Editing Oral tradition (section)

=== Americas ===
==== Native American ====
Native American society was always reliant upon oral tradition, if not [[storytelling]], in order to convey knowledge, morals and [[Native American cultures in the United States|traditions]] amongst others,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Oral Traditions |url=https://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/oral_traditions/ |access-date=2024-08-23 |website=www.indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca|language=en-GB}}</ref> a trait [[European colonization of the Americas|Western settlers]] deemed as representing an inferior race without neither culture nor history,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Native American Oral Literatures |url=https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo-9780199827251/obo-9780199827251-0070.xml |access-date=2024-08-23 |website=www.oxfordbibliographies.com|language=en-GB}}</ref> often cited as a reason behind [[Cultural assimilation of Native Americans|indoctrination]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=A Brief History of Civil Rights in the United States: The Allotment and Assimilation Era (1887 - 1934) |url=https://library.law.howard.edu/civilrightshistory/indigenous/allotment |access-date=2024-08-23 |website=www.library.law.edu|language=en-GB}}</ref>

Writing systems are not known to exist among Native North Americans before contact with Europeans except among some Mesoamerican cultures, and possibly the South American [[quipu]] and North American [[wampum]], although those two are debatable. Oral storytelling traditions flourished in a context without the use of writing to record and preserve history, scientific knowledge, and social practices.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Native American Storytelling: A Reader of Myths and Legends|url=https://archive.org/details/nativeamericanst00kroe|url-access=limited|publisher=Blackwell Publishing|year=2004|isbn=978-1-4051-1541-4|editor-last=Kroeber|editor-first=Karl|location=Malden, MA|pages=[https://archive.org/details/nativeamericanst00kroe/page/n11 1]}}</ref> While some stories were told for amusement and leisure, most functioned as practical lessons from tribal experience applied to immediate moral, social, psychological, and environmental issues.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Native American Storytelling: A Reader of Myths and Legends|url=https://archive.org/details/nativeamericanst00kroe|url-access=limited|publisher=Blackwell Publishing|year=2004|isbn=978-1-4051-1541-4|editor-last=Kroeber|editor-first=Karl|location=Malden, MA|pages=[https://archive.org/details/nativeamericanst00kroe/page/n13 3]}}</ref> Stories fuse fictional, supernatural, or otherwise exaggerated characters and circumstances with real emotions and morals as a means of teaching. Plots often reflect real life situations and may be aimed at particular people known by the story's audience. In this way, social pressure could be exerted without directly causing embarrassment or [[social exclusion]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=Native American Storytelling: A Reader of Myths and Legends|url=https://archive.org/details/nativeamericanst00kroe|url-access=limited|publisher=Blackwell Publishing|year=2004|isbn=978-1-4051-1541-4|editor-last=Kroeber|editor-first=Karl|location=Malden, MA|pages=[https://archive.org/details/nativeamericanst00kroe/page/n12 2]}}</ref> For example, rather than yelling, [[Inuit culture|Inuit]] parents might deter their children from wandering too close to the water's edge by telling a story about a sea monster with a pouch for children within its reach.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/03/13/685533353/a-playful-way-to-teach-kids-to-control-their-anger|title=How Inuit Parents Teach Kids To Control Their Anger|website=NPR |date=13 March 2019|language=en|access-date=2019-04-29|last1=Doucleff|first1=Michaeleen|last2=Greenhalgh|first2=Jane|archive-date=2020-10-26|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201026061927/https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/03/13/685533353/a-playful-way-to-teach-kids-to-control-their-anger|url-status=live}}</ref> One single story could provide dozens of lessons.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Native American Stories, Told by Joseph Bruchac|last1=Caduto|first1=Michael|last2=Bruchac|first2=Michael|publisher=Fulcrum Publishing|year=1991|isbn=978-1-55591-094-5|location=Golden, Colorado|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/nativeamericanst00bruc}}</ref> Stories were also used as a means to assess whether traditional cultural ideas and practices are effective in tackling contemporary circumstances or if they should be revised.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Native American Storytelling: A Reader of Myths and Legends|url=https://archive.org/details/nativeamericanst00kroe|url-access=limited|publisher=Blackwell Publishing|year=2004|isbn=978-1-4051-1541-4|editor-last=Kroeber|editor-first=Karl|location=Malden, MA|pages=[https://archive.org/details/nativeamericanst00kroe/page/n16 6]}}</ref>

Native American storytelling is a collaborative experience between storyteller and listeners. Native American tribes generally have not had professional tribal storytellers marked by social status.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Red Earth, White Lies: Native Americans and the Myth of Scientific Fact|last=Deloria, jr.|first=Vine|publisher=Scribner|year=1995|isbn=978-0-684-80700-3|location=New York, NY|pages=54}}</ref> Stories could and can be told by anyone, with each storyteller using their own vocal inflections, word choice, content, or form.<ref name=":0" /> Storytellers not only draw upon their own memories, but also upon a collective or tribal memory extending beyond personal experience but nevertheless representing a shared reality.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Ballenger|first=Bruce|date=Autumn 1997|title=Methods of Memory: On Native American Storytelling|journal=College English|volume=59|issue=7|pages=789–800|doi=10.2307/378636|jstor=378636}}</ref> Native languages have in some cases up to twenty words to describe physical features like rain or snow and can describe the spectra of human emotion in very precise ways, allowing storytellers to offer their own personalized take on a story based on their own lived experiences.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|title=Red Earth, White Lies: Native Americans and the Myth of Scientific Fact|last=Deloria, jr.|first=Vine|publisher=Scribner|year=1995|isbn=978-0-684-80700-3|location=New York, NY|pages=51}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Lawrence|first=Randee|date=Spring 2016|title=What Our Ancestors Knew: Teaching and Learning Through Storytelling|journal=New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education|volume=2016|issue=149|pages=63–72|doi=10.1002/ace.20177}}</ref> Fluidity in story deliverance allowed stories to be applied to different social circumstances according to the storyteller's objective at the time.<ref name=":0" /> One's rendition of a story was often considered a response to another's rendition, with plot alterations suggesting alternative ways of applying traditional ideas to present conditions.<ref name=":0" />

Listeners might have heard the story told many times, or even may have told the same story themselves.<ref name=":0" /> This does not take away from a story's meaning, as curiosity about what happens next was less of a priority than hearing fresh perspectives on well-known themes and plots.<ref name=":0" /> Elder storytellers generally were not concerned with discrepancies between their version of historical events and neighboring tribes' version of similar events, such as in origin stories.<ref name=":1" /> Tribal stories are considered valid within the tribe's own frame of reference and tribal experience.<ref name=":1" /> The 19th century Oglala Lakota tribal member [[Four Guns]] was known for his justification of the oral tradition and criticism of the written word.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/americanindianvo00harv |title=American Indian Voices |publisher=Millbrook Press |location=Brookfield, Conn. |author=Karen D. Harvey |year=1995 |page=[https://archive.org/details/americanindianvo00harv/page/66 66] |isbn=9781562943820}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/nativeamericanre0000unse |title=Native American Reader: Stories, Speeches, and Poems |publisher=Denali Press |location=Juneau, Alaska |year=1990 |page=[https://archive.org/details/nativeamericanre0000unse/page/73 73] |isbn=9780938737209}}</ref>

Stories are used to preserve and transmit both tribal history and environmental history, which are often closely linked.<ref name=":1" /> Native oral traditions in the Pacific Northwest, for example, describe natural disasters like earthquakes and tsunamis. Various cultures from Vancouver Island and Washington have stories describing a physical struggle between a Thunderbird and a Whale.<ref name=":22">{{Cite journal|last1=Ludwin|first1=Ruth|last2=Smits|first2=Gregory|date=2007|title=Folklore and earthquakes: Native American oral traditions from Cascadia compared with written traditions from Japan|journal=Geological Society of London, Special Publications|volume=273|issue=1|pages=67–94|doi=10.1144/GSL.SP.2007.273.01.07|bibcode=2007GSLSP.273...67L|s2cid=130713882}}</ref> One such story tells of the Thunderbird, which can create thunder by moving just a feather, piercing the Whale's flesh with its talons, causing the Whale to dive to the bottom of the ocean, bringing the Thunderbird with it. Another depicts the Thunderbird lifting the Whale from the Earth then dropping it back down. Regional similarities in themes and characters suggests that these stories mutually describe the lived experience of earthquakes and floods within tribal memory.<ref name=":22" /> According to one story from the [[Suquamish|Suquamish Tribe]], [[Agate Pass]] was created when an earthquake expanded the channel as a result of an underwater battle between a serpent and bird. Other stories in the region depict the formation of glacial valleys and moraines and the occurrence of landslides, with stories being used in at least one case to identify and date earthquakes that occurred in 900 CE and 1700.<ref name=":22" />

Further examples include [[Arikara]] origin stories of emergence from an "underworld" of persistent darkness, which may represent the remembrance of life in the Arctic Circle during the last ice age, and stories involving a "deep crevice", which may refer to the Grand Canyon.<ref name=":32">{{Cite journal|last=Echo-Hawk|first=Roger|date=Spring 2000|title=Ancient History in the New World: Integrating Oral Traditions and the Archaeological Record in Deep Time|journal=American Antiquity|volume=65|issue=2|pages=267–290|doi=10.2307/2694059|jstor=2694059|s2cid=163392796}}</ref> Despite such examples of agreement between geological and archeological records on one hand and Native oral records on the other, some scholars have cautioned against the historical validity of oral traditions because of their susceptibility to detail alteration over time and lack of precise dates.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Mason|first=Ronald J.|date=2000|title=Archaeology and Native North American Oral Traditions|journal=American Antiquity|volume=65|issue=2|pages=239–266|doi=10.2307/2694058 |jstor=2694058|s2cid=147149391}}</ref> The [[Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act]] considers oral traditions as a viable source of evidence for establishing the affiliation between cultural objects and Native Nations.<ref name=":32" />