I know that they didnt need the bible.I can only see thus far that in MOST societies they had some internal squabbles and that there were stories that involved human 'negative' traits.
Im not saying they needed the bible or that it might have served them because 'they' too, had imperfections.
My point is that, I dont beleive that other cultures were free of some disputes and negative traits entirely.I am not sure,but it seemed that you were implying that those cultures had some sort of overall enlightened state that made them intrinsically know all.I thought you were talking about KNOWING as oposed to looking at some religious text to maybe get closer to KNOWING.
There is evidence to suggest that some of the indigenous cultures had whole civilisations that were like KRSTed/full enlightened beings like everyone was like in a Budhha state of awareness.

However there is in just about every culture(that I have studied) a very similar story of how the group, or man,as a general thing,lost his powers or connection to 'god' and there was a decline in spiritual awareness.
As a whole, it seems by the conduct alone of the colonisers and colonisation in itself , that they had the biggest decline in consciousness.
So awareness of SELF varied from culture to culture.Just some ideas anyway.

bless...