Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 23:43:52 +0000 From: Mark Goodacre To: Bob Schacht , crosstalk@info.harpercollins.com Subject: Re: Original GThomas: Oral Texts? For some reason the following message, sent a couple of days ago did not make it through. I sent a copy to Bob who has already made a helpful response which I quote at the end. ---------------------- Bill Arnal wrote: > Of course. The point is not that written texts are accurate, > but that scribal interests define accuracy in terms of > verbatim reproduction of a fixed exemplar, while oral > tradition -- and not just oral performance of wriiten > materials -- does not and cannot do so. Where do oral texts come into this discussion? Would not some claim that an oral text can be just as 'fixed' as is a written text (e.g. my colleague here in Birmingham, John Parratt, who has translated and produced written versions of centuries-old oral texts from India)? An oral text is, of course, a different thing from oral tradition. My question is particularly focused by the following: > Again, this is just the point. There cannot be a FIXED -- > as in freely consultable exemplar APART from writing. I think some would dispute this. Arguably, an oral text can be more 'fixed' than a written text. For the latter can be changed with every re-writing -- only printing brings in large numbers of identical texts. The oral text, on the other hand, might be carefully guarded by those who keep it -- and it cannot easily get into foreign hands -- so it can be more easily 'fixed'. ------------------- Bob usefully adds (with permission to quote): Why don't you give an example of what you have in mind by an 'Oral Text'? My example is this: Navajo healing ceremonies are 100% oral texts-- some have been transcribed, but these are often regarded as inauthentic, because the ceremonies are not supposed to be transcribed. Nevertheless, these oral texts-- To name three examples, the Beauty Way, Night way, Enemy Way-- are supposed to be 100% FIXED AND INVARIABLE since the first medicine man learned it from the Yei (Gods). Whether or not this is true is debatable, but the point is that within Navajo culture, the texts are both fixed and 100% oral. Other examples can be found, no doubt, in the oral literature of non-literate cultures. --------------------- All the best Mark ------------------------------------------- Dr Mark Goodacre M.S.Goodacre@bham.ac.uk Dept. of Theology, University of Birmingham Homepage: http://www.bham.ac.uk/theology/goodacre.htm