Knowhow is a special kind of knowledge in people and systems.

Tacit knowledge in a person is called knowhow: experiential knowledge that's pre-linguistic, "felt in your bones" and extremely useful, but impossible to pass on to others directly.

You could say that you "understand" something when you don't just feel it in your bones, but can also talk about it and convince another person of it.

Knowhow can be load-bearing in your actions even if it's beyond your understanding.

Systems (e.g. societies, orgs) can also have knowhow.

It's tempting, when looking at some long-living human system, to think, "it's a mess, totally ad hoc, not even scientific. We should remake it in a modern way."

But just because a human system doesn't understand itself; can't make itself legible to others via scientific principles, doesn't mean it isn't full of wisdom.

Myths are a form of society's knowhow.