Guidelines to Studying Myth

Mores

Mores are "[c]ultural norms that articulate the most basic social values about appropriate behavior and that carry a strong sanction if violated" ("Mores"). One of the colleges I attended had a prohibition against "mixed bathing," which confused me at first since I thought it was a reference to showering instead of to swimming. In my own native Pennsylvania, the church camps I attended, while they allowed teenagers of both genders to swim together, insisted young ladies wear one-piece swimsuits. Jeff Foxworthy is a well known comic who pokes fun at Southern life. One of his comedic "You might be a redneck" jokes is, "If you've gone to a family reunion to meet women, you might be a redneck" ("Jeff Foxworthy," par. 2). This joke is funny because it violates our mores about marriage between people with close kinship ties.

One of my colleagues has a rule that dinner conversation cannot include any references to bodily functions. Comedians like Bill Cosby and Red Skelton avoided swearing in their routines, sometimes criticizing other comics for going for the "easy laugh." I knew a man some years ago, who, when hearing someone use scatological language, would say, "I wouldn't put that in my mouth."

I once attended a church where the pastor believed firmly in preaching passages of the Bible in context rather than leaping from verse to verse. I was surprised, then, one evening when he read the text of his message and stopped in the middle of a sentence. I confess that instead of listening to his sermon, I sat reading the rest of the chapter. I soon realized why he had stopped. The remainder of the chapter was a detailed and graphic analogy comparing Israel to a prostitute. In fact, if Hollywood ever attempted to make a movie that was completely true to the full text of the Bible, it would be rated at least NC-17 for its graphic language, violence, and sexual references. Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ is an example (although he has said that the inspiration for his film was primarily those Renaissance painters portraying the crucifixion). Many movie viewers found the film difficult to watch because of its intense and sustained violence.

Our uneasiness with certain topics or language reflects cultural taboos. A taboo is the "ritual avoidance of a person, place, or thing. The word taboo is Polynesian in origin, but it has come to designate prohibitions in many cultures" ("Taboo").

These examples illustrate the ways in which our society defines its view of appropriate behavior. While all societies have rules about appropriate customs or conventions for behaviors, the rules are not the same for every society.

What this means for our study of myths is that, at times, some of our reading may deal with material which offends our sense of what is appropriate, making us uncomfortable. We will need to set aside our sense of awkwardness and view the myths within the cultures that created them.

Ethnocentrism

Ethnocentrism is "tendency or disposition to judge other ethnic groups, cultures, nations, or societies by the standards and customs of one's own, often accompanied by a dislike or misunderstanding of other such groups and a belief in the intrinsic superiority of one's own" ("Ethnocentrism"). For years, anthropologists referred to ancient or indigenous cultures as "primitive," suggesting those cultures were in some way inferior to Western culture. Sociologists now know that even the most "primitive" cultures have very sophisticated cultures. And some ancient civilizations were capable of feats of engineering that defy modern techniques or explanations.

First landing of Columbus on the shores of the New World:
At San Salvador, W.I., Oct. 12th 1492. New York: Published by
Currier & Ives, c1892. Library of Congress, LC-USZC2-3385

Some of the conflicts between the European invaders and
the indigenous Native Americans arose because of a failure
to understand each others cultures.


Chattanooga is a tourist town. Visitors come from all of the United States and the world. And it doesn't take long for locals to recognize out-of-towners. Even though I have lived in the Chattanooga area since graduating from high school, my voice and mannerisms reflect my Pennsylvania upbringing. I'm still labelled a "Yankee" even though in my home town, Yankees were people who lived in the New England states. Who hasn't heard a local say to some out-of-towner, "You're not from around here" expressed in a tone of gentle disapproval? There is a tendency for people to view their own culture and way of life as "normal" and others, particularly outsiders, as "abnormal" or even "wrong."

People also tend to view the myths associated with their own religion as "normal" and "natural" and the myths of others as "strange" or "fantastic." But if we were honest with ourselves, our own myths are just as "strange" or "fantastic" as many myths by other peoples. The Old Testament has stories about talking animals, magical events (miracles), and heroic achievements.

While it is normal for people to view their own way of life as "natural," we have to avoid judgements about other cultures or an attitude of smug superiority. Instead, we should read the myths of other people for what we can learn about their culture, and, by reflection, our own.

Literary Artifacts

Finally, we need to remember that the myths we read are the literary artifacts of once oral culture. Robert Ellwood has argued that the myths we read are the result of the efforts of poets and storytellers who took the stories passed along from generation to generation and cast them in the language of literature, shaping the stories to fit the exigencies of their art or, sometimes, their own social and political purposes. Like all literature, the myths we read are crafted (Leonard and McClure 25). But accepting that means that we can approach myth the way we approach any work of literature, asking of it the questions that we ask of all literature (Leonard and McClure 26) and exploring any theory of myth that seems suggestive of opening the meaning of the myth we are reading. William Doty suggests that we think of all of the varied approaches to myth as tools in a toolkit rather than definitive answers to the question "What is myth?" (Leonard and McClure 23). Leonard and McClure suggest that the theoretical approaches to myth can help us better understand the elements of literary craft, such as plot, character, or point of view (26) as they are applied to the text of a myth. And a consciousness of the socio-political and cultural landscape from which a myth arises adds another dimension to the reading and understanding of myth as literature (Leonard and McClure 27).

Works Cited

"First Landing of Columbus on the Shores of the New World: LC-USZC2-3385." New York: Published by Currier & Ives, c1892. Prints & Photographs Online Catalog. Library of Congress. Web. 15 July 2006. <http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/i?pp/ils:@field(NUMBER+@band(cph+3b51259)):displayType=1:m856sd=cph:m856sf=3b51259>

"Ethnocentrism." A Dictionary of Psychology. Ed. Andrew M. Colman. Oxford UP, 2006. Oxford Reference Online Premium. Web. 15 July 2006.

"Jeff Foxworthy." Wikipedia. 15 June 2006. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Web. 23 June 2006. <http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jeff_Foxworthy>.

Leonard, Scott and Michael McClure. Myth & Knowing: An Introduction to World Mythology. Boston: McGraw Hill, 2004. Print.

"Mores." Dictionary of the Social Sciences. Ed. Craig Calhoun. Oxford UP, 2002. Oxford Reference Online Premium. Web. 15 July 2006.

"Taboo." Dictionary of the Social Sciences. Ed. Craig Calhoun. Oxford UP, 2002. Oxford Reference Online Premium. Web. 15 July 2006.

HUM 2130 World Mythology