Sarah Nuber-Orality and Literacy

An oral culture views the concepts of the sacred, ritual, myth, nature, cosmos, chaos, tribe and clan, differently than I do today. Certain oral cultures act out myths and rituals in a different ways than today. The Orality and Literacy text mentions that rock paintings have been found that show shaman activity that took place in some Native African tribes. These rock paintings showed shamans capturing game, curing the sick and asking for rain. (Carmody 58). These rock paintings communicate, without writing, how a person from an oral culture may view cosmos, nature and rituals. Certain rituals and myths in nature are closely related to rain or weather patterns, certain tribes are were known to shoot animals like antelopes in order to bring rain. The Bambuti tribe in Africa is known songs to the forest to praise it, much of their understanding of the pervious concepts seem to come through their own experience of nature, not by reading other peoples ideas. Many African tribes have rites of passages ceremonies or rituals and these are passed down orally. Dreams, gestures, songs and prayers are all ways of communication that oral cultures used in order to communicate different ideas. Another example of how oral cultures view nature and the cosmos can be identified by looking at the Zulus tribe. The text states that the Zulus “…depended on the maize and cattle. Good relations with the animals and plants of their locale, the winds and rains, were essential to their survival.” (Carmody 71). Today in the Western world, we are not absorbed in nature as these oral cultures were, and it defiantly has had an impact on how we view the sacred.
I think the technology of writing has lessened the importance of the sacred, rituals, myths, natures, cosmos, chaos, tribes and clan. Each tribe has its own view of the sacred and these ideas were passed down through traditions and were unique to that specific culture. “Oral people have been particularly dramatic in expressing their longing. Perhaps the absence of texts, scriptures, has enabled them to seek direct encounters with the sacred-to personify it and associate power with it” (Carmody 99). These tribes did not have written documents so I feel that their practices were more direct than those that exist today.