Traditional Oral Culture and Radios

"The people are far away and as they talk, this machine picks up the voices from the air."

"Very clever," the Old Man says and keeps quiet. "Very very clever," he says again with his mouth but he is thinking that he doesn't like the talking machine. There is something weird about human voices coming out of a thing without lungs or mouth. He doesn"t like it -- just as he doesn't like most of the things the boy brings from town -- useless thing to the best of his knowledge -- but the boy behaves as if he invented them and as if without them life would immediately stop.

"And what do the people -- I mean -- the voices say ?"

"Oh, all sorts of things people talk about."

"All sorts of things?"

"Yes."

"And they talk all day?"