At 10:32 am +0100 17/12/99, Ingegerd Holand wrote:
>The fact that some peoples only possess an oral history, and that it is one
>that does not ring true to a scientifically trained mind, does not mean that
>it is without value or importance.
An issue that's been in my mind during this discussion is that the oral
history may contain information that the academics reject until they use
their own methods to verify the information. In itself that's fair enough,
but often the academics don't bother to take the info seriously and spend
time investigating.
An example is Newgrange, and the box letting sunlight in at (or around) the
winter solstice. Apparently this was known to the locals (or at least one
of them) many years before the professionals checked and found it was true.
Daniel Cohen
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