Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/463

 Traditions of the B Uganda and Bushongo. 429

centuries, another relies on stories of an indefinite past to prove the course of institutional changes, and a third takes almost at its face-value the history preserved by a close corporation of professional traditionists, and calculates the actual dates of the events as far back as fifteen hundred years, it is time for somebody to protest. Yet this is a somewhat ungrateful task ; and in examining two of the most recent examples, I hope I shall not be misunderstood to make the slightest imputation on the good faith or the accuracy of the two explorers of tradition to whom I shall refer, nor to undervalue the very great services they have rendered to anthropological science. For both of them I entertain a high admiration and sense of gratitude on account of their contribution to our knowledge of African peoples.

It is generally recognized that illiterate peoples, includ- ing illiterate classes in the higher civilizations, who have to depend entirely on their memories to record the past, have developed a much greater strength of memory than we who trust to books and written memoranda. Both individuals and communities, however, display wide differ- ences in this respect ; and in all cases much depends on the interest taken in the subject. Genealogical lists, <\xy enough to us, may appeal to vanity or to the practical instincts; for they may be important in relation to the ownership of property or the headship of a clan, or they may reflect on a descendant the glory and social status of an ancestor. Knowledge of tribal or communal boundaries and similar matters of detail may also have a direct prac- tical bearing on the lives of many. In these things there is something tangible to draw and account for the interest of the community or the individual. When we come to events affecting the community at large, and only affecting individuals as members of the community, it will generally be found that where traditional memory is developed it is intimately related to imagination. The Samoans and the