Oral tradition and NAGPRA

North American Indians did not have a writing system present prior to the arrival of the Europeans. Instead they used oral tradition as an instrument to preserve their culture, beliefs and knowledge about their past. These traditions were passed on verbally either in narratives or in songs from generation to generation. Today, these oral traditions are highly controversial. With the rise of modern archeology, archeologists are keen in reconstructing the aboriginal past. There are two extremes of archeologists in dealing with oral traditions: there are those that believe oral traditions can be used to discover the aboriginal past and their counterparts deny the validity of oral traditions. This paper will present oral traditions in its dynamic relationship with archeology.
Roger Echo-hawk, an aboriginal historian, presented his perspective on the role of oral tradition in his paper entitled, ¡§Ancient History in the New World: Integrating Oral Traditions and the Archaeological ...