Quote:
Originally Posted by creekster
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.
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Did anyone ever write the Maoris' tales and genealogies down??