesetraditions mightprovideakeyto the past.Embeddedin an ideology of socialevolution,thisperspective had serious flaws. At best,E.B.TylorandSirJamesFrazerrecognized the intellectualcharacter of oralnarrative,albeittreatingit askind of proto-science or proto-religion. At worst,theirapproaches embodieda crypto-racist analysisof so-called primitivethought. Ironically,both 'intellectualist' and'spiritualist' formulations areresurfacingin contemporary debates wherethestatebecomes involved in evaluating oral tradition. One variation on the first emerged in the 1991 British ColumbiaSupremeCourtdecision thatevaluated oraltraditions in termsof howwelltheyanswered questions posedbythecourtsin termsaccessible to thecourts andjudgedtheminadequate bythosecriteria?The second formulamoreoftenemerges whenbroadlybasedinterestgroups, claimingthe bestand mostpoliticallycorrectintentions,appropriateindigenoustraditions ,claimingtofind in themevidence of innatespirituality or a 'natural' understanding of ecology? In bothprescriptions, indigenous traditions are expectedto provideanswers to problemscreated bymodernstates in terms convenient formodernstates. If many nineteenth-century analyses ignored the socialcharacterof narrative,a subsequent generationof scholars showed muchmoreconcern for the socialcontext in...