7 ms·

Stories told by Aboriginal Tasmanians could be oldest recorded

174 points by gumby 3y ago

xdennis 3y ago
In New Zealand this is called Mātauranga Māori. There's a tendency of certain Westerners to consider the myths of others are being more legitimate to the point where (in New Zealand) it's taught in schools alongside "Western" science [1]. [1]: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/how-matauranga-maori-is-being-rolled-out-in-schools-rangi-matamua-explains-the-knowledge-system/HBESUUZ3UFFSVLF64Y5JMJ24KE/ https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/how-matauranga-maori-is-being-...
- actionfromafar 3y ago
  Huh. Interesting. It reminded me of something: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/fact-check-does-texas-teach-creationism-public-schools-it-constitutional-flna837809 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/fact-check-does-texas-tea... similar tendencies.
  - OfSanguineFire 3y ago
    Different dynamics. In NZ it is a state trying to make up to a disadvantaged indigenous population. In Texas, its about a Protestant Christianity brought by settlers and has nothing to do with the state’s ethnic minorities. Instead, what would be a good comparison in the USA are those Native American activists who insist on the truth of their founding myths that the Creator created them where they live now, and that their ancestors did not migrate from Asia across the Bering Strait.
- wahern 3y ago
  > There's a tendency of certain Westerners to consider the myths of others are being more legitimate I've always considered this is a subtle form of othering in which the cultural left indulges.[1] It's really unfortunate and no less alienating than more obvious forms of othering. A related phenomenon is the left (as well as non-religious more generally, not all firmly steeped in the leftist milieu) feeling entitled to criticize or diminish otherwise similar religious practices found within the dominant culture they were raised. Standing alone it would fit into a millennia-long vein of intellectual discourse in the West[2], however in contrast to the noble savage gloss given non-Western cultures it becomes intolerably hypocritical. [1] Relatedly, for years I've considered figurative use of words like "legitimate" and, especially, "authentic" as signaling and reflecting dubious modern cultural value judgments. These modern cultural concepts have been internalized across the political and cultural spectrum in the West, especially the rich West. Learning to spot this language is a good way to identify B.S. in politics, philosophy, business, marketing, and almost every other area of life. (Conversely, when you're feeling evil you can use these words to great profit in rhetoric.) In this case I understand you're deliberately echoing others' verbiage. [2] See, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucian, but such religious skepticism and satire goes back much further.
  - mint2 3y ago
    Hacker news guidelines “ Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. That tramples curiosity.” Specifically calling out some personal gripe about the “left” definitely falls under this admonishment.
    - falserum 3y ago
      [dead]
    - anonymouskimmer 3y ago
      As a person who generally identifies as being on the US left, I took it as a factual use of the term, not a personal gripe or ideological battle. To the extent I can even think of people on the "right" doing the equivalent with indigenous cultures, it's in a completely different manner.
      - mint2 3y ago
        I’m not even getting into the accuracy or lack of accuracy of the statement. Due to the numbers of viewers, if even a fraction of people start posting whatever gripe about left/right that comes to their mind after each comment like here, then this place will be unbearable. Hence the guideline admonishing against that.
    - arp242 3y ago
      "I don't like these viewpoints somewhat commonly held by this group" is not "political or ideological battle" in and of itself.
      - mint2 3y ago
        Well when put like that, sounds like a terrible conversation piece for socials events, particularly when an 1/3 to 2/3rds belong to the group being griped about. Especially when the gripee is seemingly not even part of that group. It’s like standing in a group talking and then going: “hey this topic reminds me about how a third of you people, which I’m not one of, do this and this bad thing, isn’t that annoying?! Haha you people”
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- ern 3y ago
  The article is about the myths themselves, and there isn’t anything about it being taught as an alternative form of science.
joshuaissac 3y ago
This article is about a story that could be from 12,000 years ago. But the Gunditjmara people (also from southern Australia) have a much older story from 37,000 years ago about the last eruption of the Budj Bim volcano.
- lostlogin 3y ago
  Here is an article on what you describe. Similar title too. “Is an Aboriginal tale of an ancient volcano the oldest story ever told?” https://www.science.org/content/article/aboriginal-tale-ancient-volcano-oldest-story-ever-told https://www.science.org/content/article/aboriginal-tale-anci...
  - tonfreed 3y ago
    It almost feels like they're just clickbaiting people with headlines like this.
pan69 3y ago
I was just watching a random video on this 4 days ago [1].. The video was published October 19 and the article was published October 19. How odd. They use the same source of information? [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYTHdWnU7ow https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYTHdWnU7ow
changoplatanero 3y ago
this greek story is possibly 100,000 years old https://www.iflscience.com/the-worlds-oldest-story-astronomers-say-global-myths-about-seven-sisters-stars-may-reach-back-100000-years-61777 https://www.iflscience.com/the-worlds-oldest-story-astronome...
- yread 3y ago
  That one is hard to date precisely though. Especially compared to floods or volcanos. It could be that the stars were still distinguishable 50ka or 30ka
  - potatopatch 3y ago
    We don't really need precision dating to know the headline is proposing something extremely unlikely.
- huytersd 3y ago
  It’s not Greek as the Australian aboriginals also have the same story with the seven sister. It might be a story an ancestor common to both the people in Europe, and the aboriginal Australians shared before they left Africa.
- anonymouskimmer 3y ago
  Commenter Dobbin in the comments of your link said: > The seventh sister is observable even in modern times. Among the Greeks, Arabs and Romans, the ability to see the seventh star was used as an eye test to determine ones suitability for certain tasks as a warrior. Stories of the seventh daughter being taken captive no doubt stem from how elusive seeing that seventh star was though some could see ten or more if viewing conditions are good enough. The conjecture about this being a hundred thousand year old story is probably hogwash in order to publish something.
  - thaumasiotes 3y ago
    > Among the Greeks, Arabs and Romans, the ability to see the seventh star was used as an eye test to determine ones suitability for certain tasks as a warrior. How would this work? This is a test that operates on the honor system where it's guaranteed that everyone knows the right answer. It must either be the case that no problems will arise if people are free to lie about their vision -- in other words, that acuity of vision has nothing to do with performance at the special tasks gated by this test -- or that the appearance of the stars changes day-to-day, so that someone who is known to be able to see all seven is capable of telling the difference between a testee who can also see all seven and a testee who is lying about their ability to do so.
tombh 3y ago
I was surprised they didn't mention the Pleiades constellation in the Star Stories section. Today, only 6 stars can be seen with the naked eye in the constellation. However, both European and Aboriginal traditions describe them as "seven sisters". It could of course be coincidence, but considering the fact that astronomical extrapolation calculates the movement of the stars to indeed have once been visible as seven, it might actually be evidence of a shared story. The maths puts the last period of the Pleiades appearing as seven, at around 100,000 years ago. The Pleiades Folklore Wikipedia page has loads of interesting general info about the constellation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleiades_in_folklore_and_literature https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleiades_in_folklore_and_liter... And Youtuber Crecganford has a video with well-sourced academic references exploring the idea that The Seven Sisters is humanity's oldest story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qyjKND3dAE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qyjKND3dAE
- Quarrel 3y ago
  > The maths puts the last period of the Pleiades appearing as seven, at around 100,000 years ago. So, I'm not entirely sure I follow you, but this is way way before any people were in Tasmania, or even any real evidenced occupation in the southern hemisphere outside Africa. Are you suggesting the maths is suspect (?!), or that they should have included traditions that can't at all be verified?
  - gumby 3y ago
    The article suggests that a 12 ky old oral tradition might be the oldest. tombh’s comment is that there could be an oral tradition almost an order of magnitude older, or more. I think it’s relevant.
    - ahazred8ta 3y ago
      related, there's a North American legend about a giant whose nose was a long snake
      - CommitSyn 3y ago
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
xbryanx 3y ago
This reminds me of the recent New Yorker article on indigenous Pacific Northwest oral histories about climactic flooding that can be directly correlated to ancient written Japanese tsunami records. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big-one https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big...
kfogel 3y ago
If you liked this article, you might also like the book "The Edge of Memory: Ancient Stories, Oral Tradition and the Post-Glacial World" by Patrick Nunn (Bloomsbury, 2018). https://patricknunn.org/writing/books/the-edge-of-memory-ancient-stories-oral-tradition-and-the-post-glacial-world/ https://patricknunn.org/writing/books/the-edge-of-memory-anc... The book gives many more examples, along with a lot of corroborating geological evidence.
doublespanner 3y ago
This kind of thing is similar to fortune telling... There are some vague tales that occasionally coincidentally align with geological record, (or can be massaged to resemble another yarn). However there is nothing beyond wishful thinking to show that the tales remained consistent for any length of time, or were based on reality in the first place. Aboriginal studies is a joke, there is no ability for a critical interpretation to be published, so the entire field has descended into drivel.
- mistermann 3y ago
  > However there is nothing beyond wishful thinking to show that the tales remained consistent for any length of time, or were based on reality in the first place. Is this based on deep research into the matter, full coverage of all academic and non-academic material?
  - hnfong 3y ago
    "We can't prove a negative, so we'll just verbally bully everyone who believes in superstitious crap and downvote them to oblivion"
    - mistermann 3y ago
      Very much agree, but don't despair: a vast record of this pseudo-rational, pseudo-scientific, and very effective propaganda is digitally archived, just waiting for someone to assemble it into a presentation of how the world really works, a legitimate Theory of Everything, not the bogus one science has sold to an indoctrinated public.
- zeteo 3y ago
  It would be interesting to contrast this with a possible theory that Prometheus represents an oral tradition of the first controlled use of fire around 1M years ago.
jojobas 3y ago
What's fascinating is that it's apparent from these stories that Aboriginal Australians never figured how seeds work, or the link between pregnancy and sex.
- defrost 3y ago
  By all means do please expand on your reasoning here. It's by no means apparent to all how you arrived at your conclusion, particularly in light of evidence to the contrary.
  - jojobas 3y ago
    What evidence to the contrary? There's no counterpart to the Genesis myth, nothing like "A went in unto B and she conceived". Children were brought by Rainbow Serpent or some such. Native Australians were on the brink of hunger a lot of the time, so they were only fertile during the seasons of abundant food. All known Aboriginal practices of growing food involving moving/planting entire plants, not seeds.
    - Perenti 3y ago
      CPY people in central Australia practice subincision as a manhood ritual. In order to concieve they tie the penis together with their wives' hair. They only did/do this in times of plenty though. Otherwise the subincision means semen just dribbles down the scrotum, and not into the wife. Seems they knew what went where. The spirit of a new embryo came from a waterhole, with the help of the Rainbow Serpent. But they knew where babies came from. Spitting/throwing seeds of fruit on the ground is a lot like planting them. I know of no evidence that Indigenous Australians were so hungry that they were only sporadically fertile. Source?
      - jojobas 3y ago
        For one, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12337490/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12337490/. There's plenty of research on mythology of various tribes regarding the matter. Some had various suspicions and practices such as above, none had a consistent viewpoint of fatherhood, semen, conception etc comparable to that of people who observed domesticated animals.
aaron695 3y ago
[dead]
cat_plus_plus 3y ago
Interesting, but could be jumping to conclusions. There could have been other, more recent floods or supernovas or whatever captured by these legends. We are talking about a very long broken telephone game and it's inevitable that some details would get mixed up.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
dotancohen 3y ago
The article was written by Karl Gruber? Is there going to be a rebuttal by John McClane?

174 points by gumby 3y ago

In New Zealand this is called Mātauranga Māori. There's a tendency of certain Westerners to consider the myths of others are being more legitimate to the point where (in New Zealand) it's taught in schools alongside "Western" science [1]. [1]: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/how-matauranga-maori-is-being-rolled-out-in-schools-rangi-matamua-explains-the-knowledge-system/HBESUUZ3UFFSVLF64Y5JMJ24KE/ https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/how-matauranga-maori-is-being-...

actionfromafar 3y ago
Huh. Interesting. It reminded me of something: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/fact-check-does-texas-teach-creationism-public-schools-it-constitutional-flna837809 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/fact-check-does-texas-tea... similar tendencies.
- OfSanguineFire 3y ago
  Different dynamics. In NZ it is a state trying to make up to a disadvantaged indigenous population. In Texas, its about a Protestant Christianity brought by settlers and has nothing to do with the state’s ethnic minorities. Instead, what would be a good comparison in the USA are those Native American activists who insist on the truth of their founding myths that the Creator created them where they live now, and that their ancestors did not migrate from Asia across the Bering Strait.
wahern 3y ago
> There's a tendency of certain Westerners to consider the myths of others are being more legitimate I've always considered this is a subtle form of othering in which the cultural left indulges.[1] It's really unfortunate and no less alienating than more obvious forms of othering. A related phenomenon is the left (as well as non-religious more generally, not all firmly steeped in the leftist milieu) feeling entitled to criticize or diminish otherwise similar religious practices found within the dominant culture they were raised. Standing alone it would fit into a millennia-long vein of intellectual discourse in the West[2], however in contrast to the noble savage gloss given non-Western cultures it becomes intolerably hypocritical. [1] Relatedly, for years I've considered figurative use of words like "legitimate" and, especially, "authentic" as signaling and reflecting dubious modern cultural value judgments. These modern cultural concepts have been internalized across the political and cultural spectrum in the West, especially the rich West. Learning to spot this language is a good way to identify B.S. in politics, philosophy, business, marketing, and almost every other area of life. (Conversely, when you're feeling evil you can use these words to great profit in rhetoric.) In this case I understand you're deliberately echoing others' verbiage. [2] See, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucian, but such religious skepticism and satire goes back much further.
- mint2 3y ago
  Hacker news guidelines “ Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. That tramples curiosity.” Specifically calling out some personal gripe about the “left” definitely falls under this admonishment.
  - falserum 3y ago
    [dead]
  - anonymouskimmer 3y ago
    As a person who generally identifies as being on the US left, I took it as a factual use of the term, not a personal gripe or ideological battle. To the extent I can even think of people on the "right" doing the equivalent with indigenous cultures, it's in a completely different manner.
    - mint2 3y ago
      I’m not even getting into the accuracy or lack of accuracy of the statement. Due to the numbers of viewers, if even a fraction of people start posting whatever gripe about left/right that comes to their mind after each comment like here, then this place will be unbearable. Hence the guideline admonishing against that.
  - arp242 3y ago
    "I don't like these viewpoints somewhat commonly held by this group" is not "political or ideological battle" in and of itself.
    - mint2 3y ago
      Well when put like that, sounds like a terrible conversation piece for socials events, particularly when an 1/3 to 2/3rds belong to the group being griped about. Especially when the gripee is seemingly not even part of that group. It’s like standing in a group talking and then going: “hey this topic reminds me about how a third of you people, which I’m not one of, do this and this bad thing, isn’t that annoying?! Haha you people”
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
ern 3y ago
The article is about the myths themselves, and there isn’t anything about it being taught as an alternative form of science.

joshuaissac 3y ago

This article is about a story that could be from 12,000 years ago. But the Gunditjmara people (also from southern Australia) have a much older story from 37,000 years ago about the last eruption of the Budj Bim volcano.

lostlogin 3y ago
Here is an article on what you describe. Similar title too. “Is an Aboriginal tale of an ancient volcano the oldest story ever told?” https://www.science.org/content/article/aboriginal-tale-ancient-volcano-oldest-story-ever-told https://www.science.org/content/article/aboriginal-tale-anci...
- tonfreed 3y ago
  It almost feels like they're just clickbaiting people with headlines like this.

pan69 3y ago

I was just watching a random video on this 4 days ago [1].. The video was published October 19 and the article was published October 19. How odd. They use the same source of information? [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYTHdWnU7ow https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYTHdWnU7ow

changoplatanero 3y ago

this greek story is possibly 100,000 years old https://www.iflscience.com/the-worlds-oldest-story-astronomers-say-global-myths-about-seven-sisters-stars-may-reach-back-100000-years-61777 https://www.iflscience.com/the-worlds-oldest-story-astronome...

yread 3y ago
That one is hard to date precisely though. Especially compared to floods or volcanos. It could be that the stars were still distinguishable 50ka or 30ka
- potatopatch 3y ago
  We don't really need precision dating to know the headline is proposing something extremely unlikely.
huytersd 3y ago
It’s not Greek as the Australian aboriginals also have the same story with the seven sister. It might be a story an ancestor common to both the people in Europe, and the aboriginal Australians shared before they left Africa.
anonymouskimmer 3y ago
Commenter Dobbin in the comments of your link said: > The seventh sister is observable even in modern times. Among the Greeks, Arabs and Romans, the ability to see the seventh star was used as an eye test to determine ones suitability for certain tasks as a warrior. Stories of the seventh daughter being taken captive no doubt stem from how elusive seeing that seventh star was though some could see ten or more if viewing conditions are good enough. The conjecture about this being a hundred thousand year old story is probably hogwash in order to publish something.
- thaumasiotes 3y ago
  > Among the Greeks, Arabs and Romans, the ability to see the seventh star was used as an eye test to determine ones suitability for certain tasks as a warrior. How would this work? This is a test that operates on the honor system where it's guaranteed that everyone knows the right answer. It must either be the case that no problems will arise if people are free to lie about their vision -- in other words, that acuity of vision has nothing to do with performance at the special tasks gated by this test -- or that the appearance of the stars changes day-to-day, so that someone who is known to be able to see all seven is capable of telling the difference between a testee who can also see all seven and a testee who is lying about their ability to do so.

tombh 3y ago

I was surprised they didn't mention the Pleiades constellation in the Star Stories section. Today, only 6 stars can be seen with the naked eye in the constellation. However, both European and Aboriginal traditions describe them as "seven sisters". It could of course be coincidence, but considering the fact that astronomical extrapolation calculates the movement of the stars to indeed have once been visible as seven, it might actually be evidence of a shared story. The maths puts the last period of the Pleiades appearing as seven, at around 100,000 years ago. The Pleiades Folklore Wikipedia page has loads of interesting general info about the constellation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleiades_in_folklore_and_literature https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleiades_in_folklore_and_liter... And Youtuber Crecganford has a video with well-sourced academic references exploring the idea that The Seven Sisters is humanity's oldest story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qyjKND3dAE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qyjKND3dAE

Quarrel 3y ago
> The maths puts the last period of the Pleiades appearing as seven, at around 100,000 years ago. So, I'm not entirely sure I follow you, but this is way way before any people were in Tasmania, or even any real evidenced occupation in the southern hemisphere outside Africa. Are you suggesting the maths is suspect (?!), or that they should have included traditions that can't at all be verified?
- gumby 3y ago
  The article suggests that a 12 ky old oral tradition might be the oldest. tombh’s comment is that there could be an oral tradition almost an order of magnitude older, or more. I think it’s relevant.
  - ahazred8ta 3y ago
    related, there's a North American legend about a giant whose nose was a long snake
    - CommitSyn 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

xbryanx 3y ago

This reminds me of the recent New Yorker article on indigenous Pacific Northwest oral histories about climactic flooding that can be directly correlated to ancient written Japanese tsunami records. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big-one https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big...

kfogel 3y ago

If you liked this article, you might also like the book "The Edge of Memory: Ancient Stories, Oral Tradition and the Post-Glacial World" by Patrick Nunn (Bloomsbury, 2018). https://patricknunn.org/writing/books/the-edge-of-memory-ancient-stories-oral-tradition-and-the-post-glacial-world/ https://patricknunn.org/writing/books/the-edge-of-memory-anc... The book gives many more examples, along with a lot of corroborating geological evidence.

doublespanner 3y ago

This kind of thing is similar to fortune telling... There are some vague tales that occasionally coincidentally align with geological record, (or can be massaged to resemble another yarn). However there is nothing beyond wishful thinking to show that the tales remained consistent for any length of time, or were based on reality in the first place. Aboriginal studies is a joke, there is no ability for a critical interpretation to be published, so the entire field has descended into drivel.

mistermann 3y ago
> However there is nothing beyond wishful thinking to show that the tales remained consistent for any length of time, or were based on reality in the first place. Is this based on deep research into the matter, full coverage of all academic and non-academic material?
- hnfong 3y ago
  "We can't prove a negative, so we'll just verbally bully everyone who believes in superstitious crap and downvote them to oblivion"
  - mistermann 3y ago
    Very much agree, but don't despair: a vast record of this pseudo-rational, pseudo-scientific, and very effective propaganda is digitally archived, just waiting for someone to assemble it into a presentation of how the world really works, a legitimate Theory of Everything, not the bogus one science has sold to an indoctrinated public.
zeteo 3y ago
It would be interesting to contrast this with a possible theory that Prometheus represents an oral tradition of the first controlled use of fire around 1M years ago.

jojobas 3y ago

What's fascinating is that it's apparent from these stories that Aboriginal Australians never figured how seeds work, or the link between pregnancy and sex.

defrost 3y ago
By all means do please expand on your reasoning here. It's by no means apparent to all how you arrived at your conclusion, particularly in light of evidence to the contrary.
- jojobas 3y ago
  What evidence to the contrary? There's no counterpart to the Genesis myth, nothing like "A went in unto B and she conceived". Children were brought by Rainbow Serpent or some such. Native Australians were on the brink of hunger a lot of the time, so they were only fertile during the seasons of abundant food. All known Aboriginal practices of growing food involving moving/planting entire plants, not seeds.
  - Perenti 3y ago
    CPY people in central Australia practice subincision as a manhood ritual. In order to concieve they tie the penis together with their wives' hair. They only did/do this in times of plenty though. Otherwise the subincision means semen just dribbles down the scrotum, and not into the wife. Seems they knew what went where. The spirit of a new embryo came from a waterhole, with the help of the Rainbow Serpent. But they knew where babies came from. Spitting/throwing seeds of fruit on the ground is a lot like planting them. I know of no evidence that Indigenous Australians were so hungry that they were only sporadically fertile. Source?
    - jojobas 3y ago
      For one, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12337490/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12337490/. There's plenty of research on mythology of various tribes regarding the matter. Some had various suspicions and practices such as above, none had a consistent viewpoint of fatherhood, semen, conception etc comparable to that of people who observed domesticated animals.

aaron695 3y ago

[dead]

cat_plus_plus 3y ago

Interesting, but could be jumping to conclusions. There could have been other, more recent floods or supernovas or whatever captured by these legends. We are talking about a very long broken telephone game and it's inevitable that some details would get mixed up.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

dotancohen 3y ago

The article was written by Karl Gruber? Is there going to be a rebuttal by John McClane?