First, it helps in real time to ensure the health and survival of a community—its survivance, to use a term from the anthropologists’ playbook, meaning something rather more than mere survival, a continuation of tradition by way of the regular connection with the spirits of tribal ancestors, a connection that helps keep “a sense of presence over absence.” Second, the handing on of knowledge helps maintain for the future the very coherence of the community itself, in much the same way as some modern religious rituals—those of the Jewish tradition come to mind—that help to keep a vulnerable
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