Re: Excessive Literalism in Myth Interpretation?

--- In cybalist@..., "tycho137" <petrich@...> wrote:

> One thing one has to be careful about in myth interpretation: not
> to take myths too literally as history. The posited phase of the
> killing of sacred kings seems to me to be that sort of literalism;

I

> think that the myths held to justify such an inference were
> invented to justify offering the Gods something lesser than the
> reigning leader. This is because most well-documented leaders
> do not consent to being executed at the end of their terms in
> office; it's unlikely that their less-documented predecessors
> were much different.

i think you have a good point there: Although there was cerainly
human sacrifice of some kind going on, it does seem likely that there
was a "substitute" death, representing the principle of sacrificing
the king. I don't think it rules out the idea of the practice being
more literally practiced at some time/place, though.

> A similar kind of myth may be a certain story of Zeus and
> Prometheus, in which Prometheus got Zeus to accept the less
> tasty parts of a sacrificial animal such as the bones and sinews
> and so forth, thus letting the sacrificers eat the big muscles and
> other tasty parts. Would this myth reflect a prehistory of offering
> the tastiest parts to Zeus and eating only the bones and sinews
> and the like? Not necessarily; it may have been invented to justify
> keeping the tastiest parts for oneself while seeming like a
> faithful worshipper.
>
> Another such example of excessive literalism may be stories of
> women ruling; this could be invented by the men to justify their
> continued dominance by offering object examples of the
> dangers of letting women rule. Thus, in classical Greek sources,
> the Amazons were great villains.


> In fairness to a more literalist approach, however, women having
> a greater status in society might naively be interpreted as female
> rule; there is some evidence of Sarmatian women fighting
> alongside men, which may have inspired some of the stories of
> Amazons.
>
> Finally, some myths seem to be Just So Stories; thus the Adam
> and Eve story in the Bible "explains" why snakes crawl on their
> bellies -- a long-ago snake was punished for doing some
> mischief.

True, although I think there are other issues being adresseed in the
snake story as well. The serpent is a widespread mythological
archetype, and I think the snake story incorporates some of these
into its makeup
For instance, the myths where snakes attack goddesses(Apollo and
Leto, for instance), and the "pandora's box" story where an extended
serpent(phallic reference?) was inside-Giving mankind its troubles.

> So one ought to avoid all-encompassing theories of the
> meaning of myths; a myth can be any of several things --
> distorted or misunderstood history (Sarmatian Amazons),
> justifications for some practice (offering the least tasty parts),

or

> explanations of some phenomena (snakes crawling on their
> bellies).

That is true-Interpreting myth with only one method can lead to some
pretty far-fetched conclusions. As an amateur mythology buff, I can't
say I'm not guilty of this crime from time to time.

Cort Williams