Of course it wasn't then a written document but an oral tradition and a model of a working democracy from which the founding fathers drew more than heavily
Rather than facts and substance, the prejudice (which is all it amounts to) against oral traditions and oral history, dating from the colonial era, has been shown to be without much basis. No doubt there are exceptions but generally, oral peoples with no written language were and are most rigorous in maintaining the veracity and accuracy of what enters their traditions. African historians have shown that on many occasions the oral histories have been more accurate than the written ones were, such as for instance Lord Lugard's much-hailed establishment of "indirect rule" in Nigeria a hundred years ago, admired at the time and long afterwards, even now, as a shining example of colonial liberalism. In fact it was intended to destabilise, divide and conquer and was established at the barrel of a Gatling gun with widespead loss of life - but Lord Lugard's wife was foreign editor of The Times, don't you know, and a different story thus entered the history books, as intended. The African oral histories told the truth of it, since proven and corroborated, and were consistent, furthermore, more so than written historians tend be. It's not a safe assumption that print and literacy are necessarily superior. If it's just an automatic assumption and not based on the facts of the case, it's quite likely to be not only wrong but arrogant.
Best wishes Keith
Jess > From: Walt Patrick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2005 10:41:04 -0800 > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Our Godless Constitution > > At 10:57 AM 2/15/2005, you wrote: >> Has anyone else ever seen a copy of the Six Nations Constitution? > > It's hard to imagine that any such document could exist. The > agreement was formulated sometime between 1200 and 1500, long before the > Six Nations had a way to write such an agreement down. Any document > prepared in modern times would be analogous to a modern copy of the works > of Homer; i.e. the product of a long oral tradition separating the author > from the present age. > > Walt
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