Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T02:52:00.207Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The deep history of imaginary worlds

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 November 2022

Polly Wiessner Open the ORCID record for Polly Wiessner [Opens in a new window]
Polly Wiessner*
Affiliation:
School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, 85287, USA and Department of Anthropology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, 84112, USAwiessner@soft-link.com; https://shesc.asu.edu/people/pauline-wiessner
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

If recent exploratory traditions tap into evolved psychological dispositions to explore, wouldn't humans be expected to have drawn on such dispositions long before the written word? Trickster oral traditions fill this role in all levels of society, affluence, and on all continents, inverting the boundaries of social worlds and those between humans and animals, fostering cultural innovation.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 45 , 2022 , e304
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Biesele, M. (1995). “Different people just have different minds”: A personal attempt to understand Ju/’hoan storytelling aesthetics. Current Writing: Text and Reception in Southern Africa, 7(2), 1–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guenther, M. G. (1999). Tricksters and trancers: Bushman religion and society. Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Hyde, L. (1997). Trickster makes this world: Mischief, myth, and art. Macmillan.Google Scholar
Vansina, J. M. (1985). Oral tradition as history. University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Wiessner, P. W. (2014). Embers of society: Firelight talk among the Ju/’hoansi Bushmen. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(39), 14027–14035.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed