Why is oral history considered less reliable than written history. Both versions of history are biased, so why is one version considered more accurate than the other. One reason that some people might suggest is that oral history is less reliable because you can lie. Fine, fair enough. But what people don’t seem to consider is that written history can also be a lie. If I hear something that says the grass is green and read something that says the grass is red, am I supposed to believe the written version. Of course not, because it’s wrong. Just because something is written does not make it true. 

Why didn’t indigenous people just write stuff down? There are actually a couple of reasons for this.  One of the biggest reasons was because they never developed the technology to write stuff down. It just wasn’t an important part of their culture. Why write stuff down when you could just share stories. Sharing stories orally was also a much more personal thing. It created a deeper level of connection than just handing someone a piece of paper did. Another reason that indigenous people didn’t ever write things down was because many indigenous people were nomadic. They were nomadic because they needed to follow their food, and because different seasons could pose different challenges for places. Think of how much harder it would be to travel around if you were dragging 2,000 years of history with you every few months. You wouldn’t even be able to store that much knowledge without having permanent structures to store them, and having permanent structures would kinda defeat the pint of being nomadic. 

So how does this affect indigenous people. In the past, indigenous people never kept written records, and only passed on information orally. This became a problem when colonist came to Canada. In western culture, everything relied on written history. All their laws were written, all their stories and even history. Stories told orally were often considered folklore or wives tales. This led to the colonists being able to rewrite history, by keeping written records that omitted certain parts of history. If anyone objected, they would show their written records as proof and claim that oral stories were lies. Eventually, more and more laws were passed to restrict what indigenous people could do. They weren’t allowed to own guns, to live in certain places and even to practice their culture. The colonists even passed laws preventing indigenous people from hiring lawyers. It was impossible for the indigenous people to fight back.

Now it’s time to speedrun disproving stupid opinions on why written history should be the only source of history.
Well using written history is the way it’s always been done. 

Two things. First, no it’s not. The indigenous peoples have never communicated through written history, and have always relied on oral history. Second of all, just because that’s the way it used to be done doesn’t mean that things can’t change. Things should be able to adapt to new environments and technologies, especially in a modern age. 

People might lie.

Ok and. People can lie just as easily, if not more easily when writing things. If you couldn’t lie, no conflicting arguments could ever be written. There’s not some magic truth machine built inside every piece of paper that corrects your words into truth. 

I don’t want to change.

Too bad, suck it up. The indigenous peoples probably didn’t want to change their way of life when the colonists came to Canada, but they were forced to adapt anyway. 

After hearing all this, what do you think. Do you think that written history should be valued more than oral history, or do you agree that both forms of communication are subject to biases.