Method
Myth, tradition or history?
Kodagu's past reaches us through very different kinds of testimony. Treating them as interchangeable is how confident errors spread. This page explains the labels used throughout the archive.
The labels
- Documented
- Supported by dated records, inscriptions, legislation or official publications.
- Traditional Account
- Handed down through oral or literary tradition; not independently verified.
- Scholarly Interpretation
- A reading proposed by researchers, open to revision.
- Disputed
- Sources or historians substantially disagree.
- Uncertain
- Evidence is thin, indirect or incomplete.
- Colonial Account
- Recorded by colonial officials or missionaries; read with attention to bias.
- Community Tradition
- Knowledge maintained within the community and its institutions.
Why the distinction matters here
A tradition can be culturally true and historically unverified at the same time. Saying so is respect, not scepticism.
What you can check
- Each page lists the works behind it, with links where the text is freely readable.
- Illustrations here are commissioned artwork, labelled as such, never passed off as photographs of historical events.
- Where a claim rests on a single source, the page says so.