BP #3

The three passages of Rath, Trask, and Gee speak of the importance of learning orality and the importance of learning orality to understand the history of the people or the culture a historian is trying to understand. When reading, Trask and Rath seemed to connect in their message to the reader which is the importance that orality has in learning history. “Not merely a passageway to knowledge, language is a form of knowing by itself; a people’s way of thinking and feeling is revealed through its music.” Trask mentions this as she continues to mention the epiphany she had while learning and opening her mind to the history of her people, the natives of Hawaii, and looking for the answer to why there were two different histories. One being told in America and one being told to and by the natives of Hawaii.

Rath speaks of the importance of soundscape, “A full consideration of the soundscape would include silence, nonhuman sounds, human instrumental sounds, vocal but nonverbal sounds, as well as orality.” As mentioned, Rath speaks of the importance of learning all the sounds and languages of history to understand history. Tying together the idea that Rath explains and believes. That being that oral teachings, whether that be chants or songs, speaks truths within that certain culture or history. Now how does Gee tie into this?

Well Gee speaks of ‘primitive’ and ‘civilized’ groups of people, ‘primitive’ being people who are illiterate, in a Western educational way, and ‘civilized’ being people who are literate, again in a Western educational way. When speaking of people being able to learn and spread information in an oral fashion, Gee, Trask, and Rath mention that many historians consider these people to be ‘primitive’. Gee states “The voice behind the text cannot respond or defend itself. And it cannot vary its substance and tone to speak differently to different readers based on their natures and contexts.” This within the knwoledge of the other two texts by Rath and Trask, it is very powerful tool that is needed to understand the reasonings behind their history. Whether that history be the history of the ‘civilized’ or the ‘primitive’.

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One Response to BP #3

  1. I think the connection through music is an important one and I’m glad you picked up on it. You got it. Very nice. Glad how you tied in Gee in there at the end.

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