Mythology, Religious Symbols and Taboos

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Mythology, Religious Symbols and Taboos
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• The Nature of Myths
• Worldview
• Stories of the Supernatural
• Myths
• The Nature of Oral Texts
• How Myths change through time
• Understanding Myths
• Functional Analysis
• Structural Analysis
• Psychoanalytic Analysis
• Common Themes in Myths
• Origin, Flood, Trickster, Hero

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• Religious Symbols
• What is a symbol?
• The Swastika
• The Pentagram
• Christian Symbols
• Sacred Art
• The Sarcophagus of Lord Pakal
• The Meaning of Color
• Sacred Self
• Body Alterations and Modifications
• The Symbolism of Music and Dance

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The Nature of Myths

• Myths- religious narrative or stories that
  provide the basis for religious beliefs and
  practices.
• Tell origins, creations, and history of the world
• Worldview- the way in which societies perceive
  and interpret their reality.
• EX Navaho and Euro-Americans.

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Stories of the Supernatural

• People describe their world and express their
  worldview in stories and other creative
  expressions.
• This may include modes as diverse as art, drama,
  jokes, writing on the walls of public bathrooms,
  folk music, and festivals.
• EX the story of Snow White.
• This story is European in origin and was first
  published in 1823 from oral presentations.
• EX The Yanomamö and the Origin of Plantains

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• How the Yanomamö got Plantains
• This is a story of the Yanomamö, a fierce and
  warlike tribe of slash-and-burn cultivators who
  live in Southern Venezuela and Northern Brazil,
  as they tell it.
• Plantains are a staple food of the Yanomamö
  today. However, it was not so always. In the
  beginning only Boreawa used to eat plantains.
  This was because no one knew about them. Only
  Boreawa knew about them and how to cultivate
  them, and he did not let the others know. So
  everyone else ate only earth and animals. One
  day, Horonama, who lived by eating earth, was
  caught in a downpour. It rained so much that he
  got lost in the forest. Then, quite by chance, he
  stumbled upon the place where Boreawa had hidden
  his plantains.
• At first, Horonama did not know what to do with
  the plantains, but by and by he figured out that
  they were good to eat. Then he sought out Boreawa
  and asked him how to cultivate this wonderful
  food. Boreawa told him how to do it and since
  then, the Yanomamö have always eaten plantains.

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Myths

• In contrast, myths are sacred stories.
• The tell of the origin of
• world
• humankind (regardless of the society)
• the activities of gods and spirits.
• the nature of illness and death
• morality (good from evil)
• Myths are not negative.
• people often think of them as false stories told
  by primitive peoples.
• they are real historical events that took place
  in the remote past

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The Nature of Oral Texts

• In nonliterate societies, and in many literate
  societies as well, texts are recited .
• They are more than simple presentations
• recitation is performance
• speech may change
• costumes
• facial expressions
• body posture
• changes in the quality of voice
• All this serves to create an experience.
• Some are specialists

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• Oral narratives are frequently very long and
  complex
• Not always recited as a single, complete
  narrative and may not even be seen as a single
  entity.
• Particular segments might be recited at certain
  times and in particular instances.
• One of the consequences of the oral transmission
  of stories is that they are frequently
  unconsciously altered with each generation.
• EX each family may have different versions.
• EX Yanomamö and fire.
• EX Genesis 24-323 and 11-23

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• Folklorist Alan Dundes notes that written texts
  that are derived from oral narratives frequently
  incorporate more that one version of a particular
  story.
• EX the Old Testament opens with two creation
  stories
• The earlier text, Genesis 24 to 323, dates from
  the period of the Two Kingdoms, Israel and Judah.
  
• It might have been written between 960 and 915
  BCE and contains the story of the Garden of Eden
  and Mans Fall.
• This story sets forth the order of creation as
  man first, then a garden for him to cultivate,
  next the animals for his entertainment, and
  finally woman.

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• The later text, Genesis 11 to 23, might have
  been written after the fall of Jerusalem in 586
  BCE during the Exile, but might have been written
  much earlier
• This is the story of the seven days of creation
  in which the plants and animals were created
  before man and man and woman were created
  together on the sixth day.

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• These stories are reflections of the
  Judeo-Christian worldview.
• They are very patriarchal in many ways
• EX woman (Eve) is derived from man (Adam)
• in many Western societies men dominate woman and
  many positions of authority, such as the
  priesthood, are restricted to men.
• here the religious text is acting as a social
  charter that explains the proper organization of
  human relationships.

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• Genesis also expresses the Judeo-Christian
  worldview with respect to nature.
• This worldview appears to be based on two
  assumptions.
• The universe is mechanistic and human are its
  masters.
• Humans are a categorically different form of
  creatures than all other forms of life.

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How Myths Change Through Time

• Written narratives tend to be very stable,
  especially if they are not translated into other
  languages.
• EX Quran forms the foundation of Islam
• Muslims believe that the Quran represents the
  workd of God as revealed to Mohammad by the
  archangel Gabriel in the early 7th century.
• It was spoken to Mohammas and was initially
  handed down orally but was soon set down in
  written form.

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• Wogeo Narratives
• Inhabit a small island off the coast of New
  Guinea.
• Their myths are called nanasa.
• Took place before recorded time.
• For the Wogeo they are historical and reflect
  actual events.
• They are stories of the ancestral gods or
  nanarang.
• The nanarang created the world and the landscape.
• Invented important material objects.
• Set forth customary behavior.
• The look and behaved as people do.
• Eventually, they disappeared and were replaced by
  the Wogeo ancestors of the people living on the
  island today.
• Read excerpt

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Understanding Myths

• Approaches to Analysis of Myths
• Functional Analysis
• Structural Analysis
• Psychoanalytic Analysis

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Functional Analysis

• The functional school analyzes cultural traits in
  terms of the function they serve the society.
• In this view myths are seen as a force to help
  maintain the society.
• EX Emile Durkheim focused on the impact of myth
  on social structure.
• He emphasized the role of myth as the basis for
  rituals and saw rituals as the means by which
  individual come together and bond with one
  another.

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• Bronislaw Malinowski wrote
• Myths fulfils in primitive culture an
  indispensable function it expresses, enhances,
  and codifies beliefs it safeguards and enforces
  morality it vouches for the efficacy of ritual
  and contains practical rules for the guidance of
  man. Myth is thus a vital ingredient of human
  civilizations it is not an idle tale, but a
  hard-working active force it is not an
  intellectual explanation or an artistic imagery,
  but a pragmatic charter of primitive faith and
  wisdom.

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Structural Analysis

• This analysis focus on the underlying structure
  of myth.
• This approach is based on the work of Claude
  Lévi-Strauss.
• he pointed out that humans tend to think and
  categorize the world in terms of binary opposites
• ex Genesis 14-8
• This focused on structure, not content
• Ex Gururumba Creation Story

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What does this Myth tell us?

• Nature vs culture dichotomy is related to the
  differences between the sexes.
• Women associated with nature
• Men associated with culture
• Sugarcane is symbolically male changing a
  unuseful woman to a useful cultural wife.
• Her son.

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Psychoanalytic Analysis

• Freud saw individual dreams as symbolically
  expressing unconscious wishes and a similar
  process occurring with myths for groups.
• Myths are therefore a type of shared dream.
• Much of his analysis is sexual in nature.
• Ex Little Red Riding Hood
• Girl who is sexually mature
• The red cap represents menses
• The unbroken wine bottle represents virginity
• She meets a wolf/man in the forest
• The trees represents phallic symbols
• The wolf eats her representing aggressive
  intercourse.

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The Oedipus Complex

• This story is most associated with the
  psychoanalytic analysis
• Oedipus is a Greek tragic hero who unknowingly
  kills his father and marries his mother.
• Freud argued that this story represented a deep
  psychological conflict experienced by all boys.
• Freud believed that these were universal
  developmental issues.
• As a result, he expected to find these stories
  cross-cultureally.

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Common Themes in Myths

• Carl Jung
• In contrast to Freud, Jung thought the myths
  stemmed from something beyond the individual
  unconscious.
• Collective unconscious- inborn elements of the
  unconscious that are manifested in dreams and
  myths.
• The main characters are called archtypes
• Origin Myths
• Flood Myths
• Trickster Myths
• Hero Myths

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Origin Myths

• Some common metaphors
• The birth metaphor
• When the supernatural creating power is female,
  generally a spontaneous and independent birth.
• When the supernatural creating power is male, the
  birth is more symbolic
• EXThe god vomits or excretes the world or
  perhaps sacrifices part of his own body to make
  the world
• EX Bushongo, a Bantu people from Zaire (read).
• Creation out of Chaos, Darkness, or the Void.
• EX Yoruba, West Africa (read)

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Flood Myths

• Stories of floods are widespread.
• One reason lies in the fact that floods are
  likely to be frequently experienced, as people
  need to live near a water source.
• EX Noah
• EX Aztecs (read)
• The Aztec flood story is also a story of
  apocalypse, or the end of the world , another
  common theme in religious narratives.

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Trickster Myths

• Unlike origin myths, Trickster myths tell of
  other smaller things.
• They usually provide explanations of why things
  are the way they are.
• How people should and should not behave
• They are found in stories all over the world.
• Best know
• Raven (Northwest Coast)
• Coyote (American Plains)
• Spider (West Africa)
• They are adventurers, gluttons, searchers of
  sexual pleasures, lazy, and easily bored,
  dishonest and impulsive.
• Responsible from creating or bringing certain
  elements into the world (fire or the sun).

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Hero Myths

• Monomyth (Joseph Campbell The Hero with a
  Thousand Faces)
• All heroes follow a basic theme
• A hero ventures forth from the world of common
  day into a region of supernatural wonder
  fabulous forces are there encountered and as
  decisive victory is won the hero comes back from
  this mysterious adventure with the power to
  bestow boons on his fellow man.
• The monomyth is a common theme encountered in
  many myths.
• Can you name others?

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Religious Symbols

• What is a Symbol?
• Like myths, symbols too are important for the
  study of religion
• Minimally, a symbol may be though of as something
  that represents something else.
• We can also use symbols to stand for things that
  are more complex than simple objects.
• Symbols can stand for emotions and complex
  philosophical concepts that exists only in out
  minds.
• Symbols can create a supernatural world or create
  myths about the past.

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Religious Symbols

• The Swastika
• Basically a pattern of lines set at right angles
  to one another, and as such, carries no inherent
  meaning.
• A person seeing this symbol for the first time
  will have no idea of its meaning.
• However, this symbol can stand for complex ideas
  and can carry an emotional resonance.
• Meaning for Nazis, Europeans, Jews
• Meaning for Japanese Buddhist.

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The Pentagram

• Comes from the Greek pente, meaning five, and
  gamma which is a letter in the Greek alphabet.
• It can refer to any five-sided figure but is
  generally used to refer to a five-pointed star
  called a pentacle.
• Pentagrams are among the most widely used
  religious symbols, both historically and
  cross-culturally.

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• Some believe it originated as a symbol of a pagan
  goddess.
• her sacred fruit was the apple
• Was associated with Hebrew Scriptures as a symbol
  of the five book of the Pentateuch (The Torah).
• Early Christians had a variety of meanings
• Five wounds of Christ
• Star the prophesied the birth of Jesus
• It was only during the Witchcraze that the
  pentagram began to take on a connotation of evil.
• During this time the symbol was referred to as
  the witchs foot.

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• This association with evil became stronger for
  many when 20th century Satanists adopted the
  pentagram as their symbol.
• The Satanist symbol is an inverted pentagram,
  shown most commonly with a goats head in the
  center.

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Christian Symbols

• The cross is the symbol that is most associated
  with Christianity.
• However, the cross did not gain general
  acceptance for many centuries after the founding
  of the Christian religion.
• The cross that is widely used today is the Roman
  cross.
• However, there is considerable variation in the
  exact look of the cross symbol.
• However, the cross was not the earliest important
  symbol in Christianity.
• What was it?

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• It was the simple fish symbol
• One reason given for this is because Jesus was
  labeled fisher of men.
• The most commonly given reason is that the
  letters of the Greek word for fish, icthus, form
  an acrostic.
• icthus is derived from
• Iesous Christos Theou Uiou Soter
• (Jesus Christ of God the Son the Savior)

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Sacred Art

• Artistic representation are often used to
  illustrate and supplement religious texts.
• The Sarcophagus of Lord Pakal
• 1949 Mexican archaeologist Alberto Ruiz working
  at a temple in Palenque.
• By 1952 workers finally reached the bottom of the
  staircase to find a large stone blocking the
  passage.

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• In side the tomb was perhaps the greatest king
  who ever ruled Palenque.
• Hanab-Pakal, Pakal the Great
• He was 80 when he died on August, 31 683, after
  having ruled for 67 years.
• The sarcophagus lid measures 127 ft. and is the
  epitome of Mayan religious art.

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Meaning of Color

• Colors have cultural meaning.
• The ancient temples of the Greeks, Romans, and
  Mayans at one time, all contained color.
• In English we have 11 basic color terms
• Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink,
  black, white, and grey.
• A color term, such as blue, is a symbol.
• Symbols, including color terms, are arbitrary and
  learned they are parts of cultural traditions.
• EX Navaho ideal blue is turquoise. That color is
  considered as celestial and earthly attainment,
  of peace, happiness, and success.

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Sacred Self

• Symbols are also used to create sacred realities
  supernatural worlds, sacred spaces, sacred
  divisions of time, and interpretations of self.
• All people have cultural images of themselves.
• These images serve to separate humanity from the
  rest of the animal world
• That is, an expression of anthropocentrism.
• These images serve to distinguish a particular
  society from other societies (this is an
  expression of ethnocentrism).
• All cultures change their physical appearance to
  conform to cultural images (either good or bad)

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• Permanent alterations of the human body.
• Infibulation or body piercing
• Tattoos- James Cook 18th century
• Tahitian for ta-tu (to mark or strike)
• Karen Padaung of Northern Thailand
• Chinese foot-binding
• Cranial modification
• Body modification in religious practice.
• Male circumcision