Autobiographical Memory and the Historical Memory of the More Distant Past

This chapter continues the argument of Chapter 7 in considering whether it is possible for nonlinguistic memory to be transmitted from generation to generation. The example of the same Zafimaniry village is used to show how visits to historical sites can make descendants of those who participated in the original events reexperience what happened to their forebears and thus “remember” the distant past as though its events were events in their own lives. Again, this chapter combines theories from social anthropology with others originating from cognitive psychology.