What were the strengths and limitation of oral history?
Answers
What are the limitations of oral history?
How the overall history changes really. Overall oral history is based off the memory of the individuals who know it. Its their duty to remember it and share it to those who wish to hear it. However we all remember that little game we did back in school, how everyone forms a ring and one person says a sentence and then passes it on.
At first the message will stay the same for the first two or three people. However the next person may word it differently. Could be a word is cut out or replaced with a similar one to make it easier to say. As the message goes on it changes more a more. Maybe someone misheard or didn’t understand the wording. Overall by the end, the overall message is completely different. In the end that is the weakness of oral history, without another form of record keeping the history will slowly change over time.
Another factor is that if only one or a group of individuals know this history, then if they die without passing it on their knowledge will be lost. Again if there is many people who share the same oral history, they also may not share the same exact telling.