Interesting piece. Do you have any more insight into the way that the Bassari use this word 'medicine'? Do we know what word that is a translation of? It just seems like putting a lot of weight on an unknown the way that it is presented.
Excellent question! Michael Witzel translated the line as: “But Snake was given by Unumbotte a medicine (Njojo) so that it would bite people,” which changes the meaning to be an explanation of why snakes bite. Very different. The original text is German: Leo Frobenius, Volksdichtungen aus Oberguinea, vol. 1, Fabuleien Dreir Völker (Jena, Germany: Eugen Diederichs, 1924), pp. 75-76.
I don't speak German, and couldn't find a digital copy of the book to run past a German speaker or LLM. I would have taken the space to go over this if I had a more satisfying answer. Your question was the impetus to email Witzel and see if he could comment on the different translations. Will keep you updated
Thank you Andrew. I didn't mean to be too sharp but I think getting the details on this may be very fruitful for understanding the story. I appreciate your fruitful response.
Google translate wont do bassari, it detects njojo as yoruba for party. The only online Sassari to English I can find isn't working right now for me.
I still think that the meat of this story may be in the meaning of njojo. I feel sure that it doesn't mean to them exactly what English or Germans in the 19th-21st century mean by medicine but I don't know what they do mean by it.
We see often view the past via a parochial lens put in place by city or courtly sophisticates dumping on the hicks, the pagans, the heathens, who they forbid from moving (enserfment and slavery) and then they blame the victim for the induced stupidity and bad education.
Really enjoy reading your articles. Could you explain "the introduction of Neolithic technology would have also brought new myths" or point me to a reference for clarity?
The citation that Neolithic tech was introduced by migrants is this paper: Northwest African Neolithic initiated by migration from Iberia and Levant.
As for them bringing myths, it's an assertion. If people migrate with tools, they also have stories. I've written quite a bit about the diffusion of myths. The most depth I go into is the bullroarer piece, where an entire mystery cult could have spread, likely around the beginning of the Holocene. Initiates were taught a whole set of myths, including about creation.
Yes, I've read much of what you have written about the diffusion. I was not sure whether you were claiming with each set of new tools comes a different way of thinking about the world. I am reading Ong's "Orality and Literacy" - one of the claims is that pre-writing, the passing of knowledge relied on memorization, thus communication was repetitive, less abstract, etc. I thought your comment might be in the same spirit. E.g., with the plow comes a story of falling/punishment.
The climate stabilized during the early Holocene. Seems like “our plants are now capable of being well-adapted to the environment” makes sense as the cause of the roughly simultaneous rise of agriculture worldwide.
It's plausible, I suppose. But in the end it's an empirical question the degree to which it was caused by migration, copying, or the spread of ideas that are prerequisite to farming (eg, types of social organization, calendars, etc). That last one is a fuzzy case where it could be classified as independent or not.
I will note that genetics has a similar problem at a similar time: the Neolithic Y chromosome bottleneck. There is way less diversity on the Y chromosome than one would expect. Globally (modulo Australia, which wasn't in the data) 6,000 years ago the f:m population size was 17:1. The most popular solution is, ironically, diffusion---the idea for brothers to band together and kill or outcompete all other males, controlling access to women was invented and spread. With this much diffusion at the same time as agriculture popping up, you would think it would also include other ideas like agriculture. But I haven't seen anyone try to reconcile the two models.
Interesting piece. Do you have any more insight into the way that the Bassari use this word 'medicine'? Do we know what word that is a translation of? It just seems like putting a lot of weight on an unknown the way that it is presented.
Excellent question! Michael Witzel translated the line as: “But Snake was given by Unumbotte a medicine (Njojo) so that it would bite people,” which changes the meaning to be an explanation of why snakes bite. Very different. The original text is German: Leo Frobenius, Volksdichtungen aus Oberguinea, vol. 1, Fabuleien Dreir Völker (Jena, Germany: Eugen Diederichs, 1924), pp. 75-76.
I don't speak German, and couldn't find a digital copy of the book to run past a German speaker or LLM. I would have taken the space to go over this if I had a more satisfying answer. Your question was the impetus to email Witzel and see if he could comment on the different translations. Will keep you updated
Thank you Andrew. I didn't mean to be too sharp but I think getting the details on this may be very fruitful for understanding the story. I appreciate your fruitful response.
Witzel says Campbell just did a bad job translating. Added a note at the end of the first section. Good catch!
Google translate wont do bassari, it detects njojo as yoruba for party. The only online Sassari to English I can find isn't working right now for me.
I still think that the meat of this story may be in the meaning of njojo. I feel sure that it doesn't mean to them exactly what English or Germans in the 19th-21st century mean by medicine but I don't know what they do mean by it.
e.g. https://theconversation.com/aboriginal-australias-smash-hit-that-went-viral-112615
We see often view the past via a parochial lens put in place by city or courtly sophisticates dumping on the hicks, the pagans, the heathens, who they forbid from moving (enserfment and slavery) and then they blame the victim for the induced stupidity and bad education.
Really enjoy reading your articles. Could you explain "the introduction of Neolithic technology would have also brought new myths" or point me to a reference for clarity?
Thanks!
The citation that Neolithic tech was introduced by migrants is this paper: Northwest African Neolithic initiated by migration from Iberia and Levant.
As for them bringing myths, it's an assertion. If people migrate with tools, they also have stories. I've written quite a bit about the diffusion of myths. The most depth I go into is the bullroarer piece, where an entire mystery cult could have spread, likely around the beginning of the Holocene. Initiates were taught a whole set of myths, including about creation.
Yes, I've read much of what you have written about the diffusion. I was not sure whether you were claiming with each set of new tools comes a different way of thinking about the world. I am reading Ong's "Orality and Literacy" - one of the claims is that pre-writing, the passing of knowledge relied on memorization, thus communication was repetitive, less abstract, etc. I thought your comment might be in the same spirit. E.g., with the plow comes a story of falling/punishment.
The climate stabilized during the early Holocene. Seems like “our plants are now capable of being well-adapted to the environment” makes sense as the cause of the roughly simultaneous rise of agriculture worldwide.
It's plausible, I suppose. But in the end it's an empirical question the degree to which it was caused by migration, copying, or the spread of ideas that are prerequisite to farming (eg, types of social organization, calendars, etc). That last one is a fuzzy case where it could be classified as independent or not.
I will note that genetics has a similar problem at a similar time: the Neolithic Y chromosome bottleneck. There is way less diversity on the Y chromosome than one would expect. Globally (modulo Australia, which wasn't in the data) 6,000 years ago the f:m population size was 17:1. The most popular solution is, ironically, diffusion---the idea for brothers to band together and kill or outcompete all other males, controlling access to women was invented and spread. With this much diffusion at the same time as agriculture popping up, you would think it would also include other ideas like agriculture. But I haven't seen anyone try to reconcile the two models.