Culture Talk

my grandmother never wrote anything down

My grandmother in Kisumu knew hundreds of stories, songs and proverbs. She never wrote one. When she passed, my aunt and I tried to remember them and we could only manage maybe twenty.

I think about this when people say a culture 'has no literature'. Some cultures kept their libraries in people. I am not saying writing is bad, I was a teacher, I love books. But I wish we had recorded her.

Has anyone recorded an elder in their family? How did you do it?