Myth

1
Myth

• 24.3.2005

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Discussion topics

• Definitions
• Myth
• Folktale, legend, urban myth, epic
• Anthropological approaches to myth
• Rationalist
• Functionalist
• Psychological
• Structuralist

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Readings

• Lévi-Strauss, C. 1955. The Structural Study of
  Myth. In The Journal of American Folklore LXVII
  428-44 (Reprinted in Lessa and Vogt)
• Dundes, A. 1962. Earth-Diver Creation of the
  Mythopoeic Male. In American Anthropologist LXIV
  1032-51. (Reprinted in Lessa and Vogt)

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Myth

• Ambiguity multiple meanings
• Traditional story
• Myth legend, folktale
• Erroneous belief
• eg. urban myth, urban legend
• Fabrication, defiance of facts
• eg."myth" of Aryan supremacy

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Mythos

• Mythos Myth
• Mythos
• "utterance," "speech," or "story."
• an ambiguous term
• Eg. Odyssey
• Odysseus' son Telemachus
• tells his mother Penelope to leave mythos to men
• "public debate and discussion"
• asks old Nestor to tell him whatever mythos he
  may have heard of his missing father
• "story," "tale"

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Mythos

• Eg. Iliad
• Phoenix
• teaches Achilles to be both a speaker of mythos
  and a doer of deeds
• mythos "word"
• Eg. Electra
• Electra
• promises to tell her husband the whole mythos
• Mythos true story
• Eg. Herodotus (Histories)
• recounts a story (mythos) about Heracles which
  has "no basis in fact
• Mythos false story

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Definitions

• Webster's dictionary
• Myth
• usually a traditional story of ostensible
  historical events
• an ill-founded belief held uncritically
  especially by an interested group.
• Mythical
• based on or described in a myth, especially as
  contrasted with factual history
• Imaginary, fabricated, invented, or imagined in
  an arbitrary way or in defiance of facts

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Myth anthropological understanding

• No unified understanding
• ? legend, folktale
• Basis for a particular worldview
• Mythical thought vs rational, scientific
  thought
• Myth vs history
• cyclical vs linear worldiew

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Myth history

• Non-religious approach to myth
• myths poor versions of history
• Originally
• depictions of historical events
• With time
• imbued with symbolic meaning
• transformed, shifted in time or place, reversed
• Event
• 'dispassionate account' 'legendary occurrence'
  'mythical status'
• account takes on a life of its own
• the facts of the original event have become
  irrelevant

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Definitions

• Frazer
• "By myths I understand mistaken explanations of
  phenomena, whether of human life or of external
  nature."
• Rose
• "We may then define myth proper as the result of
  the working of naïve imagination upon the facts
  of experience."

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Definitions

• Eliade
• Myths narrate a sacred history they relate
  an event that took place in primordial Time, the
  fabled time of beginnings
• Keesing
• "Myths are accounts about how the world came to
  be the way it is, about a super-ordinary realm of
  events before or behind the experienced natural
  world they are accounts that are believed to be
  true and in some sense sacred."
• Needham
• "Myths are timeless stories that describe the
  origin of something - the world, a natural
  phenomenon or some aspect of culture and confront
  us with at least one event or situation which is
  physically or humanly impossible"

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Definitions

• Eslinger
• "Myth is a representation of reality in narrative
  form which expresses a particular worldview."
• Malinowski
• Myths are pragmatic charters of primitive
  faith and moral wisdom.
• Burkert
• Myths are traditional tales with secondary,
  partial reference to something of collective
  importance.
• Lincoln
• Mythology is ideology in narrative form.

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Myth vs folktale and legend

• William Bascom
• The Forms of Folklore  Prose Narratives (1975)
• Donna Rosenberg
• Folklore, Myth, and Legends A World Perspective
  (1996)
• Distinction between folktale, myth and legend
• fictionality
• time period
• setting
• religious importance
• main characters

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Myth vs folktale and legend

• Myths
• sacred stories
• occurred in the remote past
• non-humans (gods, monsters) as the principal
  characters.
• Subjects of myth
• Creation of world and humans
• Cosmic catastrophes
• Origins of institutions
• Phenomena of birth and death
• Relations of the gods with each other and mortals

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Myth vs folktale and legend

• Folktales
• non-sacred fictional stories
• occur "once upon a time"
• feature both human and non-human characters
• Examples
• Fairy tales
• Fables

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Myth vs folktale and legend

• Legends
• Regarded as true stories
• primarily about human heroes
• occurred in the recent past
• may feature some religious references
• Example Legends of Odysseus

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Urban legend/myth

• A type of modern folklore
• supposedly-true stories
• may not have the narrative elements of
  traditional legend
• circulate by word of mouth
• FOAF
• Jan Harold Brunvand
• The Vanishing Hitchhiker American Urban Legends
  Their Meanings (1981)
• legends, myths, and folklore also in modern
  societies
• Tracking and analyzing urban legends
• eg alt.folklore.urban, snopes.com
• eg. MythBusters

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Papal Tiara

• classic urban legend
• Papal Tiara the pope's crown
• Vicarius Filii Dei
• Vicar of the Son of God
• If numerised 666,
• Proof"
• photograph of a papal funeral
• nobody has ever seen

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Epic

• Epic
• compilation of myths, legends, and folk stories
• Goody (1978 1977)
• Epic
• transition from oral to written culture.
• "the domestication of the savage mind"
• cyclical linear thinking
• myth history
• J.G. Linsén (chairman of the SKS) after the
  publication of Kalevala
• Finland could now say I too have history!"

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Kalevipoeg

• Kalevipoeg (The Son of Kalev)
• Compiled by F.R. Kreutzwald in 1857-61
• Kreutzwald
• Germanized Estonian
• never identified himself with Estonian peasant
  culture
• never believed in an independent Estonian nation

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Kalevipoeg

• Kalevipoeg as an epic
• invented collection of stories
• nearly half of them created by Kreutzwald
• various well-known stories omitted
• Invented content of epics
• Kalevala (1835)
• Elias Lönnrot
• Lacplesis ("The Bear Slayer") (1888)
• Andrejs Pumpurs

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Kalevipoeg

• Power of epic
• anonymity and the co-authorship of the past
  generations
• moral value of its mythical content
• Millenarian message
• Kalevipoeg
• a tragic hero
• cuts his legs with his own sword
• chained to the gate of hell
• serfdom of Estonian peasants under German
  landowners
• Soviet occupation

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Kalevipoeg

• Millenarian message
• The last lines of Kalevipoeg
• But one day an age will dawn
• when all spills, at both their ends,
• will burst forth into flame
• and this stark fire will sever
• The vise of stone from Kalevipoeg's hand.
• Then the son of Kalev will come home
• to bring his children happiness
• and build Estonia's life anew.

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Recurring themes in myths

• Creation myths cosmogonic myths
• creation of universe, life and/or humanity
• creation of order from primordial chaos
• creation ex nihilo
• Big Bang theory as a creation myth?
• Trickster myths
• tricks played by gods or heroes
• sometimes maliciously
• usually with ultimately positive intentions

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Recurring themes in myths

• Cataclysmic / destruction myths
• floods
• seasonal death and rebirth
• other
• origin of fire
• coming millennium
• relations between the living and the dead
• two approaches
• Diffusion/ Existence of an original myth
  (Ur-Myth)
• Common experience of humankind

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Study of myths

• First critical studies of myth Ancient Greeks
• Plato (ca. 400 B.C.)
• first to use the word mythologia
• Euhemerus
• gods renowned historical figures
• became deified in time
• Allegorical interpretations
• Greek gods moral principles (Stoics)
• allegorical truths taken literally
• Eg. myth of Kronos, who devoured his children,
• kronos "time, destroys everything
• later philological studies of myth
• eg. Max Müller myths corruptions of language

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Study of myths

• 19th c
• Widening of mythological references
• comparative mythology
• establishing origin of myth by comparative
  methods
• early anthropological studies

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Antropological approaches to myth

• Rationalist
• Eg. Evolutionists
• Functionalist
• Eg. Malinowski
• Psychoanalytical
• Eg. Dundes
• Structuralist
• Eg. Lévi-Strauss

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Rationalist approach

• Myth as primitive scietific theory
• rationalizations of the fundamental mysteries of
  life
• explanations of natural events and forces
• Eg. creation myths
• Evolutionists
• Eg. Müller
• Myths explain origins of natural phenomena
  (naturism)
• Eg. Tylor and Andrew Lang
• Myth-producing certain stage of savage
  mentality
• Eg. Frazer
• means by which people make sense of the world
• all myths originally concerned with fertility
  (birth, death, and resurrection)

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Functionalist approach

• sociological approach
• emphasis on normative and social aspects
• Myths
• a type of social control
• teach morality and social behavior
• ensure stability in a society
• validate present social relations

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Functionalist approach

• Malinowski Myth in Primitive Psychology (1926)
• To understand myth
• one has to observe it in its total social
  context,
• myths
• assert fundamental moral and social rules
• confirm and maintain the social state of affairs
• myth a social charter

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Functionalist approach

• E.g. Trobriand origin myths
• explain and validate incest taboos
• legitimate food taboos
• justify ranks in society
• E.g. myth of the flying canoe
• making a canoe fly with improper magic utter
  failure
• assertion of proper values, norms and ritual
  behaviour

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Functionalist approach

• Malinowski
• The myth comes into play when rite, ceremony, or
  a social or moral rule demands justification,
  warrant of antiquity, reality, and sanctity
• myths have an political function
• means to justify the existing social order
• By presenting it as sacred or natural
• "disguised propoganda in the service of those
  in power"

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Psychoanalytical approach

• Freud
• Myths are symbolic reflections
• of unconscious and repressed fears and anxieties
• Jung
• myths are products of the collective unconscious
• Contain archetypes
• Dundes
• Earth-Diver Creation of the Mythopoeic Male
  (1962)

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Psychoanalytical approach

• Earth-diver myth
• The creation of earth from dirt or mud
• Waters cover earth
• Various animals dive to bring up sand and mud
• One manimal succeeds
• mud put on surface of water becomes land
• widely spread theme especially among Amerindians

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Psychoanalytical approach

• Dundes
• relies on orthodox Freudian theory
• Two theoretical assumptions
• (universal) male pregnancy envy
• desire to give anal/cloakal birth

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Psychoanalytical approach

• Numeorus cross-cultural examples
• Genesis
• Woman born from a man
• Noah builds a womb-ark
• Hinduism
• Ganesh formed from the excrement of his mother
• Chukchee creation myth
• Raven defecates and creates the world

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Psychoanalytical approach

• Numeorus cross-cultural examples
• Clinical data of male fantasies
• Freud, Jung, Lombroso, etc
• Nahuatl
• gold as the excrement of gods
• teocuitlatl gold
• teotl god
• cuitlatl excrement

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Structuralist approach

• Vladimir Propp
• breaking down myths into components
• Lévi-Strauss
• application of structural linguistics (Saussure)
• emphasis on universal binary opposites
• myths are culturally specific transformations of
  these universal structures
• Structural approach to myth
• Two seminal essays
• The Structural Study of Myth (1955)
• The Story of Asdiwal (1961)
• The Savage Mind (1962)
• Mythologiques (1968, 1969, 1971, 1973)

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Structuralist approach

• Myth
• cultural code
• direct insight into the ways the human mind
  operates
• underlying structure
• not evident at the empirical level
• Meaning of the myth
• not in their manifest content
• but in the underlying structure

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Structuralist approach

• mythemes
• Minimal meaningful units of the myth
• Arrangable into thematic columns (bundles of
  relations)
• Eg.
• 1 2 4 7 8
• 2 3 4 6 8
• 1 4 5 7 8
• 3 4 5
• 6 8

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Structuralist approach

• Reading of the myth
• Chronological / diachronic reading
• Rows (top to bottom)
• Understanding the myth
• de-chronologized / synchronic
• columns (left to right like an orchestral score )
  
• Reveals a historical structure
• Retained in additions, translations
• Correlation of columns
• reveal contradictions on an ideological level