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Grounded: Indigenous Knowing in a Concrete Reality
Non-literate cultures depend on their memories to store all the information on which their survival depends, both physically and culturally. They effectively memorise entire field guides to the thousands of species of flora and fauna along with navigational charts, genealogies, astronomy, history, geology and the ethics and laws by which they live. How do they manage to remember so much information when they are dependent on the same fallible memory as you and me?
This essay will explain the mechanisms by which indigenous cultures know their world and how specific information can be remembered accurately over millennia.
The memory methods in question declined in use as literacy made them seem redundant in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, but this essay will argue that we have lost a valuable skill, just as Socrates predicted we would. In the last part of the essay, ways are suggested of reinstating oral technologies alongside literacy, thereby providing a powerful platform for lifelong learning.
This essay will explain the mechanisms by which indigenous cultures know their world and how specific information can be remembered accurately over millennia.
The memory methods in question declined in use as literacy made them seem redundant in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, but this essay will argue that we have lost a valuable skill, just as Socrates predicted we would. In the last part of the essay, ways are suggested of reinstating oral technologies alongside literacy, thereby providing a powerful platform for lifelong learning.
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Published December 15, 2016
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About the author
Lynne Kelly
22 books154 followersMy new book, The Knowledge Gene was be published in Australia and NZ in 2024, and early in 2025 for North America. It is the culmination of all my work on knowledge systems and memory. It is the scientific evidence humans are all genetically encoded to use our uniquely human skills in music, art, spatial abilities, story and performance to store and convey knowledge - and have been doing so for at least 70,000 years! We all have so much more potential that we are using.
I did a PhD on the way indigenous cultures memorise vast amounts of information when they don't use writing. Knowledge and Power in Prehistoric Societies was published by Cambridge University Press in 2015 and explains the implications for archaeology, offering new interpretations for the purpose of monuments around the world including Stonehenge, the statues of Easter Island and the huge images on the desert at Nasca.
The Memory Code (2016) presented this approach for the general reader. There was an overwhelming response to the book, asking how to implement the memory methods in contemporary life. That is the theme of Memory Craft.. Songlines: the power and promise is co-authored with Indigenous writers, Margo Neale and leads the First Knowledges series. Songlines for Younger Readers was published in 2023, leading the children's series. Both Songlines books have been shortlisted for major awards.
I grew up in Melbourne, Australia, and now live in rural Castlemaine. I started writing as a child and am the author of ten books for schools written during my teaching career, and a novel, Avenging Janie. I then started writing popular science, publishing three books, The Skeptic's Guide to the Paranormal, Crocodile: evolution's greatest survivor and Spiders: learning to love them.
I did a PhD on the way indigenous cultures memorise vast amounts of information when they don't use writing. Knowledge and Power in Prehistoric Societies was published by Cambridge University Press in 2015 and explains the implications for archaeology, offering new interpretations for the purpose of monuments around the world including Stonehenge, the statues of Easter Island and the huge images on the desert at Nasca.
The Memory Code (2016) presented this approach for the general reader. There was an overwhelming response to the book, asking how to implement the memory methods in contemporary life. That is the theme of Memory Craft.. Songlines: the power and promise is co-authored with Indigenous writers, Margo Neale and leads the First Knowledges series. Songlines for Younger Readers was published in 2023, leading the children's series. Both Songlines books have been shortlisted for major awards.
I grew up in Melbourne, Australia, and now live in rural Castlemaine. I started writing as a child and am the author of ten books for schools written during my teaching career, and a novel, Avenging Janie. I then started writing popular science, publishing three books, The Skeptic's Guide to the Paranormal, Crocodile: evolution's greatest survivor and Spiders: learning to love them.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 16, 2023
One of the more interesting books I’ve read in a long time. An anthropological study of indigenous rituals as not just spiritual services but as forms of mnemonic devices to keep knowledge alive in non-literate societies. We in western society viewed these rituals like a mass, something that was supposed to connect to God or as attempts at “magic” (something this article points out is extremely belittling). Much like how remember songs or stories better than long lists of facts, indigenous cultures used this aspect of our brains to create stories, dances, and songs that kept essential knowledge alive (hunting techniques, genealogies, trade and peace agreements, farming practices, and even geographic maps). 11/10.
March 9, 2022
Muito interessante.
citando:
Todas as culturas não alfabetizadas que explorei usavam dispositivos mnemônicos. Dado que o cérebro humano é semelhante em todo o mundo, não é surpreendente descobrir que a gama de tecnologias mnemônicas é semelhante em uma ampla variedade de culturas orais, mas que essas categorias gerais de auxiliares de memória são implementadas de maneira muito diferente em culturas diferentes. Em qualquer cultura, uma série de dispositivos mnemônicos materiais serão usados simultaneamente.
citando:
Todas as culturas não alfabetizadas que explorei usavam dispositivos mnemônicos. Dado que o cérebro humano é semelhante em todo o mundo, não é surpreendente descobrir que a gama de tecnologias mnemônicas é semelhante em uma ampla variedade de culturas orais, mas que essas categorias gerais de auxiliares de memória são implementadas de maneira muito diferente em culturas diferentes. Em qualquer cultura, uma série de dispositivos mnemônicos materiais serão usados simultaneamente.
December 22, 2016
This essay is available to freely read or download at Rounded Globe.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews