Definitions:
Oral Tradition, or oral lore, is a form of human communication wherein knowledge, art, ideas and cultural material is received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another.
The transmission is through speech or song and may include folktales, ballads, chants, prose or poetry. In this way, it is possible for a society to transmit oral history, oral literature, oral law and other knowledge across generations without a writing system, or in parallel to a writing system.
The most intelligent people in a tribe are tasked with this most important civic duty.
Josephine was very intelligent.
Her mother would always say: “My Josephine can’t seem to forget anything.”
Josephine's people were under occupation from a fascist enemy.
A slow genocide of her people has been methodically executed by the enemy over the past 10 years.
When attempting to undermine a society, an enemy will attempt to erase important cultural hallmarks and societal norms.
The more history, memories and unique cultural characteristics an enemy can bastardize, distort or destroy, the sooner the firmament under a race can be dissolved.
The children are always targeted for indoctrination from a young age. The enemy wants to feed them propaganda to make the children hate their culture and mistrust their parents.
The enemy had confiscated all books related to their culture and made it a capital offense to possess them. Bibles, biographies, cookbooks and histories, were confiscated and burned in the town squares.
The occupied children were forced into schools run by the enemy.
One of the most important components of culture is food.
Food, and the stories of its significance, is one place where all important parts of a culture are preserved.
Anyone that holds the recipes of a culture holds all the accumulated intelligence, strength and wisdom of it.
That person is always enemy number one.
Josephine the Baker was that enemy number one. She didn’t possess books though. She didn’t need them.
Boss Annie, Josephine’s mentor, former enemy number one, had been captured and imprisoned over a year ago.
Saved in Annie’s and Josephine’s photographic memories, were thousands of years of their people's oral traditions, in the form of recipes and cultural history.
No one dared to write these down, as if the enemy discovered them it meant immediate execution.
Most people could remember a few recipes or historical stories but Josephine and Annie remembered them all.
The enemy kept seeing these traditional dishes being made and they knew that Josephine the Baker was behind it.
The enemy teachers in school saw the children openly discussing their people’s history in whispered conversations.
They knew Josephine, one single person, was strengthening the occupied people’s resolve, just as Boss Annie did.
Every traditional item baked or cooked, and every cultural story told, were acts of war to the enemy occupiers.
She would travel from village to village under cover of night and teach her people exactly how to make the unique foods of their culture.
She worked every night imparting the history to as many families as she could.
The enemy did all they could to capture her, but she was too elusive. It was like she was a ghost.
Food was very important during all religious rites and sacraments.
Josephine made sure the families were ready to have the right traditional foods for these occasions.
Like Annie had done, she was saving and preserving the culture one meal and many stories at a time.
The enemy would confiscate all of this food as often as they could. They would jail anyone recounting historical stories and lore.
But the enemy couldn't monitor every inch of the country every moment.
To Josephine, the recipes were secondary as she was passing along thousands of years of rich cultural history of her people at the same time. She would always make sure that the youngest of children were around when she would secretly visit a household.
She would show the children how the enemy’s schools were brainwashing them.
The importance of the food was directly linked to the importance of an event in their people's history.
Josephine knew her days were numbered so she wanted to impart as much history and culture to as many people as she possibly could, especially the children.
Josephine was eventually caught, tried and imprisoned in the same prison where Annie was incarcerated.
But within a few weeks the food started appearing again.
The school children were still sharing cultural stories and history.
The enemy did not know that Annie and Josephine had sons with the same photographic memory as their mothers. They had hidden them far from their sight in case they were caught.
They taught their sons skills beyond her own. They were bakers yes, and had memorized all of the oral traditions, but they were also more than their mothers…..
Kimmy The Assassin, Mikey The Assassin and Rocco The Assassin will make sure their mothers’ imprisonment is avenged, not just with recipes and stories….
To be continued..
