Historical Aspects of Genealogies in Northern Somali Social Structure

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Abstract
Few anthropologists, I think, would question that the use of oral tradition as a historical source in tribal studies requires a knowledge of the part tradition plays in the society in which it occurs. Most would agree that oral tradition does not have a universal validity—it is not equally ‘true’ or equally ‘false’ in all tribal societies. Rather its historical content, where unequivocal historical evidence is lacking, has to be evaluated in the light of the contemporary social situations to which it is related. Since Malinowski, many anthropologists have tended to the view that traditions about the past express the reality of the present more than they record what actually happened in the past. Legends about the past, indeed, have often been described as ‘charters’ validating the present by attributing a respectable antiquity to its origins.

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