How much did the oral history in cultures with oral traditions change over millennia?

Question

Take, for example, the Australian Aboriginal people. The various tribal groups had a relatively stable and uninterrupted occupation of an entire continent for over 40 000 years.

1. How would the oral histories of 40 000 BCE compare with the oral histories of say, 1600 CE?

2.How accurate was oral tradition in maintaining a cultural and historical record?

(P.S.This is not a school homework question. It is an area of personal interest.)

Answer 1

We know oral histories remain somewhat focused on key issues, but the telling of these stories must capture the interest of the listener, therefore the teller occasionally added, embellished or interpreted small parts of history. Therefore "history," along with culture, evolved & changed from generation to generation. Humans have a natural tendency to tell "fish stories" where the size of the fish grows as time goes by.

We have no way to determine exactly how much this oral history changes with time, but assuming a 1% change per generation happened, then within 40 generations ~8,000 yrs a story would have become very tainted with inaccuracies & be almost unrecognizable.

Answer 2

Every time it was told. Just like stories today.