Tonight I Googled, disgruntled with a PBS rendition of Shenandoah that didn't sync with childhood versions from IL and MO. Hit this thread - what a banquet! And how much we've lost. I remember my great-grandmother (part Seminole) and she remembered her's. Three leaps and we are back to 1830's. Three generations with oral "common-history" opportunities to pass forward - not taken - lost facts & lost insights on their evolution in everyday thought and social adaptation.

Nice to think that data banks connected to the internet might retain knowledge captured in the millions of threads like this in cultures around the world - though unlike buried hordes of ancient clay tablets, these modern caches will more likely be erased to free up data space.

But in optimism, a memory of IL/MO Grandpa, who said movies & TV didn't depict towns like Hannibal and Qincey as they were in the 1800's - because they didn't show where the dirt streets sank half way to the knees in muck and horse manure all seasons but drought; where skirt hems sweept down those streets encrusted with said manure, spit, and chewing tobacco; and where every porch and boardwalk was lined with civil war amputees begging, singing, and strumming their war tunes for coins - one he hummed when he repeated the stories was "Shannendah".