MYTHOLOGY

Professor Shermon O. Cruz

The soul of the planet speaks to us through the mythic imagination

Jonathan Young

Myth is the secret opening through which the inexhaustible energies of the cosmos pour into human cultural manifestation. Joseph Campbell

Have you ever contemplated what makes a great story? How is it that humankind has generated so many great stories throughout history?
Why does the reader feel aligned with the heroes of these stories in such a way that the stories go beyond the printed word and impact our own lives back here in "the real world"?

QUESTIONS
What is myth? What is mythology? What is the difference between myth and mythology? Are myth real or unreal? Fact or fiction? What is the nature of myth? What are the characteristics Of myth? What are the origins of myth?

What are the different types of myth and different classifications of them? Do Myths have to be sacred?

MYTH
Myths came from the Ancient Greek word mythos which means a story, discourse or speech, word or narrative. Myths are the old tales and stories that came from to us from very long ago and are found among many countries and culture.

MYTHOLOGY

Refer to the study of myths or to a body of myths.

Mythology is a canon of stories created by a culture and passed down through the generations of that culture. Elizabeth Vandiver,

MYTHOLOGY
Armenian Celtic Christian Chinese Egyptian Greek Hindu Islamic Japanese Jewish Maya Mesopotamian Norse Roman Slavic

WHAT IS MYTH
According to Joseph Campbell, it can be summed up as other peoples religion.

WHAT IS MYTH?
As stories (or narratives), myths articulate how characters undergo or enact an ordered sequence of events. Myths are symbolic tales of the distant past (often primordial times) that concern cosmogony and cosmology (the origin and nature of the universe), may be connected to belief systems or rituals, and may serve to direct social action and values.

Myths are defined as tales believed as true, usually sacred, set in the distant past or other worlds or parts of the world, and with extrahuman, inhuman, or heroic characters. Such myths, often described as cosmogonic, or origin myths,

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORKS

Myths are Cosmogonic Narratives, connected with the Foundation or Origin of the Universe (and key beings within that universe), though often specifically in terms of a particular culture or region.

Myths are Narratives of a Sacred Nature, often connected with some Ritual. Myths are often foundational or key narratives associated with religions. These narratives are believed to be true from within the associated faith system (though sometimes that truth is understood to be metaphorical rather than literal). Within any given culture there may be sacred and secular myths coexisting.

Myths are Narratives Formative or Reflective of Social Order or Values within a Culture. See functionalism. Myths are Narratives Representative of a Particular Epistemology or Way of Understanding Nature and Organizing Thought. For example, structuralism recognizes paired bundles of opposites (or dualities -- like light and dark) as central to myths.

Mythic Narratives often Involve Heroic Characters (possibly proto-humans, super humans, or gods) who mediate inherent, troubling dualities, reconcile us to our realities, or establish the patterns for life as we know it.

Myths are Narratives that are "Counter-Factual in featuring actors and actions that confound the conventions of routine experience" (McDowell, 80).

CHARACTERISTICS OF MYTH
1.

A story that is or was considered a true explanation of the natural world (and how it came to be).

2. Characters are often non-human e.g. gods, goddesses, supernatural beings, first people. 3. Setting is a previous proto-world (somewhat like this one but also different).

4. Plot may involve interplay between worlds (this world and previous or original world). 5. Depicts events that bend or break natural laws (reflective of connection to previous world). 6. Cosmogonic/metaphysical explanation of universe (formative of worldview).

7. Functional: Charter for social action conveys how to live: assumptions, values, core meanings of individuals, families, communities.

8. Evokes the presence of Mystery, the Unknown (has a sacred tinge). 9. Reflective and formative of basic structures (dualities: light/dark, good/bad, being/nothingness, raw/cooked, etc.) that we must reconcile. Dualities often mediated by characters in myths.

10. Common theme: language helps order the world (cosmos); thus includes many lists, names, etc.

11. Metaphoric, narrative consideration/explanation of ontology (study of being). Myths seek to answer, Why are we here? Who are we? What is our purpose? etc. lifes fundamental questions.

12. Sometimes: the narrative aspect of a significant ritual (core narrative of most important religious practices of society; fundamentally connected to belief system; sometimes the source of rituals)

DO MYTHS HAVE TO BE SACRED?

Divinities form the core of all mythology (1882-83, xvi-xvii).

Malinowski added that they must be sacred, and discussed how they serve society as a charter for action. Many great social theorists from the 19th and early 20th centuries (Freud, Frazer, Muller, Jung, etc.) used myths (usually collected by others) as evidence of their universal truths their a priori theories (see scholarship as myth section below). Many fieldworkers like Lvi-Strauss, Franz Boas (and his students), and Dell Hymes used deductive methods in analyzing myths.

More recent scholars, like William Hansen, argue that the sacred element of myths is a recent attachment to definitions (perhaps beginning with the Grimms and then solidified by Malinowski).

But in his studies of ancient Greek myths, Hansen notes that NOT all myths had a sacred element. They were not necessarily connected to religious beliefs, but were often secular stories.
While myths do not have to have a sacred element, they DO appear to share a world-forming, or worldviewforming function.

FUNCTIONALISM
Myths serves as charter for social action. A myth is always explanatory. Myths serve to explain and encourage worldview and good action within society.

STRUCTURALISM
Myths serve to mediate conflicting or dualistic elements of society and life. There is a basic antimony pertaining to the nature of myth and to human nature. Good and bad, light and darkness appear in bundles in myth. mythical thought always works from the awareness of oppositions towards their progressive mediation

NATURE OF MYTHS
The main characters in myths are usually gods, supernatural heroes, and men; As sacred stories, myths are often endorsed by rulers and priests and closely linked to religion;

ORIGINS OF MYTH
Euhemerism - Myths are distorted accounts of real historical events. - According to this theory, storytellers repeatedly upon historical accounts until the figures in those accounts gained the status of gods. - This theory is named euhemerism after the mythologist Euhemerus who suggested that the Greek gods developed from legends about human beings.

ORIGINS OF MYTH
Allegory - Myths began as allegories for natural phenomena. (Apollo represents War, Poseidon represents water, etc.) - Myths began as allegories for philosophical and spiritual concepts. (Athena represents wise judgment. Aphrodite represents desire.)

ORIGINS OF MYTH
Personification Some theories believed myths resulted from the personification of inanimate objects and forces. Ancients worshipped natural phenomena such as fire and air, gradually coming to describe them as gods.

ORIGINS OF MYTH
Myth-ritual theory The existence of myth is tied to ritual. Myths arose to explain rituals. This claim was first put forward by the biblical scholar William Robertson Smith.[31] According to Smith, people begin performing rituals for some reason that is not related to myth; later, after they have forgotten the original reason for a ritual, they try to account for the ritual by inventing a myth and claiming that the ritual commemorates the events described in that myth.

FUNCTIONS OF MYTH
Mircea Eliade argued that one of the foremost functions of myth is to establish models for behavior and that myths may also provide a religious experience.

By telling or reenacting myths, members of traditional societies detach themselves from the present and return to the mythical age, thereby bringing themselves closer to the divine.

FUNCTIONS OF MYTH
Lauri Honko asserts that, in some cases, a society will reenact a myth in an attempt to reproduce the conditions of the mythical age. For example, it will reenact the healing performed by a god at the beginning of time in order to heal someone in the present.

FUNCTIONS OF A MYTH

Roland Barthes argues that modern culture explores religious experience. Because it is not the job of science to define human morality, a religious experience is an attempt to connect with a perceived moral past, which is in contrast with the technological present.

FUNCTIONS OF MYTH
Joseph Campbell defined myths as having four basic functions: the Mystical Function--experiencing the awe of the universe; the Cosmological Function-explaining the shape of the universe; the Sociological Function--supporting and validating a certain social order; and the Pedagogical Function--how to live a human lifetime under any circumstances.

DIVINE MOTHER (GODDESS)

Isis, Egyptian Mother Goddess

Arianrhod, Silver wheel (Celtic)

Guan Yin, Chinese Goddess, Childless women turn for help

Kali, The Hindu Mother Goddess

GODDESSES

Asherah, Goddess of the Israelites

Eve of the Hebrew

Ixchel, The Mayan Goddess

Inanna, Mesopotamian Goddess

Anahita, Goddess of Persia

Eos, Greek Goddess of Dawn

GODS

Zeus, The Greek God

Osiris, The Sun-God, God of the Nile, Egypt

Ammun, The Egyptian Ram God

Baal, Phoenician Sun-God

Brahma, One of the Great Hindu Gods

Tul-Harubang. Korean Stone Grandfather

Hotei, One of the Seven Shinto Gods

Dagon, Ancient Mesopotamian God

Odin, Chief Divinity of the Norse Pantheon, Nordic

Mithra, The God of Light

Thor, The Norse God of Thunder and Lightning

APHRODITE GOVERNS DESIRE AND SEXUALITY. SHE IS ALSO KNOWN AS CYTHEREA, CYPRIS, AND VENUS (ROMAN). SHE IS OFTEN PICTURED WITH A SCEPTRE OR A MIRROR.

Birth of Aphrodite, 470, 480 BC

Aphrodite, Greek goddess of Love

HEAD OF APHRODITE, COIN

APHRODITE, JUDGMENT OF PARIS, 600 BC

Apollo is associated principally with music, prophecy, sickness, and medicine. He is also known as Phoebus Apollo and is called the Far Shooter and the Pythian. (He has no separate Roman name.) His attributes in iconography are the cithara, or sometime the lyre, the bow, the fawn, and the tripod. He is often depicted with his sister, Artemis.

Apollo, 4th BC

Apollo, 1526,

Hades is the god of the underworld. He is also known as Pluto, Plouton, Dis (Roman), and Aidoneus. His attributes in iconography are the cornucopia and the sceptre.

Pluto and Proserpina, French manuscript, 15th century, MM

Pluto, Carracci, Agostino, 1592, MM

Pompeiian wall painting, Casa dei Venus, 1st century AD

Botticelli, Sandro, 15th century,

Venus and Cupid, 1531

Zeus, The bust of Zeus, Chief god of the Greeks.

Zeus, the god of all gods

Zeus, the palace of Zeus on Mount Olympus.

Partenon de Atenas (Parthenon)

Dionysus, the god of wine and vine, the lamb of Zeus, the son of Zeus (God) and Semele (man); The only Greek god with a mortal parent; death and resurrection , dying and returning god; travelled the world; appears before King Pentheus on charges of claiming divinity.

Amor, The god of love. Aeneas, One of the most respected of the Trojan heroes and founder of the Roman culture.

Highest Egyptian Diety, Amun. He created Aneph and Athor by his word or will.

Osiris, Egyptian, Sun-god

The Pyramid of Egypt, 1500-1700BCE

Horus and Osiris, 1500 BCE

Madonna with Child, 15th -17th Century

Madonna with Child, 21st century, Hehehe

Osiris, Death and Resurrection of Osiris, 1500BCE

Serapis, Jupiter, Osiris Hellenistic Era

Mictlantecuhtli The Aztec god of hell and death, ruler of the underworld Mictlan.

The Jade Emperor

The Jade Emperor

DaodeTianzun LingbaoTianzun The Three Pure Ones YuanshiTianzun

The Eight Immortals

WenChang-MingDynasty

Guan-Yu, Chinese God of War

Guan Yu Temple on a Chinatown in Japan,

Lei Gong, China Thunder God

Fuxi and Nuwa