문자가 없는 사회에서 구전설화만으로 특정 인물이나 사건에 대한 이야기는 대략 500~800년 이상 전해질 수 없다는 것이 통념인 모양인데, 호주 원주민의 구전설화에서는 대략 7000~14000년전의 빙하기 이후 해빙기 당시 해수면 상승을 묘사하는 내용이 들어있다고 한다. 또, 구전설화에서 묘사하는 해안선과 현재 해수면의 깊이를 비교하여 구전설화가 탄생된 시점이 언제(!)인지까지도 추정가능하다고 한다.
위는 논문에 있는 표인데, 세계 각종 구전설화들의 황당무계함을 감안하면 무척 놀라운 일이 아닐 수 없다. 이런게 가능한 이유는 호주 원주민들의 구전설화에는 세대간 상호 검증(cross-generational cross-checking) 시스템이 존재하기 때문이라고 한다. 그래서 구전설화가 놀라운 정확성을 가지고 수천년이상 전해지는 것이 가능했다고 한다. 역시 크로스 체킹의 중요성을 다시금 일깨워 주는구만. ㅋㅋ
참고로 가디언지의 기사에 Chinese whispers라는 표현이 나오는데, 이게 무슨 말인가 몰라서 검색해봤더니만, 옆사람에게 귓속말로 연쇄적으로 문장을 전달해서 첫 사람과 마지막 사람의 문장을 비교하는 놀이를 가리킨다고 한다. 서서히 내용이 왜곡되어 결국에는 크게 변형된 문장을 즐기는 놀이다. 기사 읽을 때 참고하시길.
일전에 읽은 리처드 포티의 저서에는 인도네시아 지역에 호모 플로레시엔시스를 가리키는 듯한 구전설화가 남아있다는 이야기를 읽은 적이 있는데, 이런 의미에서 이것도 좀 더 조사해볼 가치가 있을지도 모른다.
여하간 신통방통한 이야기인데, 일전에 티위족의 혼인관습 이야기도 했고, 기 도이처의 저서에서는 구구이미티르어에 대한 이야기도 나오지만, 문화인류학적으로도 호주 원주민들의 문화는 여러모로 흥미롭고 신비로움을 자아낸다. 능력이 된다면 연구를 해보고 싶지만 그건 다음 생에서나 가능할까-_-
Revealed: how Indigenous Australian storytelling accurately records sea level rises 7,000 years ago
Distinctive ‘cross-checking’ tradition helps explain extraordinary accuracy in 21 stories about dramatic sea level rises between 7,000 and 18,000 years ago
Indigenous rock art in Kakadu national park, in the Northern Territory.
Indigenous rock art in Kakadu national park in the Northern Territory. Researchers say stories about sea level rises in Australia date back though more than 7,000 years of continuous oral tradition. Photograph: Helen Davidson for the Guardian
Joshua Robertson
Wednesday 16 September 2015 05.31 BST Last modified on Thursday 17 September 2015 00.26 BST
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Indigenous stories of dramatic sea level rises across Australia date back more than 7,000 years in a continuous oral tradition without parallel anywhere in the world, according to new research.
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Sunshine Coast University marine geographer Patrick Nunn and University of New England linguist Nicholas Reid believe that 21 Indigenous stories from across the continent faithfully record events between 18,000 and 7000 years ago, when the sea rose 120m.
Reid said a key feature of Indigenous storytelling culture ? a distinctive “cross-generational cross-checking” process ? might explain the remarkable consistency in accounts passed down by preliterate people which researchers previously believed could not persist for more than 800 years.
“The idea that 300 generations could faithfully tell a story that didn’t degenerate into Chinese whispers, that was passing on factual information that we know happened from independent chronology, that just seems too good to be true, right?” Reid told Guardian Australia.
“It’s an extraordinary thing. We don’t find this in other places around the world. The sea being 120 metres lower and then coming up over the continental shelf, that happened in Africa, America, Asia and everywhere else. But it’s only in Australia that we’re finding this large canon of stories that are all faithfully telling the same thing.”
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Scholars of oral traditions have previously been sceptical of how accurately they reflect real events.
However, Nunn and Reid’s paper, “Aboriginal memories of inundation of the Australian coast dating from more than 7000 years ago”, published in Australian Geographer, argues the stories provide empirical corroboration of a postglacial sea level rise documented by marine geographers.
Some of the stories are straight factual accounts, such as those around Port Phillip Bay near Melbourne, which tell of the loss of kangaroo hunting grounds.
Others, especially older stories such as those from around Spencer Gulf in South Australia, are allegorical: an ancestral being angered by the misbehaviour of a clan punishes them by taking their country, gouging a groove with a magical kangaroo bone for the sea to swallow up the land.
“Our sense originally is that the sea level must have been creeping up very slowly and not been noticeable in an individual’s lifetime,” Reid said.
Kepten Wadity at Peppimenarti in the Northern Territory.
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Kepten Wadity at Peppimenarti in the Northern Territory. Wadity discussed sea level stories with University of New England linguist Nick Reid. Photograph: University of New England
“But we’ve come to realise through conducting this research that Australia must in fact have been abuzz with news about this.
“There must have been constant inland movement, reestablishing relationships with country, negotiating with inland neighbours about encroaching onto their territory,” Reid said. “There would have been massive ramifications of this.”
The fortunes of those faced with the decision to retreat as camps, tracks and dreaming places were slowly swallowed up ? especially on islands ? were mixed.
Those on Rottnest and Kangaroo Islands cut and run up to 7000 years ago. Others, such as those at Flinders Island in Bass Strait, made the fateful decision to stay, and died out as the land grew arid and fresh water became scarce.
Reid said while it was impossible to prove that Indigenous oral traditions had continued unbroken over time, its contemporary features gave a clue as to why it may be the world’s most faithful and durable.
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“Say I’m a man from central Australia, my father teaches me stories about my country,” Reid said.
“My sister’s children, my nephews and nieces, are explicitly tasked with the kin-based responsibility for ensuring I know those stories properly. They take those responsibilities seriously. At any given point in time my father is telling the stories to me and his grandkids are checking. Three generations are hearing the story at once … that’s a kind of scaffolding that can keep stories true.
“When you have three generations constantly in the know, and tasked with checking as a cultural responsibility, that creates the kind of mechanism that could explain why [Indigenous Australians] seem to have done something that hasn’t been achieved elsewhere in the world: telling stories for 10,000 years.”
