History is concerned with peoples and events of the past. These events may have taken place only recently; within our living memory or they have taken place long time ago before written records were made. So how do we know about the events that took place before written records came into existence? One old woman was asked how old she was in the 2000, she said since she was born at a time when there were no written records, she did not know her age. She had no idea about other sources of knowing her age. As for history there are better sources. There are six main sources of history, namely: oral history, written history, archaeology or dig up history, anthropology linguistics and lastly carbon dating.

Oral Tradition

As the name implies, this is the history we get by word of mouth from the old generation to young people. It is from this source that we get what is known as oral history. Of the three sources, this is the oldest and almost every society in the world has used it. Many people are still relying very heavily on the oral tradition to learn about their past.

Around the middle of the 20th century many historians became actively interested in finding about the past of the indigenous peoples of Africa. They used mostly the oral tradition as most of the African societies had not written their history.

They interviewed some old Africans who knew much about their past. In this way the oral tradition became a primary source that led to written history. This has been done not only here in Africa but also in European and Asian countries.

Good as oral tradition history is, it has some disadvantages because its accuracy greatly depends on the memory of the informers.

It is also possible for the informer to change or exaggerate the oral tradition to suit his own interests and wishes. That is why many societies have very little information about their failures and very much information about their successes or achievements.

The oral tradition is very useful as a source of history, however, because much of the information it provides cannot be obtained from other sources.

Let us take some East African examples. Oral tradition has helped us know the answers to questions such as; who were the Chwezi? When did they first settle in Uganda? Where did they come from? When and why did they leave? And where did they go?

The oral tradition is also helpful with questions like: How did the Bantu move into the Lake Victoria region? Why did the Bantu people move to the extreme North of Kenya?