Trask, Rath, and Gee’s articles both connect to orality. — a form of communication and language often associated with the “primitive.” Trask’s article depicts the lost history of Native Hawaiians, which was lost in context after being falsely rewritten by western history. She talks about the history of her heritage that she learned from her family that was not written in books but passed down to her orally. She also mentions the relationship between language and thinking versus music and feeling in the passage. Trask relates music to feeling with a song on Hawaiians’ feelings towards their land against annexation.
We can relate Trask to Rath in the sense that Rath states, “sound is ephemeral” — lasting for a short time. The song sung by the native Hawaiians against annexation was forgotten when the western civilization falsely rewrote the history of Hawaiians. Hence, ephemeral, lasting for a short time in history.
Similarly, Gee talks about the literacy myth which he states, “Literate people, it is widely believed, are more intelligent, more modern, more moral.” In other words, literacy is what distinguishes one from “primitive” to “civilized”. We can connect this idea to Trask when she says:
“There was a world that we lived in — my ancestors, my family, and my people — and then there was the world historians described. This world, they had written, was the truth. A primitive group, Hawaiians had been ruled by bloodthirsty priests and despotic kings who owned all the land…”
Trask later tells the story of her ancestors where the land was actually owned by no one and the native chiefs served as stewards for the land where they did not privately possess any of the lands and it was the birthright to every native. Furthermore, In the world of the Western eye, the natives were seen as ”primitive” and the Western culture of literacy needed to dominate the native’s culture of orality. However, in Trask’s article, we see the idea of orality above literacy in the sense that when literate history had failed the natives, orality spoke its truth. Generation after generation the native people were able to pass down their history in a way that would never be written in books. This seamlessly connects to Gee’s statement from Plato: “What writing can’t do is defend itself; it can’t stand up to questioning.”
Lastly, we can also connect Rath to the idea that literacy distinguishes one from “primitive” to civilized”. Rath writes:
“Africans used drumming and horn music as expressions of an immanent state power. Africans griots used the sounds of their songs to record histories and provide legitimacy to rulers. Enslaved Africans successfully carried both of these practices — and many others — to the Americas in creolized forms… The role of music in strengthing African American life — and later, as it became a multibillion-dollar international industry, American life in general — has been widely and ably documented.”
Orality has a huge impact on African heritage in which the role of music allowed for their histories to be recorded. However, up until the 1950s, this sense of orality was still linked to “primitive”, or “savage” behavior. Rath writes, “Until the 1950s, linguists and historians dismissed black speechways as corrupted and degraded forms of European language.” Furthermore, Gee’s idea of the literacy myth is once again connected to another culture that was colonized by Western civilization.
Strong post. Seems like a conclusion would be helpful but you clearly get the important implications here.