Oral Tradition and Ethnicity

Oral Tradition and Ethnicity Historians schooled in the Western academic tradition of historical writing have been grappling over the last three decades with the problem of how best to use oral traditions as source material for writing Westernstyle history. Although oral traditions can be found in most parts of the world, the debate has been especially lively concerning Africa, for which the paucity of written data has caused historians to turn to oral traditions for information about the past. Consequently, it is on Africa that much of the pioneering interpretation of oral traditions has been based.