Episode 14: Oral Storytelling and Memory

Some oral cultures use their stories to recall all sorts of useful information about their area, plants and history among other things. This episode looks at how we can use stories to help our memories, and how stories told across generations can inform us about our world.  Also a bit about the challenges of telling history stories, no matter the medium.

Get in touch on OurStoriesAndOurSelves@gmail.com or @ourstories.bsky.social

Music from https://pixabay.com/users/good_b_music-22836301/

Image from https://pixabay.com/users/dieter_g-359839/

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Sources:

Averett, N. (n.d.). Ancient Indigenous ‘Songlines’ Match Long-Sunken Landscape off Australia. Scientific American. Retrieved 29 September 2025, from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ancient-indigenous-songlines-match-long-sunken-landscape-off-australia1/

Bonta, M., Gosford, R., Eussen, D., Ferguson, N., Loveless, E., & Witwer, M. (2017). Intentional Fire-Spreading by “Firehawk” Raptors in Northern Australia. Journal of Ethnobiology, 37(4), 700–718. https://doi.org/10.2993/0278-0771-37.4.700

Kelly, L. (2016). The Memory Code. Allen & Unwin.

List of English monarchs. (2025). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_English_monarchs&oldid=1314588548

Maness, C. (2018, February 9). Australian ‘firehawks’ use fire to catch prey. The Wildlife Society. https://wildlife.org/australian-firehawks-use-fire-to-catch-prey/

Nash, S. E. (2018, September 22). The Underestimated Reliability of Oral Histories. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/09/dead-sea-scrolls-oral-written-history/571039/

Phelan, Matthew (2019). Who said “History is written by the victors”? The origins of the quote. Slate Magazine. https://web.archive.org/web/20220225150639/https://slate.com/culture/2019/11/history-is-written-by-the-victors-quote-origin.html

PLOS Blogs. (2018, January 9). The Birds That Start Fires: Using Indigenous Ecological Knowledge to Understand Animal Behavior. The Official PLOS Blog. https://theplosblog.plos.org/2018/01/the-birds-that-start-fires-using-indigenous-ecological-knowledge-to-understand-animal-behavior/

Scelza, B. A. (n.d.). Culture and the Mind—Martu. Retrieved 29 September 2025, from https://cultureandmind.sites.sheffield.ac.uk/fieldsites/martu

Schulz, K (2015). The Earthquake That Will Devastate the Pacific Northwest | The New Yorker. Retrieved 29 September 2025, from https://web.archive.org/web/20241007111706/https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big-one

The Kuniya & Liru stories | Uluṟu-Kata Tjuṯa National Park | Parks Australia. (n.d.). Retrieved 29 September 2025, from https://uluru.gov.au/discover/culture/stories/kuniya-liru-stories/

The Martu people of Western Australia burn their land to help plants grow – Mongabay Kids. (n.d.). Retrieved 29 September 2025, from https://kids.mongabay.com/the-martu-people-of-western-australia-burn-their-land-to-help-plants-grow/   (The source of the Firehawk story)

Upton, John. (2015). Ancient Sea Rise Tale Told Accurately for 10,000 Years. Scientific American. Retrieved 29 September 2025, from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ancient-sea-rise-tale-told-accurately-for-10-000-years/