essay

Traditional recall and family histories: a commentary on mode and method

Selected papers on a Serbian village : social structure as reflected by history, demography and oral traditionAmherst, Mass.Published In 1977 • Pages: 165-198

By: Halpern, Barbara, Halpern, Joel Martin, Foley, John Miles.

AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
In this document the Halperns attempt to analyze the degree of reliability of recall of individuals in regard to their collective pasts. The authors examine the role of oral transmission in everyday life, then discuss how the values of the narrator may condition the data being presented, and how this information, gathered from oral recall, match archival and other written records. Contrastive material is also presented here from a contemporary English village (Akenfield) where oral tradition exists in a more attenuated form than found in Orasac village. Using as an example an autobiographical text prepared by one of their informants, a detailed analysis is made to show how oral traditional history is perpetuated in the course of transition to writing.
SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
Life history materials
Traditional history
Literary texts
Lineages
cultureCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
Serbs
HRAF PubDateThe date HRAF published the document
1997
RegionThe area the document pertains to
Europe
Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region
Southeastern Europe
Document TypeMay include journal articles, essays, collections of essays, monographs, or chapters/parts of monographs
essay
Evaluation
Creator TypeThe type of person writing the document, e.g. Ethnographer, Missionary, Archaeologist, Folklorist, Linguist, Indigenous Person, and so on.
Ethnologist
Document Rating A ranking done by HRAF anthropologists based on the strength of the source material on a scale of 1 to 5, as follows: 1 - poor; 2 - fair; 3 - good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent; 4 - excellent secondary data; 5 - excellent primary data.
5: Excellent Primary Data
AnalystThe HRAF anthropologist who subject indexed the document and prepared other materials for the eHRAF culture/tradition collection
John Beierle ; 1996
Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
1953-1966
Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
1953-1966
Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
Orasac Village, Serbia and Montenegro
NotesAdditional notes
by Barbara Kerewsky Halpern, Joel M. Halpern and John Miles Foley
Includes bibliographical references (p. 185-191)
LCCNLibrary of Congress Control Number
sf80001606
LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
Serbs