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Myth and
history represent alternative ways of looking at the past. Defining history is
hardly easier than defining myth, but a historical approach necessarily involves
both establishing a chronological framework for events and comparing and
contrasting rival traditions in order to produce a coherent account. The latter
process, in particular, requires the presence of writing in order that
conflicting versions of the past may be recorded and evaluated. Where writing
is absent, or where literacy is restricted, traditions embedded in myths
through oral transmission may constitute the principal sources of authority for
the past.
Hence, myths may be cited when a situation in the present is
materially affected by what version of the past is accepted. For instance, if a
dispute arises among the Iatmul of Papua New Guinea over the rights of
different clans to possess land, the contending parties take part in oral
contests involving the recitation of long lists of mythological names and other
details from the myths. Since each clan’s view of the mythic past has
implications for the ownership of estates by persons living in the present,
victory in these contests is a matter of direct practical importance to the
participants.
Even in
societies where literacy is widespread and where a considerable body of
professional historians is at work, it may still be the case that a majority of
the population form their views of the past on the basis of inherited mythlike
traditions. Examples from the 20th century in Europe would be the polarized
communities (Protestant and Roman Catholic) of Northern Ireland, or pro- and
anti-Communist sympathizers in Greece. In the former case, the two communities
have different and irreconcilable pictures of the events related to the
partition of Ireland. In the latter case, the course of the civil war (after
the end of World War II) is viewed quite differently by the two groups. These
rival traditions may be described as mythlike because they are narratives with
a strong validating function—the function of justifying current enmities and
current loyalties—and they are believed with a quasi-religious faith against
which objective historical testing is all but powerless.
Finally,
similarities to myths may be present even in the work of those who are
justifiably described as historians. A clear instance of this is the ancient
Greek writer Herodotus, the so-called “father of history.” He had the radically
original idea of writing an account of the struggle between the Greek world and
its “barbarian” neighbours during the Persian Wars, an account that combined
and evaluated a range of disparate and often conflicting pieces of information.
On these grounds he should certainly be described as a historian. Yet, his work
is full of themes and story patterns that also occur in Greek myths—for
example, transgression against the gods leads to retribution; again, people who
live at the margins of the Greek world are imagined as having customs that are
the exact inverse of their Greek equivalents. In the work of Herodotus there is
no incompatibility between myth and history; both historical events and the
patterns into which such happenings are perceived as falling form part of his
overall enterprise: namely, to conduct an inquiry (the meaning of the Greek
word historia) into the past. As with the distinction between myth and science,
then, that between myth and history is by no means a straightforward one.
Major
types of myth
MYTHS OF
ORIGIN
Cosmogony
and creation myth are used as synonyms, yet properly speaking, cosmogony is a
preferable term because it refers to the origin of the world in a neutral
fashion, whereas creation myth implies a creator and something created, an
implication unsuited to a number of myths that, for example, speak of the
origin of the world as a growth or emanation, rather than an act. Even the term
origin should be used with caution for cosmogonic events (as well as for other
myths purporting to describe the beginning of things), because the origin of
the world hardly ever seems the focal point of a mythological narrative—as a
mythological narrative is not a matter of inquiry into the first cause of
things. Instead, cosmogonic myths are concerned with origins in the sense of
the foundation or validity of the world as it is. Creation stories in both
primitive and advanced cultures frequently speak of the act of creation as a
fashioning of the earth out of raw material that was already present. In
African cosmogonies, especially, the earth is preexistent. A creation out of
nothing occurs as a theme much less frequently, for all that such creation
myths are more satisfying to the philosophical mind. Philosophical questions,
however, are less important in the justificatory systems set up by myth.
Water,
though important everywhere as a source of life and image of endless
potentiality, has a special role in Asia and North America, where the creator
(often an animal) is assisted by another figure, who dives for earth in the
primordial ocean. The earth-diver helper sometimes develops into an opponent,
or Satan-like character, in other areas—e.g., those touched by Zoroastrianism,
an ancient Persian dualistic religion. Though hardly an explanation in the ordinary
sense of the word, the theme accounts for the fact that evil is constitutive of
the cosmos without holding the creator responsible for it. Other widely
diffused motifs are: the cosmogonic egg, found in the Pacific world, parts of
Europe and southern Asia (e.g., in Hinduism); the world parents (usually in the
image of sky and earth); and creation through sacrifice or through a primordial
battle. Creation through the word of the creator also occurs outside the
biblical account (in Polynesia).
Cosmogony
sets the pattern for everything else in most traditions; other myths are
related to it or derived from it. Because man’s inhabitable world, the cosmos,
is the crucial issue, no matter how various the contents may be and how
different from one period to another, cosmogony probably is the clearest
expression of man’s basic mythological propensity. All cosmogonic accounts have
certain formal features in common. They speak of irreconcilable opposites
(e.g., heaven and earth, darkness and light) and, at the same time, of events
or things totally outside the common range of perception and reason (e.g., a
“time” in which heaven and earth were not yet separated and darkness and light
intermingled). In other words, the basic ingredients of man’s world and orientation
are presupposed yet are realized, constituted, or brought about anew in the
narration. The narrative can arrive at such a reconstitution only by
transcending the limits of ordinary perception and reason.
The
origin of man is usually linked immediately to the cosmogony. Man, for
instance, is placed on the earth by God, or in some other way his origin is
from heaven. Nevertheless, it is only in mythologies influenced by
philosophical reflections that the place of man becomes the conspicuous centre
of the cosmogony (e.g., Pythagoreanism, a Greek mystical philosophical system;
Orphism, a Greek mystical religious movement; Gnosticism, a Christian dualistic
and esoteric movement; and Tantrism, a Hindu and Buddhist esoteric meditation
system). Man is sometimes said to have ascended from the depths of the earth
(as with the Zuni, an American Indian people) or from a certain rock or tree of
cultic significance. These images are often related to the idea of a realm of
ancestors as the origin of newborn children. Man is also said to be fashioned
from the dust of the ground (as in Genesis) or from a mixture of clay and blood
(as in the Babylonian creation myth). In all cases, however, man has a
particular place (because of his duties to the gods, because of his limitations,
or even because of his gifts), even though—especially in many hunters’
civilizations (e.g., the African San peoples and many North American Indian
tribes)—the harmony of man and other forms of nature is emphasized.
In most
cosmogonic traditions the final or culminating act is the creation of man. The
condition of the cosmos prior to man’s arrival is viewed as separate and
distinct from the alterations that result from the beginning of the human
cultural world. Creation is thus seen as a process of periods or stages,
frequently in a three-stage model. The first stage consists of the world of
gods or primordial beings; the second stage is the world of the ancestors of
man; and the third stage is the world of man. The three stages are sometimes
seen as interrelated; for example, the gods may be the creators of man or the
ancestors of man, or ancestors may undergo a transformation to become men.
Among
innumerable tales of origin, one of the most common types is related to the
origins of institutions. Certain initiation ceremonies or ritual acts are said
to have originated in the beginning, in mythical times, this primeval moment of
inception constituting their validity.
MYTH AND HISTORY