16.3 The Interface Between Myth and History
265
drivers [3] note that small mammals and birds who engage in behaviour requiring
spatial memory also show increases in hippocampal volume relative to brain and
body size and that in some species this enlargement is seasonal when demand for
spatial ability is greatest. They comment that their London cab driver data “are in
accordance with the idea that the posterior hippocampus stores a spatial representation of the environment and can expand regionally to accommodate elaboration of
this representation in people with a high dependence on navigational skills”. They
add that “It seems that there is a capacity for local plastic change in the structure of
the healthy adult human brain in response to environmental demands.”
In prehistoric Polynesian societies, children were trained from a young age to
memorize vital information and those with the greatest aptitude were chosen to be
more intensively trained for a role in the transmission of specialized knowledge.
Knowledge of astronomy and navigation, for example, were vital to a maritime society and those with aptitude were given rigorous and extensive memory training and
then years of practical training so they could become the navigators and teachers of
the next generation.
What the young brain grows to master and how it physically develops depend on
the cultural priorities it is presented with. In a prehistoric society when 30 might be
an average life span, transmission of knowledge vital to survival has an especially
high priority. Knowledge such as how to handle problems in childbirth, how to make
fire, how to make cloth from paperbark or build a canoe has to be scrupulously preserved and passed on from one generation to the next. Historical and genealogical
knowledge will also be carefully preserved by a society in which the deeds of ancestors have a high cultural value and at a practical level define hierarchical structures,
land rights and the status of individuals within a tribe. The transmission of specialized knowledge essentially involved apprenticing a young person to a master. This
is perhaps comparable with the modern provision of higher education to ensure
continuity in the transmission of technological knowledge and skills. Interpreting
Polynesian oral traditions enshrining historical events and the deeds of ancestors,
however, requires an understanding of the poetic or story-telling medium and a special understanding of the rich metaphorical context in which historical events are
perceived and presented.
16.3 The Interface Between Myth and History
The advances made in the late 19th and 20th centuries in the study of anthropology,
mythology and comparative religion have inevitably changed the historian’s focus in
interpreting early written and oral sources for prehistory. Emphasis is placed on the
need to grasp something of the mindset of those framing and transmitting cultural
knowledge through myth, legend and history. Where Maori tradition is concerned,
this involves recognizing the poetic power and richness of Maori metaphorical
thinking and the use of legend, metaphor and language itself for encoding important
knowledge and for creating a literary embodiment of cultural priorities.
265
drivers [3] note that small mammals and birds who engage in behaviour requiring
spatial memory also show increases in hippocampal volume relative to brain and
body size and that in some species this enlargement is seasonal when demand for
spatial ability is greatest. They comment that their London cab driver data “are in
accordance with the idea that the posterior hippocampus stores a spatial representation of the environment and can expand regionally to accommodate elaboration of
this representation in people with a high dependence on navigational skills”. They
add that “It seems that there is a capacity for local plastic change in the structure of
the healthy adult human brain in response to environmental demands.”
In prehistoric Polynesian societies, children were trained from a young age to
memorize vital information and those with the greatest aptitude were chosen to be
more intensively trained for a role in the transmission of specialized knowledge.
Knowledge of astronomy and navigation, for example, were vital to a maritime society and those with aptitude were given rigorous and extensive memory training and
then years of practical training so they could become the navigators and teachers of
the next generation.
What the young brain grows to master and how it physically develops depend on
the cultural priorities it is presented with. In a prehistoric society when 30 might be
an average life span, transmission of knowledge vital to survival has an especially
high priority. Knowledge such as how to handle problems in childbirth, how to make
fire, how to make cloth from paperbark or build a canoe has to be scrupulously preserved and passed on from one generation to the next. Historical and genealogical
knowledge will also be carefully preserved by a society in which the deeds of ancestors have a high cultural value and at a practical level define hierarchical structures,
land rights and the status of individuals within a tribe. The transmission of specialized knowledge essentially involved apprenticing a young person to a master. This
is perhaps comparable with the modern provision of higher education to ensure
continuity in the transmission of technological knowledge and skills. Interpreting
Polynesian oral traditions enshrining historical events and the deeds of ancestors,
however, requires an understanding of the poetic or story-telling medium and a special understanding of the rich metaphorical context in which historical events are
perceived and presented.
16.3 The Interface Between Myth and History
The advances made in the late 19th and 20th centuries in the study of anthropology,
mythology and comparative religion have inevitably changed the historian’s focus in
interpreting early written and oral sources for prehistory. Emphasis is placed on the
need to grasp something of the mindset of those framing and transmitting cultural
knowledge through myth, legend and history. Where Maori tradition is concerned,
this involves recognizing the poetic power and richness of Maori metaphorical
thinking and the use of legend, metaphor and language itself for encoding important
knowledge and for creating a literary embodiment of cultural priorities.