From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 276
Date: 1999-11-15
----- Original Message -----From: markodegard@...Sent: Monday, November 15, 1999 4:12 AMSubject: [cybalist] The Three Functions.Has anyone ever made the observation that the three functions of Dumézil apply in spades to mediaeval Japan? You have the Emperor, the priest-judge, the priest-king, the emblem of the first function. Then you have the shogun, the warrior-king, leader of the samurai, as emblem of the second function. Finally, you have the peasants, the merchants, the working class who fulfill the third function.In societies where warriors have high social standing, this tripartition of societal functions seems logical. Stating this in nasty left-wing terms, the priestly class provides the ideological niceties that justify the two joining together to keep the working classes in their place. Sometimes, the priestly class even convinces the underclass that they need to keep their place and fulfill their function.
In nicer terms, it describes the testosterone-supercharged second-function adolescent who first bears arms. If he does not get himself killed, he graduates from the second function to the third, by settling down, getting married and having children, and becoming man of property. In old age, he becomes the priest, the prophet, the wise man, and fulfills the first function.
I don't think this three-fold division is uniquely Indo-European.
Mark Odegard.
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According to Renfrew (1987) John Brough made, satirically, the same point about ancient Hebrew society as portrayed in the Old Testament. Atsuhito Yoshida, one of Dumézil's own pupils, "discovered" tripartite aspects in Japanese myths and societal ideology. Curiously enough, he concluded, in dead seriousness, that such themes in Japanese culture "undoubtedly go back to Indo-European sources" (mediated by IE Scythians and non-IE Koreans). As far as I know, all the world agrees that it's less trouble to assume that a threefold division may arise independently here and there. By the way, I see Dumézil's more as a creator of mythologies than as a student of them.Piotr