Quote:
Originally Posted by SeattleUte
I read in the facinating New Yorker article I've referenced about oral histories that these bards they've found in India and the Balkans, who can carry around in their heads and recite the entire text of Bible-length and longer works, lose their powers of memorization if they become literate.
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As you know, I have some familiarity with Maori culture. When the European missionaries first arrived and began trying to convert the Maori, they found that certain persons in tribes were assigned the task of memorizing and when called upon reciting the tribe's oral history These histories included many generations of "begats" and tales of heroic voyages, etc., which tales and genealogies were of epic length. As European influence and control waxed, these persons disappeared.