says that most information comes from "indirect witnesses", people who were not present on the scene but heard of the events from someone else. Gottschalk says that a historian may sometimes use hearsay evidence when no primary texts are available. He writes, "In cases where he uses secondary witnesses...he asks: (1) On whose primary testimony does the secondary witness base his statements? (2) Did the secondary witness accurately report the primary testimony as a whole? (3) If not, in what details did he accurately report the primary testimony? Satisfactory answers to the second and third questions may provide the historian with the whole or the gist of the primary testimony upon which the secondary witness may be his only means of knowledge. In such cases the secondary source is the historian's 'original' source, in the sense of being the 'origin' of his knowledge. Insofar as this 'original' source is an accurate report of primary testimony, he tests its credibility as he would that of the primary testimony itself." Gottschalk adds, "Thus hearsay evidence would not be discarded by the historian, as it would be by a law court merely because it is hearsay." Oral tradition Gilbert Garraghan maintains that oral tradition may be accepted if it satisfies either two "broad conditions" or six "particular conditions", as follows: Broad conditions stated. The tradition should be supported by an unbroken series of witnesses, reaching from the immediate and first reporter of the fact to the living mediate witness from whom we take it up, or to the one who was the first to commit it to writing. There should be several parallel and independent series of witnesses testifying to the fact in question. Particular conditions formulated. The tradition must report a public event of importance, such as would necessarily be known directly to a great number of persons. The tradition must have been generally believed, at least for a definite period of time. During that definite period it must have gone without protest, even from persons interested in denying it. The tradition must be one of relatively limited duration. [Elsewhere, Garraghan suggests a maximum limit of 150 years, at least in cultures that excel in oral remembrance.] The critical spirit must have been sufficiently developed while the tradition lasted, and the necessary means of critical investigation must have been at hand. Critical-minded persons who would surely have challenged the tradition – had