The Memory Code

Unlocking the Secrets of the Lives of the Ancients and the Power of the Human Mind

Lynne Kelly

• Publisher: Atlantic Books
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781782399070
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

In ancient, pre-literate cultures across the globe, tribal elders had encyclopedic memories. They could name all the animals and plants across a landscape, identify the stars in the sky and recite the history of their people. Yet today, most of us struggle to memorize more than a short poem.

Using traditional Aboriginal Australian song lines as a starting point, Lynne Kelly has since identified the powerful memory technique used by our ancestors and indigenous people around the world. In turn, she has then discovered that this ancient memory technique is the secret purpose behind the great prehistoric monuments like Stonehenge, which have puzzled archaeologists for so long.

The stone circles across Britain and northern Europe, the elaborate stone houses of New Mexico, huge animal shapes in Peru, the statues of Easter Island - these all serve as the most effective memory system ever invented by humans. They allowed people in non-literate cultures to memorize the vast amounts of information they needed to survive. But how?

For the first time, Lynne Kelly reveals the purpose of these monuments and their uses as 'memory places', and shows how we can use this ancient technique to train our minds.

CHAPTER 1

Encyclopaedic memories of the elders

It is only recently that the depth and complexity of oral traditions has been acknowledged. Archaeologists have long recognised that the Neolithic Britons had the same brains and the same intellectual potential as you and me. Modern humans have been around for tens of thousands of years. Yet for far too long, indigenous cultures were seen as intellectually inferior and primitive. It is only a hundred years ago that the hugely influential Sigmund Freud wrote: ‘I shall select as the basis of this comparison the tribes which have been described by anthropologists as the most backward and miserable of savages, the aborigines of Australia.’¹

It is these very ‘aborigines of Australia’ who enabled me to glimpse the complexity of their information systems and the extraordinary range of memory methods they used—and started me on the journey that led to this book.

If I was to argue that Stonehenge was primarily about memory methods, then I had to demonstrate that non-literate cultures memorised a great deal of information. I wasn’t talking about simply remembering what they had seen, done and been shown out on the daily gather and hunt. I wasn’t saying that the ancient stones were simple reminders, much as a statue of Darwin at a museum reminds us of the great man.

I was talking about formally memorising information—learning, studying and repeating it. I was saying that the stone circles were part of a structured system for memorising vast amounts of rational information. I had come to believe that Australian Aboriginal songlines, Native American trails, Inca ceques and many other landscape paths created by indigenous cultures were the result of training their memories. In years of research, I found no indigenous culture that relied on casual memory and chatter around the campfire to store the knowledge of their environment and culture.

As my fellow dinner guest had asked only days after I had first formulated my ideas about Stonehenge: what on earth would they need to memorise anyway?

Indigenous knowledge of animals

When researching my book Crocodile: Evolution’s greatest survivor I became aware of how indigenous stories spelt out the specific characteristics of all 23 crocodilian species. Stories and songs from around the world recorded behaviour specific to each species, for example, the ability of the saltwater crocodile (Crocodylus porosus) to swim thousands of miles in the ocean. Crocodiles are deadly predators, haunting the rivers and oceans on which many people depend for water and food. Elders told stories of the way crocodiles’ eyes shine at night in the light of torches, of their ability to wait and note human habits, how to know if they had detected human presence, when their eggs would be ready to collect, and how to retrieve these precious sources of protein in the face of an aggressive mother.

Australian Aboriginal stories distinguish clearly between the potentially deadly saltwater crocodile and the relatively harmless freshwater crocodile (Crocodylus johnstoni), while Papuan stories distinguish between the saltwater crocodile and the smaller, harmless New Guinea crocodile (Crocodylus novaeguineae).

At the most obvious level, there is a need to know all the plants and animals in a tribal territory, often encompassing many different environments. If I mention hunter-gatherers, I conjure up the image of a hunter chasing a crocodile, kangaroo, mammoth or buffalo, but the vast majority of the creatures with which indigenous people interact are fish, small reptiles and, critically, invertebrates; there are thousands of insects, spiders, scorpions, worms, crustaceans and other little creatures in every landscape. It is necessary to know which ones can be eaten, which can be used for other products and which must be avoided. Every environment houses animals that bite, sting or maul, and some are deadly.

As Indigenous Australian Eileen McDinny of the Yanyuwa people of the Gulf of Carpentaria in Australia’s Northern Territory explained: ‘Everything got a song, no matter how little, it’s in the song—name of plant, birds, animal, country, people, everything got a song.’²

The North American Navajo, for example, named and classified over 700 species of insect for zoologists a few decades ago, recording names, sounds, behaviour and habitats in myths, songs and dry sand paintings.³ Only one is eaten (the cicada) while some are bothersome (lice, gnats, mosquitoes, sheep ticks, flies). The vast majority of the 700 insects, the Navajo elders told the scientists, are classified because the Navajo love to categorise. And that study only included insects. All people, literate and non-literate, possess curiosity, intellect and a love of knowledge for knowledge’s sake. But beyond simply identifying the species, a knowledge of animals and plants is often important because of what they indicate about seasonal cycles, and they often feature in stories that contain lessons about human ethics and behaviour.

Despite being active in natural history groups, I know no one today who could identify all the insects they may encounter even with a guide book, let alone all animal species. Yet, that is common practice among indigenous people.

In oral traditions, dance acts as a complementary memory cue to the sung narratives. Not only do the dances entertain but information can also be encoded in dance that defies clear expression in words. As a natural history writer, I doubt I could accurately describe details of the movement of a kangaroo—the flick of an ear, the subtle change in stance as it detects an approaching human—despite having observed them for most of my life. Australian Aboriginal dancers can represent this behaviour in a matter of moments.

Rituals performed before a hunt are often referred to as ‘hunting magic’, the word ‘magic’ implying that they are simply superstitious acts performed in the belief that they increase the fortune of the hunt through a call to supernatural beings. A little more investigation shows otherwise. Many of the songs reinforce details of animal behaviour, such as indicators that the animal may be aware of the hunters, or the way in which a mob of animals may disperse in fleeing. These rituals confirm planned hunting strategies and so, exactly as claimed, enhance the likely success of the hunt. When I discussed ‘hunting magic’ informally with Australian Aboriginals and Native Americans, they indicated that they were well aware of this rational link. The songs, for them, combine practical and magical aspects.

Anthropologist T.G.H. Strehlow recorded hunting songs from Central Australia which not only included detailed behaviour for each of the three species of macropods likely to be encountered, but replicated the sounds made by the animals in various phases of activity. They also included descriptions of foot and tail prints for tracking and nutritional information for butchering, in particular the location of fat deposits and how to ensure these were exploited to the full.

I have heard Australian Aboriginal songs about birds that capture their call exquisitely. I’ve heard skilled didgeridoo players mimic the sounds of animals with extraordinary accuracy. Singing the songs of bird calls accurately before heading out to sea can mean the difference between life and death. Fishers across a wide area of the northern hemisphere rely on the behaviour of a fairly insignificant-looking aquatic diving bird known as a loon or diver (genus Gavia) to reach land if they get into difficulties. Unlike pelagic birds, which spend most of their life out at sea, loons always return to land at night. They have a piercing call that can be heard from a distance. In the case of bad weather and loss of visibility, the fisher who can identify the loon call among all the others will be able to follow it back to land. The Tlingit are an indigenous culture of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America. They have a totem pole known as the loon pole because the bird is so important in their oral tradition.

In the New Guinea Highlands, the ‘spells’ recited when planting taro include a range of knowledge about taro crop cultivation, but are often simply described as ‘rituals’. Native American Pueblo ‘magic’ performed before raiding parties included the call and behaviour of a wading plover, the killdeer (Charadrius vociferus), which lets out a shrill cry when anyone approaches. By camping near killdeer, the warriors utilised the birds as sentinels to warn them of an approaching war party. The killdeer behaviour is encoded in the songs, dancing and mythology of the associated kachina, the mythological beings who perform much of the Pueblo oral tradition. The songs and dances tell the stories of mythological characters who act out the highly memorable narratives. Mythology is the perfect medium for storing critical knowledge because it makes the information so vivid and so memorable.

Does ‘magic’ work? Yes. Is the belief in it justified? Yes, empirical evidence has proven it so and there are rational reasons why this is the case. Rituals can be pragmatic and rational as well as spiritual. Trying to separate indigenous practical knowledge from mythology is a process doomed from the start. The two are intricately interwoven. Rituals in non-literate cultures need to be considered on their own terms without trying to find an equivalent in literate cultures. Such an equivalent does not exist.

It was a fortuitous day when I met the Aboriginal woman who taught me a great deal and became a dear friend. Nungarrayi, to use her Warlpiri title, described the catalogue of sounds which are encoded as far more extensive than just the calls of birds and other animals. For example, she described the way her people were able to identify trees and bushes and grasses by the sound in a breeze. I found this hard to believe, but was assured that if I gave it a try I would discover that it is possible. That afternoon I sat in the bush and listened. What I would have described as silence, on a day with very little wind, was anything but. I became aware of the bird sounds fairly quickly, but before long I became aware of the sounds of the plants. The eucalypt to my left, the acacias in front, and the grasses to the right all made distinctly different sounds. I could not accurately convey these sounds in writing. In subsequent sessions, I’ve been able to distinguish between different species of eucalypt, although my skills are too primitive to keep those differences in memory. The experience convinced me that the sound of plants, animals, moving water, rock types when struck and many other aspects of the environment can be taught through song in a way that is impossible in writing.

Nungarrayi constantly reminded me that ‘the elders were pragmatic old buggers. We wouldn’t have survived if they weren’t.’ It became my mantra.

Indigenous knowledge of plants

Plant species usually greatly outnumber the animals and are well known by indigenous cultures, partly because they are a critical source of food and materials for a wide range of applications. The African Dogon systematically classify about 300 vegetables. Again, however, researchers have shown that indigenous knowledge is far more extensive than just the plants they use. The Hanunóo in the Philippines, for example, named many more plants for the region than did Western science when botanists worked with them in the middle of the twentieth century. They classified 1625 plants into 890 categories of which over 500 species were edible and around 400 species were used purely for medicinal purposes.

The Matsés peoples of Brazil and Peru have recently documented their traditional medicine in a 500-page encyclopaedia to ensure the information is not lost. Before it was written down, their entire corpus of Amazonian plant knowledge was stored in memory. A great deal of traditional medicine is already part of conventional medicine, or has been discarded as ineffective compared with other treatments; but Western science is still learning from traditional knowledge.

Healers in traditional societies are powerful and highly respected individuals who specialise in knowing the details of useful plants. Their work may sound like superstition and spells, partly because of the way the information is memorised through mythology, as will be described in the following chapter. The use of plants may also seem to be more magical than practical. For example, various species in the Datura genus are used in spiritual and recreational activities because of their hallucinogenic properties. Search a little deeper and you will find that Pueblo Zuni doctors from New Mexico use Datura as an anaesthetic for operations and as a powdered antiseptic for wounds; again the methods for preparation and use are retained in myth.

It is not only essential to be able to identify the plants and animals that are used in some way, but also those that are not. The latter is the vast majority, but constantly testing all the available resources is a logistical impossibility. All plants and animals need to be named, known and recalled regularly.

Imagine the situation where the tribe finds itself in a severe drought. Many decades ago, their forebears had survived a similar drought. As the stories of the drought recorded, without water the plants in their territory would offer only minimal sustenance, not enough for survival. However, the bush with the red leaf tips was safe even though they would never normally eat it. They wouldn’t like the taste, the stories warned, but if they boiled and dried it then it was palatable and would keep them alive. The bush with the orange leaf tips was deadly no matter how it was treated. No one had eaten either bush since that last drought when the tribe had survived near starvation through processing and eating the bush with the red leaf tips. What chance is there that natural memory would distinguish the red from the orange after such a long time in which the bush was of no interest? What chance is there that they could determine that fact by testing all the plants that were still alive through the drought? If that information, however, is stored in songs performed regularly at rituals that are restricted to the elders who ensure the songs are sung accurately, then the knowledge will endure. The tribes who respect these rituals and store the knowledge in restricted forms will survive. Those who don’t will die out at the first severe stress on resources.

Restricting information is a trait found across all non-literate cultures and serves two fundamental purposes. Restricting knowledge affords power to those who have been taught and deemed competent by the elders who control that information. But there is another critical purpose. It is all to do with what is inappropriately referred to as ‘the Chinese-whispers effect’. Lots of people repeating the information in an uncontrolled way will inevitably lead to corruption of the facts stored within the songs. Distortion cannot be tolerated in information such as the navigation to a waterhole on a long-distance route, identification of poisonous plants, timing to ensure optimal access to seasonal foods, genealogies, details of treaty agreements on resource rights and so many other parts of the information system. This knowledge is not varied. It is sacred. Consequently a large portion of songs, paintings and other aids to memory are restricted and repetition of them carefully monitored by elders.

People would only occasionally experience extreme resource stresses. The last severe drought, say, may be long before living memory. Elders store the knowledge needed to optimise the chance of surviving extreme drought, floods, failed crops or other disasters in the highest levels of restricted knowledge. For example, the Nunamiut and Tareumiut of Northwest Alaska depended on the availability of caribou and whale respectively, both animal populations being subject to unpredictable seasonal fluctuations. The survival of Nunamiut or Tareumiut, when they had insufficient animals for food, depended on the elaborate feasts that were held to secure inter-village relationships and formal agreements to support each other when resource crises occurred. The elders memorised the sacred knowledge through song-poetry that taught crucial survival strategies. These included complex relationships with critical trading partners, methods for long-term storage, pooling of labour, utilising kinship ties, setting community responsibilities, the use of secondary resources, inter-community marriages and feasts, exploring resource potential of other habitats or even moving there, trading with people in alternative habitats and learning to handle unfamiliar resources through social contact. Oral tr...