Having thought about it overnight, I think they might, in some cases, be
records. In some non-literate societies, the oral historian is the
official keeper of records, including all sorts of things we'd delegate
to a government agency -- births, deaths, lineages, property records,
etc. The oral historian is, for all practical purposes, the county
clerk and recorder, marriage registry and state archives, all rolled
into one. Their history is THE record, relied upon for all purposes,
and taken as the official version of the events therein. Call it best
evidence, call it a record, call it whatever, but it's operating like an
official record.
English common law used to have a similar thing for land transfers. In
pre-literate (insofar as commoners were concerned) England, upon
transfer of title to land, they'd have what was called an enfeoffment
ceremony wherein a clod of dirt from the land would be pressed into the
hand of the new owner by the old owner. The purpose of this was to
create a record of the eventin the minds of participants and observers,
since there was no written record as we know it. Then, they would give
the children who witnessed the ceremony a beating. The reason for this
is that a record in the mind of an old person was not sufficiently
durable and longlasting for something like a land title transfer, so
they created a more long-lasting and prominently labeled record in the
minds of the children, thus ensuring a readily available record of the
event long after the passing of the adults present at the ceremony.
David T. Macknet wrote:
>
>
> Hmm. Part of the discussion has centred around the evidenciary standing
> of oral history, which may give them the standing as if they were
> records, but I'm not sure that I'd call them records in and of
> themselves. Oral histories are records, certainly, in a sense - an
> historical record, in a way. But my gut feeling (for whatever it's
> worth) is that there's something about what RM has considered "a record"
> which involves the explicit act of preservation, in durable form.
> Certainly, the explicit act of preservation is present within oral
> histories ... but the durability of the form is in question. Also,
> because there is no possibility of destruction / retention decisions
> being made in the same way as what RM considers records, I think there
> is some (not irreconcilable) philosophical difference between the two.
>
> -D
>
> -------------------------
>
> DR. DAVID T. MACKNET
> MCP, MCSD, BA, MSc, MLitt, PhD
>
> email: [log in to unmask]
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>
>
> Links:
> ------
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--
Best regards,
John
John Montaña
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