Steve's question is a good one, and, I fear, it may be intractable.


I think whether this is about 'song' or other cultural phenomena, all historians can do is construct narratives and theories on the basis of what evidence they have. I rather think that this is what all 'historians' and 'archaeologists' do. And I feel that the narrative and theories they construct will always to some extent reflect their own times, and that objectivity, as commonly understood, may not be possible.


But the way in which 'stuff' passed across continents is nevertheless fascinating to me at any rate.

Genocide had occured to me in this context!

But then some thinkers do posit some 'communistic' golden age. (The one essay I read by Child on the origins of his ballads had a similar sort of thinking about their origins. And in the same piece he was quite clear that the lowly people did not write them. It's a piece published in a Cyclopedia -by Johnson, I think. Not that I think Child was 'communistic himself.) This was referenced in something I read and I found it by googling, cannot quite think where now.)

I once read that Child and other early US folkorists were working within or close to a discipline of 'philology', which is not quite 'history' and which I don't fully understand so I'd probably not try to say too much about it. But it was to do with looking at texts, originally classical Greek and Latin ones, and making deductions/inferences about culture.