Myth Notes

How do myths help us understand religion?

What is a myth?

• Robert Segal in ‘Myth: A Very Short Introduction’ ‘divides approaches to myth into questions of origin, function and subject matter’

  • ‘myth is first and foremost a story, can take place in past/present/future, main protagonists must be personalities (divine/ human/animal), accomplishes something significant for its adherents who hold to it tenaciously’

• ‘the science of mythology has been the meeting point of various scholarships’, historian/psychoanalyst/archaeologist/sociologist/anthropologist

• ‘it is not an idle tale, but a hard-worked active force; it is not an intellectual explanation/ artistic imagery, but a pragmatic charter of primitive faith and moral wisdom’

  • ‘these stories form an integral part of culture…they govern and control many cultural features, they form the dogmatic backbone of primitive civilization.’

    • ‘the knowledge of which supplies man with the motive for ritual and moral actions as well as with indications as to how to perform them’

• Malinowski’s criticism of view of myths as purely etiological

• ‘the myth can be regarded as constituting the furthest background of a continuous perspective which ranges from an individual’s personal concerns, fears, and sorrow… through the customary setting of belief, through the many concrete cases told from personal experience and memory of past generatons, right back into the epoch where a similar fact is imagines to have occurred for the first time.’

• Malinowski:

  • ‘Myth is above all a cultural force’

  • ‘Also a narrative, some myths are succinct statements, some eminently dramatic’

  • ‘belief whether in magic or religion, is closely associated with the deepest desires of man, his fears, his hopes/passions etc.

  • ‘2 theories of myth were discredited’

    • ‘the view that myth is a rhapsodic rendering of natural phenomena’

    • ‘Andrew Lang’s doctrine that myth is essentially an explanation

  • ‘but once we realise that myth serves to establish a sociological charter/retrospective moral pattern of behaviour it becomes clear that elements both of explanation and of interest in nature must be found in sacred legends.’

• HOW DOES UNDERSTANDING WHAT A MYTH IS HELP US UNDERSTAND RELIGION?

What can myths illuminate about a given religious tradition or religion in general? How?

• ‘myths are seen to exist before and beyond history, absorbing historical experience into a language of signs and archetypes’

• ‘theologians study sacred texts and are concerned with the ways in which people pass on their moral and legal codes, cultural values and historical experience through these stories.’

• WHAT IS ILLUMINATED, HOW, AND HOW DOES THIS HELP US UNDERSTAND RELIGION

The importance of myth

• Malinowski, observing Trobriand people and ‘close relationship between myths and magic for [them]] for whom magic was an everyday necessity’

• ‘how deeply the myth enters into their pursuits, and how strongly it controls their moral and social behaviour’

  • ‘myth is thus a vital ingredient of human civilization’

• ‘myth as it exists in a savage community is not merely a story told but a reality lived… it is a living reality, believed to have once happened.. and continuing ever since to influence the world and human destinies’

• ‘the myth is to the savage what, to a fully believing Christian, is the Biblical sotry of Creation, of the fall… as our sacred story lives in our ritual, in our morality, as it governs our faith and controls our conduct, even so does his myth for the savage.’

• Fiona Bowie ‘The Anthropology of Religion’, ‘societies need myths to codify, express and enhance their social life’

  • ‘myths that focus on social themes encode morality and provide practical rules for the performance of ritual and of technical aspects of life’

• ‘Malinowski accepted from Freud that myths operate below the level of consciousness, arising from our deepest drives and impulses’

• Myth still exerting influence today: Peggy Reeves Sunday in ‘Female Power and Male Dominance’ argues that ‘there is a congruence between the gender of a people’s creator god(s)… and the secular expression of male and female power’ 1981 p6

• The power of myth- Levi-Strauss ‘The Effectiveness of Symbols’, shamanistic curing, The Cuna – song to facilitate difficult childbirth

  • ‘the song constitutes a purely psychological treatment for the shaman does not touch the body of the sick woman and administer no remedy’

  • ‘The cure consists in rendering acceptable in the...

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