I like Bruce too!
Actually Mr Paul, you're not so far off. One of our lecturers told us a story about one of the first tribes to be studied by an early anthropologist, who went on to write a book on their customs. 20 or 30 years later , or maybe more, I can't remember, another group went to study them, and would ask them "Why do you do that ritual", or that custom, or whatever. Each time the elders would disappear into the hut to confer with the interpreter and then come out and explain. Eventually one of the researchers asked to be allowed in the hut. The elders were looking the answers up in the original book...