Oral History

[jducoeur]

There was a story on SCA Today a couple of days ago, about a lady who is collecting the oral history of the SCA. On the one hand, this seems like a fine project: the packrat in me loves the idea of collecting these stories, and I suspect I'll buy the resulting books.

That said, I found myself rather taken aback by this assertion:

"It is not enough, however, to tell these tales around campfires. History, our oral history, needs to be preserved in a more concrete way."

As mentioned above, I understand the motivation here rather deeply. But this statement is so bald that it leads me to notice that it's not actually true. Our oral history doesn't *need* to be preserved like this. Indeed, once it gets written down, it isn't oral history in any meaningful sense any more.

Oral history is very different from written: more mutable, more lively, often more resonant to the culture of the moment. I have to wonder: when you start writing it down, does the history shape the culture more, and the culture shape the history less? Does the act of compiling history like this make the culture less flexible on a subtle level, by reducing the tendency to reinterpret where we've been?

I'm really not sure, and I'm certainly not going to stand in the way of an interesting project. But it does make for interesting reflection...

Comments

Oh, don't worry...

[siderea]

At best, it is a snapshot of the oral history in a moment. It won't stop the flow of that mighty river.

I agree it does need to be preserved, because You Can't Step In The Same River Twice. We need those snapshots if we want to know where we've been, culturally. It's amazing to me how much the stories we tell -- and how stories are told -- has changed locally since I've been here.

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

Sweeping assertions are, of course, always wrong.

I find -- and I've been caught up in this myself -- that there is an instinct to want to preserve and protect *everything*, each retelling of the story. This is the feeling which leads people to release jazz CDs which are all 20 takes of "The Way We Were", with slightly different voicing in the third chorus on track 9. As siderea says, I don't think it's bad unless they start becoming Official or Exclusive or Definitive -- "Oh, don't tell the ground-like-wet-tofu story, it's on the web page!"

I was engaged in a project like this some aeons ago, and more recently was recorded telling some of the stories I'd written down years earlier. It's interesting to note which details have changed -- the oral version has more detail in some spots, which says something for the power of my memory. ;-) In fact, when I was recently listening to my recording of the story, I realized I had (since retelling it) forgotten some details, but the recording reminded me of them. Very bizarre.

[umbran.livejournal.com]

I have to wonder: when you start writing it down, does the history shape the culture more, and the culture shape the history less?

Well, that depends upon how many people buy and read the book, and for how long.

Realistically - this book will go into print. There will be a burst of sales to current SCAdians (who know the current version of the stories). But then the book will go out of print, and extant gather dust on shelves, and the older folk will continue to tell the stories, without referencing the book. The stories will continue to mutate, and all will be well.

And some stories will fall by the wayside. And once every five years or so, someone will drag out the book, see a story they haven't heard in a while, remember it, and start telling it again.

[kiya]

I think there's a qualitative difference between a history and stories passed on through oral tellings and those that have written versions. (I also know one SCAdian who refuses to post certain stories to usenet, because he's a bard persona; those stories are, to him, meant to be told. He's also fascinated with the telephone-mutation process; apparently people have told him mythologised versions of things that happened to him.)

You get different sorts of things from oral traditions than you do written ones. I know people who're coming from significantly oral tradition backgrounds who feel that a written story is effectively a dead one.

I come from a mixed background, and use one to inform the other; I take the stories that I learn on paper, or by whatever set means, and I tell them in the way that suits the moment. Sometimes I tell stories in a spoken mode in textual form; that means that they're set somewhere, people could find them, I suppose, if they're archived, but I'll tell the story a little differently the next time I tell it. And I take the told stories and form them into written ones, too; a little different, shaped to the new form.

[learnedax.livejournal.com]

apparently people have told him mythologised versions of things that happened to him

It could be worse. Visiting foreign parts once rickthefightguy was told a mutation of his own meta-story about telling a herooftheage story.

Whether that's the goal or not, I know of a few cases where an author has asked that their work never be written.

[yakshaver.livejournal.com]

I will never forget the night at a Pennsic (XXII or so) where I wandered into a camp and paused in the shadows outside the fire as I heard someone say

... the lady at the Troll said "But you get a dollar off for every hundred miles you came, over three hundred. Where'd you come from, milord?"

"Barony of Madrone, West Kingdom — Seattle, Washington."

And the lady and the guy at the Troll looked at each other, looked back at him, and looked at each other again. And the lady says "Milord, I think we owe you about five dollars. Call it even?"

The remarkable thing about it was that at least that part of the story was pretty much exactly how it had happened, three years earlier.

[dreda.livejournal.com]

I am controlling the academic who is lunging for the opportunity to write an article on the subject, because if I do, I'll never get my class prepper for Harpers'. But this is, of course, a question with many excellent period examples for pretty much every possible outcome. The act of Writing Stuff Down can stultify or foster a mythos - it pretty much depends on the weight behind the finished written project. If it becomes the Received Version, you often get stultification, but if you get competing written versions that are then more widely disseminated than is possible with a couple of different guys just telling them, then you get foment - which leads to evolving versions.

One of the corollary conversations heard around a campfire recently is whether or not transmitting information by writing it down makes for lazier memories - the "my brain's on paper/Palm/etc." idea. I wonder if this project will result in people bringing the books to a bardic and reading from them...