“The social function of shared stories gave rise to what we may call the ‘story memory’ of homo sapiens where our memories are both recalled and shared as stories, creating the ‘social memory,’ and hence identity, of groups. We now recall (through story memory) not only episodes of our own experiences, but also the experiences of long-ago others. This allows for human culture to develop over time in a way unimaginable in the non-hominid kingdom, and allows our stories to function as a vast reservoir of memories, experiences, and aesthetics. We humans now rely on stories, on our discrete categorizations of time, for much of our thoughts about the past. Not only are past events thought of and expressed predominantly in terms of stories, but also the future as well” (Thompson 2010:412).
What makes us human? Many philosophers, sociologists, anthropologists and biologists have asked this question, wondering if and how humans are different from the rest of the animal kingdom. In Tok Thompson’s (2010) essay, “The Ape that Captured Time” he conclusively states that stories are what makes us human: “Without the story, it is clear we would not be human” (412). He backs up this statement by looking at the narrative capabilities of animals and also the history of storytelling among early hominids. Thompson explains that while animals have narrative capabilities – as in, they may be able to narrate information that is presently happening – there is no evidence that they have the ability to tell stories – that is, the ability to communicate episodes from the past or the future.
Anthropologists in the field of multi-species ethnography have also looked at the differences between human and animal communication, exploring further how humans and animals can have inter-species communications. A good book to read if you are interested in this concept is Eduardo Kohn’s “How Forests Think.”
Thompson’s work has interesting implications also for the concept of traditional ecological knowledge, or TEK (which I explained in the previous post). Thompson and anthropologist Tim Ingold might have some very interesting conversations on the storied nature of experience and knowledge. Thompson writes, “Humans can pass down stories; animals do not, and, because of this, the capacity for animal cultures to develop complexity over multiple generations is much more limited” (Thompson 2010:412). Basically, stories are how we pass down information across generations in a meaningful and understandable way. In Ingold’s (2011) essay “Stories against classification,” he sees human knowledge as a matrix of relational stories, passed down and recreated through experience. Ingold writes, “To tell, in short, is not to represent the world, but to trace a path through it that others can follow” (Ingold 2011:162). Both anthropologists see stories as a way to transmit important knowledge from one generation to another.
The ability to connect the present to the past or future, and to communicate this to others, is found to be uniquely human. Stories are how this information is communicated, and we rely heavily on stories to understand our world and to pass information on to future generations. It seems right to say, then, that storytelling makes us human. “We are the only storytellers on Earth” (Thompson 2010:414).
References
Ingold, T. 2011. Stories against classification: transport, wayfaring and the integration of knowledge. In Being Alive: Essays on movement knowledge and description (pp. 156-179). London: Taylor and Francis.
Kohn, E. 2013. How Forests Think: Toward an Anthropology Beyond the Human. Berkeley, CA: Univ. of California Press.
Thompson, T. 2010. The Ape That Captured Time: Folklore, Narrative and the Human-Animal Divide. Western Folklore 69(3-4), pp. 395-120.
The Edited Jottings of an Amateur Anthropologist 