Hard News: Right This Time?
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Oral traditions as history are tricky. Sometimes they're borne out; sometimes they're not. But they're not a static method of information transmission, or a direct representation of history, even "secret" history. Sometimes they're just stories; cultural truths, rather than historical ones.
Perfect, topical example: Iraq. If we lived in a time of only oral tradition, the historical record would likely reflect that the Coalition of the Willing invaded Iraq because Saddam really was a very bad man who sponsored 11/9 and, to boot, had secret stashes of chemical weapons. That "reality" is, or was, accepted by a not-insignificant portion of the American public, and even in this age of 24/7 media coverage it's still incredibly difficult to change those initial perceptions.
Chinese whispers, anyone? The distrust of hearsay as evidence in criminal prosecutions is well-founded, and that's only dealing with the very recent past. How far magnified is the effect of decades, or centuries, and countless recitations?
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thanks lucy.. .and FWIW i take brailsford with a grain of salt and apply the magic jawbone to even his writings.
i dont quite know what to make of creator deities cos i dont find it that hard a stretch to think that some knowledge was too sacred even to pass on to common polynesians let alone nosy pakeha so it did get lost.
for instance in samoan language there are 3 distinctions, common, referential and metaphysical which is spoken only by the high born and enlightnened not unlike the 'academese' of current law and academia. sadly most of the metaphysical concepts appear to have fallen by the wayside in polynesian tradition.
and i imagine it would be a hard to incorporate a flood tradition to a people who are sea based and have always dealt with lands appearing to be in flood from a sunken continent. it would essentially be taken as a given...heh
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My notes refer to someone called "Sorrenson" as a easier read than Orbell or Simmons, but I can't find the full reference.
That'd be M. P. K. Sorrenson, Maori Origins and Migrations (Auckland UP, 1979), which is, indeed, a really good book. Also worth reading, because it shows how much the Waitaha myth and other new age appropriations owe to the hyper-diffusionist ethnologies of the nineteenth century, is K. R. Howe's Quest for Origins (Penguin), a revised version of which came out last year. Howe's good because he addresses Brailsford et al. directly.
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So... this thread keeps on finding new, discrete ways to be annoying, doesn't it?
I'm kind of enjoying it on an Aotearoan Da Vinci Code -slash- Chariots of the Gods? kind of level.
All helps to pass the time until my filthy mongrel Anglophone culture slips into deserved extinction.
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(Edit: there was some cross-posting going on)
The distrust of hearsay as evidence in criminal prosecutions is well-founded, and that's only dealing with the very recent past. How far magnified is the effect of decades, or centuries, and countless recitations?
There's a school of thought which says you can't trust any myths as history, because of precisely this. I think it's a bit overdone, but correlation is the only way to be certain. It's also interesting to look at how much of what we consider history is myth, driven by the need for narrative and for stories to fit traditional patterns. It's quite frighteningly more than you'd expect.
i dont quite know what to make of creator deities cos i dont find it that hard a stretch to think that some knowledge was too sacred even to pass on to common polynesians let alone nosy pakeha so it did get lost.
It's certainly possible, but then you get into the question of, if the knowledge was that sacred and restricted, how much it can be considered to be traditional as in having impacted the wider culture at all. Sort of, if an idea falls in the wood and there's no-one there to hear it, does it exist? :P
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do you have any actual history recommendations worth reading ?
Belich and King have both written on the topic.
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There's a school of thought which says you can't trust any myths as history, because of precisely this. I think it's a bit overdone, but correlation is the only way to be certain
And that particular school will be heavily coloured by the modern reliance on written record. As I understand it, when oral tradition was all there was there was a much greater emphasis placed on ensuring correct recollection of verbally-imparted information. Now that those skills have become of lesser importance, empirical testing of the accuracy of stories as recounted years after first being learned is incredibly difficult. In a world obsessed with repeatable, measurable data-gathering, that makes the entire concept of oral tradition suspect.
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In James Belich's Making Peoples he touches on something that I find very interesting, the vast difference in attitudes between indigenous nations in their attitudes to contact with Europeans. For example, compared to most native Australians, Polynesians showed a great curiosity for foreign innovations. As Belich notes, the first Australians' relative disinterest in such things is something for which they've never been forgiven.
Tim Flannery's magnificent prehistory of 'Austronesia', The Future Eaters, has a bit more to say about this. While there's plenty of contention over Flannery's ideas it's a must read for anyone with an interest in why this corner of the world is the way it is. He's also a helluva good writer.
One I've plugged here before: Customs and Habits of the New Zealanders 1838-42. Father C. Servant, Marist Missionary in the Hokianga. Servant was a keenly observant guy who took a real interest in the people he'd come to preach his gospel to. As a window into a vanished world untouched by the dubious hand of Elsdon Best it's full of little surprises..
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yeah thanks and i've read a bit by actual historians but i'm more interested in the 'da vinci code/chariot of the gods' connections and re interpretations:)...not so much the actual migrational habits and material culture of polynesians. i pretty much got a handle on that.
i'd like to think that somewhere in the woods and caves of polynesia is our rosetta stone or decipherable rongo rongo tablet which will unlock the mysteries of the ancients in a very real way and not some new age, crystal stroking, treehugging, burgeoning age of light in 2012 on LSD kind of way.
there has to be more than isolationist discoveries by chance in the old world and a hell of alot more interaction than what is known. i mean just look at those african olmec heads and chinese jade figurines in meso america and lets not forget how much those phonecians in biblical times got around.
surely someone like velikovsky cant have been completely of his rocker and neither is brailsford. in times of extreme stress and abuse we tend to block out the memories and embellish what we do remember. i have no doubt in past times shit did go down we want to forget and thus forged a collective amnesia towards.
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Could someone smooth the pillow of my dying culture on the way out? Thanks.
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It might be easier to point to our intangible cultural heritage.
The Kiwi accent(s), the raise inflection to signify the end of a sentence as opposed to a question.The acceptance and use of Maori in every day speak, ie Kia ora and rotflnui (often seen on this forum). The use of a question like "How are you?" to mean "hello" - confuses many foriegners.
Tangibles 1/4 acre section, State Houses, L & P, our pathetic booze culture, intermarriage, a willingness to do the right thing & give most people most of the time a fair go (Treaty Negotiations) & having no Constitution but still remain a fair and functioning country.
I should correct a few of the errors above, but then we have W(h)anganui miss-spelt, Ohai isn't a maori word, it was a code that looked like maori and thus became a word and place, Half Moon & Horseshoe Bays were transposed by the cartographer & they've kept it that way, & was New Zealand a spelling misstake or a marketing ploy.
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surely someone like velikovsky cant have been completely of his rocker and neither is brailsford.
Velikovsky was just wrong. That is not in question. His proposals are physically impossible and scientifically ludicrous - we're not talking improbable but possible, we're talking divine intervention levels of impossible. We're talking violating the laws of the conservation of angular momentum impossible. It's the sort of comparative mythology that makes historians and scientists cry. It certainly makes me want to cry.
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yeah go on shed a tear and have a drink for this old timer as well
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-me-claude-levi-strauss4-2009nov04,0,890035.story
Hadn't seen that news. Thanks.
100 years eh?... Nice round number. I'll have a drink for the old timer. (Heck, any excuse...)
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hah...never let the facts get in the way of a good story lucy. heaps of people are wrong but it doesnt mean they're batshit insane and then when you do get the odd one that is totally on the money no one believes them ;)
...and BTW i seen another 4 wheel drive launch their boat off a trailer by driving across the estuary at low tide. it's not a good look eh
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...and BTW i seen another 4 wheel drive launch their boat off a trailer by driving across the estuary at low tide. it's not a good look eh
Even if Velikovsky were still alive it doesn't sound like the kind of thing he'd do. More the sort of lowlife stunt that Erich von Däniken would pull.
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haha...yeah joe and you know theres no freaking way in hell brailsford would ever drive his hi lux over native shellfish beds
seems we arent that special after all and soon there really will be no magic and mystery left...ooooh cant wait
can just see all the cracka ass crackas pulling out what little thinning blond hair they have left in complete denial
http://www.moreintelligentlife.com/content/jm-ledgard/exodus
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Meanwhile, sorry for the semi-jack but the bicultural paradise has come! Tariana Turia and I are in complete agreement for the first time ever!
As I'll say in my Pulbic Address Radio piece this week (Radio Live, Sunday, 7pm): I want the Maori Party to be a credible voice for Maori in this Government, but it sure doesn't need distractions like this. Someone needs to tell Hone Harawira that "mana enhancement" works both ways -- even in Belgium.
And have I totally misread the third par of the linked story, or did Harawira flat out lie to his own leader about why he wasn't at work?
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Colin Espiner reprinted the entire text of Harawira's media release it was so crazy (and no where near the normal standard you'd expect of an MP's media releases).
Now he's had email exchanges released to the media, in which he attacks "white man's bullshit".
He's digging himself a deep one.
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He's digging himself a deep one.
Quoted for truthy understatement. :) And I'm not being snarky about giving Turia props either -- she gets what's stinky about Harawira's conduct, and isn't reflexively trying to defend the indefensible.
He's acting as if going to Paris is something he'd never have a chance to do otherwise. Um, dude, you're a well-paid person with a lot of time off and there are flights to Europe *every day*.
There's that too. I don't think anyone would have really cared if he'd waited a couple of days and taken a layover on his way home, as long as he paid the difference out of his own pocket. It's not as if Paris is Brigadoon, FFS...
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He's acting as if going to Paris is something he'd never have a chance to do otherwise. Um, dude, you're a well-paid person with a lot of time off and there are flights to Europe *every day*.
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To: PM
From: Kevin Taylor and the Spinners"Photo-ops for Waitangi Day: Holding hands with Titewhai Harawira - cancelled. Suggest revert to car ride, will find cute kid."
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if ownershhip of the estuary has under the foreshore act been transferred to the crown, then what legal recourse do i have to protect the shellfish beds from people constantly driving over it to launch their boats at low tide ?
i've talked to another resident who collects shellfish, fishes and surfs off the spit as well and he's not too happy bout it either. at least under iwi ownership they could put a sign up saying private property, no vehicles allowed and block access.
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It's not as if Paris is Brigadoon, FFS...
Heh. 'It only appears once a century! And I wanted to meet Van Johnson and Cyd Charisse!'
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I love the part where he pretends to be sick and sneaks off to Paris. What is he, 12?
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So, you didn't need to go to a meeting because it could all be handled with some over-dinner discussions? May I suggest that you therefore didn't need to fly to Europe at all? A phone call would have been as effective?
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