本篇文章共分 5 段，分析書寫非洲歷史所遭遇的困難，原因在於沒有充分的文字記錄，因而只能依賴可靠度不足的口述歷史。儘管如此，口述歷史仍然是研究非洲重要的資料來源。

本篇考題英文原文與對應之中文翻譯整理如下。練習作答解題時若有對語意不清楚之處，請仔細查閱對照，以提升閱讀理解能力。

Writing History 書寫歷史

1. 書寫非洲歷史的困難之處

   Historians throughout the ages have been beset by many pitfalls in their attempts to write history. Modern historians writing the history of Africa not only face problems similar to those experienced by their colleagues writing the history of other cultures. Most medieval African societies south of the Sahara lacked an alphabet and a written language. African written languages were confined mainly to Ethiopia, to Sudan, and to the maritime cities of the east coast. Early Greek, Roman, Amharic, Fulani, and Swahili texts still survive to give us some idea of bygone days. Future collectors will almost certainly find additional records when they search for documents in North Africa and in faraway countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia. In tropical countries, however, old papers are preserved only with great difficulty, for white ants and atmospheric humidity pose serious problems even to modern archivists. Early record keepers were even less equal to their task, and much material has been lost or destroyed.

   古往今來的歷史學家在試圖書寫歷史的過程中都被許多陷阱所困擾。撰寫非洲歷史的現代歷史學家面對的不僅是撰寫其他文化歷史的同行類似的問題。撒哈拉以南的大多數中世紀非洲社會缺乏字母和書面語言。非洲的書面語言主要局限在衣索匹亞、蘇丹和東海岸的海濱城市。早期的希臘語、羅馬語、阿姆哈拉語、富拉尼語和斯瓦希里語文本仍然存在，讓我們對過去的日子有一些瞭解。未來的收藏家在北非以及伊朗和沙烏地阿拉伯等遙遠的國家尋找文件時，幾乎肯定會發現更多的記錄。然而，在熱帶國家，舊文件的保存是非常困難的，因為白蟻和大氣中的濕度就連對現代檔案人員都構成了嚴重的問題。早期的檔案管理人員更無法勝任其工作，因而許多材料已經找不到或遭受毀損。

2. 欠缺行政檔案

   The lack of written material means that we shall never be able to read, for example, the memoirs of a king of the Luba people in the eighteenth century. Worse still, we cannot draw on administrative archives. Dull as they look, administrative files have a peculiar value denied to other written records. They are composed of documents drawn up or used in the course of an administrative or executive transaction of which they had formed a part. This does not necessarily make official memorandums, communiques, and such more reliable, for officials often enough were dishonest with their inferiors and superiors alike. But-unlike the authors of so many biographies—they hardly ever wrote in order to deceive posterity; hence, archival evidence has an unusual degree of authenticity. The lack of such material makes the historian's job hard indeed. For where there is no writing, there are large areas of human behavior that cannot be described accurately except by speculative extrapolations from literate cultures or by conjectures determined to a large extent by our own cultural preconceptions.

   書面材料的缺乏意味著我們將永遠無法讀到，比方說，十八世紀盧巴人國王的回憶錄。更糟糕的是，我們無法從行政檔案中獲取資料。行政檔案雖然看起來很枯燥，但卻有其他書面記錄所沒有的特殊價值。它們是由在管理或執行交易過程中起草或使用的文件組成的，而這些文件構成行政交易的一部分。這並不一定會使官方備忘錄、公報和此類文件更加可靠，因為官員們經常對他們的下級和上級都不誠實。但是，與許多傳記的作者不同，他們幾乎沒有為了欺騙後人而撰寫；因此，檔案證據具有不尋常的真實性。此類材料的缺乏使歷史學家的工作確實變得很困難。因為在沒有文字的地方，就有大量的人類行為無法被準確描述，只能透過有文字的文化對其進行推測推演，或透過在很大程度上由我們自己的文化成見所判定的臆測。

3. 口述歷史之使用與限制

   Some historians, therefore, try to supplement their sources with information from indigenous traditions and folklore, heroic legends, genealogical tables, and personal reminiscences. The use of oral history, however, again presents many difficulties. Historians can look at the same document again and again; so can their successors. An artifact can be preserved in a museum, and different conclusions can be arrived at by going over the same evidence again and again. But two or three people cannot interview the same informant twice; even should they do so, they will not necessarily elicit the same information, for the interviewers themselves help impose a subjective pattern on the information they obtain. Human witnesses, moreover, will remember previous interviews; their memory can never be erased like a magnetic tape in such a way that they can be questioned over and over again without changing their answers at least to some degree.

   因此，一些歷史學家試圖用該地區的本土傳統和民間傳說、英雄傳說、家譜表和個人回憶中的資訊來補充資料。然而，口述歷史的使用又帶來了許多困難。歷史學家可以反覆查看同一份文件；他們的接替者也可以。一件文物可以保存在博物館裡，通過反覆研究相同的證據，可以得出不同的結論。但是，兩、三個人不可能對同一位資訊提供者進行兩次採訪；即使他們這樣做了，也不一定會得到相同的訊息，因為採訪者本身就會對他們獲得的訊息施加一種主觀模式。此外，證人會記得以前的訪談；他們的記憶不可能像磁帶那樣永遠被抹去，以至於他們會在被反覆詢問當中至少在某種程度上不改變他們的答案。

4. 口述歷史受時間影響

   Admittedly, it is easy to underestimate the value of material elicited by oral historians who investigate preliterate societies. Professional poets and singers may faithfully record the same lay or the same genealogical table for many generations, for their memory is beyond question. Nevertheless, oral tradition is always subject to change. The Lunda people, who dwell on the Luapula River, are, for instance, very interested in their own past. But as lan Cunnison, a British anthropologist, observes, “this is not history as we know it. It is the handing on of what is already known or believed, and it does not involve the asking of questions about the past, and the search for the answer to them.”

   誠然，我們很容易低估調查有文字前社會的口述歷史學家所得出的材料的價值。職業詩人和歌手可能會忠實地記錄相同的敍事詩或相同的家譜表很多代，因為他們的記憶是不容置疑的。然而，口述傳統總是會有變化。例如，居住在盧阿普拉河上的隆達人對自己的過去非常感興趣。但正如英國人類學家 lan Cunnison 所言，「這不是我們所認為的歷史。它是對已經知道或相信的東西的傳承，它不涉及提出關於過去的問題和尋找這些問題的答案。」

5. 口述歷史之價值所在

   This does not mean that oral traditions are without value to historians. They enlarge their imagination, they help them pose new questions, and they tell them a great deal concerning a people's culture; they also provide a substratum of fact. They are, however, difficult to interpret, and the conventional historian's intellectual tools may often prove inadequate for the task. Oral traditions, moreover, like all other forms of evidence, always stand in need of corroboration and can never be accepted on the basis of their own authority.

   這並不意味著口述傳統對歷史學家沒有價值。它們擴大了他們的想像力，幫助他們提出新的問題，並告訴他們有關一個民族文化的大量訊息；它們還提供了一個事實基礎。然而，這些內容很難解釋，而且傳統歷史學家的智能工具可能常被證明不足以完成這項任務。此外，像所有其他形式的證據一樣，口述傳統總是需要確證，而且永遠不能根據其本身的權威性而被接受。