the only beneficial kind of talk is the type that grows corn.

In a completely preliterate society, the oral tradition is not memorized, but remembered. Thus, every telling is fresh and new, as the tellers review the imagery of origins, journeys, loves, hunts. Themes and formulae are repeated as part of an ever-changing tapestry composed of both the familiar and the novel. Direct experience, generation by generation, feeds back into the tale told.

Gary Snyder