4 ms·
It’s a real loss when we lose tribes like this because we also lose 50,000 years of accumulated knowledge.
by bergenty 4y ago
It’s a real loss when we lose tribes like this because we also lose 50,000 years of accumulated knowledge.
- nine_k 4y agoHow is that knowledge accumulated? I suppose these tribes lack writing?
- MonkeyMalarky 4y agoOral tradition?
- nine_k 4y agoI was mostly intetested in the kinds of oral traditions, and maybe other traditions to catch knowledge without writing, say, using sculpted / cut figures, etc.
- prox 4y agoFor about half of its lifetime at least, the vedas were meticulously passed down orally with a priest present at its ritual to catch for any errors in word or deed. A teacher I had of Jewish descent said something similar about his tradition. It was a lot more common to memorize texts and cultural highlights. In the even recent past most people could recite complete poems and stories by heart.
- bergenty 4y agoEven today many Muslims memorize the entire Koran.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- kzbg 4y agoIndigenous Australians are known for their use of songlines: https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/allinthemind/songlines-indigenous-memory-code/7581788 https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/allinthemind/s...
- klabb3 4y agoProbably differs a lot, but the Navajo have a massively developed story-telling tradition to pass on wisdom across generations. Iirc these are symbolic and has moral or philosophical contents, similar perhaps to fables and religious miracle-stories. Encoding information in narratives is highly effective for memorization, and I believe deliberate so. Literal interpretations can be fun, but a deeper semantic interpretation can really unlock ancient wisdom. It's fascinating.
- scotty79 4y agoEven if remembered perfectly and consisting only of valuable information, it's amount of knowlege that fits in a single brain. We are centuries past the point when such amount was significant.
- klabb3 4y agoYou could distribute specialized knowledge among different people, so it's not as restrictive as a single brain. And to be fair, our most valuable knowledge today is probably encoded in few people's brain as well in the form of institutional knowledge. But I get your sentiment, writing down is an immense construction that expands the topology of knowledge by a huge factor.
- bergenty 4y agoStories, myths, knowledge verbally passed on for generations.
- edgyquant 4y agoIt’s passed on through us recording their traditions
- bergenty 4y agoBarely.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- giraffe_lady 4y agoTradition must be lived, those are just words now.
- edgyquant 4y agoI disagree with semantics but get what you mean in general.
- ben_w 4y agoWe don't always have the opportunity to even do that. And even when we do have the opportunity, there are cases where we can't, because the language is untranslatable, for example the North Sentinel islanders: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinelese_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinelese_language
- edgyquant 4y agoYeah, you're right here. My point was more than it doesn't take biological successors to continue traditions. Was more meant to add a light of hope to an all around depressing situation.
- herbst 4y agoIf you look into traditional medicine in that area you realize that plenty of the plants they use and used never actually got a proper scientific research on them. It's basically getting lost in front of our eyes.