>no i posit an oral culture that does not record or centralise its texts but
>distributes them amongst its population and is carried forth in the
>memories(ie it exists in mnemonic space) of its people.
Just a small point here - in oral cultures the mnemonic is often
centralised (as in the East Timorese) in the singers/poets or knowers who
pass the culture down. And very few of them are _democratic_ as we
understand it.
In a recent Heat, there is an interesting essay about the mistaken, if
sincere, belief by many people that they have Aboriginal ancestry. The
source of this belief has often been family lore about Black Africans
transported here as convicts. Apparently the numbers of those who claim
Aboriginal ancestry way outweighs the possible real figures, and is
somewhat controversial in ATSIC itself.
That's one complication.
Mark is quite correct to signal the complexity of the actual history. It
can't - mustn't - be romanticised, which is just another way of ignoring
it.
Best
Alison
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