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The Griots

The Griots preserved and passed down history in a different way than we are used to. Instead of writing down historical facts like most societies, they passed their history orally. After analyzing the pros and cons of orally preserving history vs. writing it down, I’d have to say that having scribes to record important dates and historical events is much more accurate and efficient and gets rid of any discrepancies that could potentially arise if history continued to get passed down orally.

The pros of passing down history orally is that is involves the culture and people more directly with history. By adapting facts into songs and lyrics that can be easily remembered and almost “fun” to learn, history all of a sudden goes from boring to interesting (no offense lol). With textbooks, people become easily disengaged from the information because it tends to become tedious after a while, while songs and lyrics spice things up and make the society more actively interested in the history.

The cons of passing down history orally is that some facts, after being passed down from generation to generation, can gradually become more of a fabrication, rather than iron-clad, true history. By committing to oral communication, the Griots were accepting the idea to trust their people and rely 100% on the fact that they will not exaggerate, forget, or make up any part of any fact…ever. That’s a bit farfetched if you ask me. Obviously, counting on people this much is bound to result in some sort of discrepancies like a forgotten fact, a hyperbole, or just overall wrong facts that someone could have made up and claimed was true. In addition to this, if a Griot died, and never had the chance to tell and spread their facts/stories with others, guess what? Those stories/facts die with them and poof, significant historical facts are lost in a flash. As much as I HATE Traditions and Encounters, I have to admit, it is a much more credible, reliable, and accurate source of information for history rather than asking Billy Bob Jr what he remembers hearing from George two decades ago. At the end of a day, having a scribe record important events in history is the best way to preserve that history for many years to come.