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From Myth to Mind
September 14, 1998
The Palaeolithic Mind & the Neolithic Goddess
Definitions of Myth:
I. American Heritage Dictionary [Sixth Printing, 1970]:
1.a. A traditional story originating in a preliterate society, dealing with supernatural beings, ancestors, or heroes that serve as primordial types in a primitive view of the world: "myths bring the unknown into relation with the known'"(Cecil M. Bowra). b. A body of such stories told among a given people; a mythology: in Norse myth. c. All such stories collectively:
"For many writers, myth is the common denominator between poetry and religion." (R. Welleck and A. Warren). 2. Any real or fictional story, recurring theme, or character type that appeals to the consciousness of a people by embodying its cultural ideals or by giving expression to deep, commonly felt emotions: the Oedipal myth; the myth of Horatio Alger. 3. One of the fictions or half-truths forming part of the ideology of a society: the myth of Anglo-Saxon superiority. 4. Any fictitious or imaginary story, explanation, person, or thing: "German artillery superiority on the Western Front was a myth" (Leon Wolff). 5. A notion based more on tradition or convenience than on fact; a received idea: "Without such uncertainty we are left with a set of dogmas and myths." (I.L. Horowitz).
II. Robert Graves, The Greek Myths: (1955) London, Penguin, Introduction, p.12:
"True myth may be defined as the reduction to narrative shorthand of ritual mime performed on public festivals, and in many cases recorded pictorially on temple walls, vases, seals, bowls, mirrors, chests, shields, tapestries, and the like." [see the rest of the page regarding what true myth is NOT, according to Graves].
III. Jane Ellen Harrison, Themis (1912), New York, University Books [Reprint],1962, 327 - 331:
"This primary sense of mythos as simply the thing uttered, expressed by speech rather than action, can never, so long as he reads his Homer, be forgotten by the literary student. But when we come to myth in relation to religion, myth contrasted with ritual, we are apt to forget this primary and persistent meaning, and much confused thinking is the result. The primary meaning of myth in religion is just the same as in early literature; it is the spoken correlative of the acted rite, the thing done; it is to legomenon as contrasted with or rather as related to to drwmenon ..."
IV. Jan Brenner, "What is Greek Myth?" in Interpretations of Greek Mythology, ed. J. Brenner, London, Routledge, 1987, p.7:
"What exactly is a Greek myth? We started this chapter with [Walter] Burkert's definition of myth as 'a traditional tale with secondary, partial reference to something of collective importance'. This definition has proved to be valid for the whole period of Greek history. At the same time, however, we have seen that myths are not always traditional tales, nor is their collective importance the same during the whole of Greek history. Perhaps one could propose a slightly simpler definition: 'traditional tales relevant to society'. It is true that to us the appearance of gods and heroes is an essential part of Greek myth, but the supernatural presence is only to be expected when religion is embedded in society. Western secularised societies have nearly abolished the supernatural, but they usually still have their favourite (historical) tales that serve as models of behaviour or are the expression of the country's ideals. It is their relevance to Greek society that makes the mythoi still fascinating today, for however different the Greek were from us, they were also very much the same."
V. Carl Kerényi, "Prolegomena" in C.G. Jung & C.Kerényi, Science of Mythology: Essays on the Myth of the Divine Child & the Mysteries of Eleusis,1949 [Penguin (Arkana) ed., 1985], p. 2:
"The word 'myth' is altogether too equivocal, blunted, and hazy for our purpose; it does not give us as much of a start, as the expressions that combine the word muqoV with the word legein, meaning 'to put together,' 'say.' Plato, himself a great 'teller of myths,' teaches us from his own experience something of the vitality and motility of what the Greeks called muqologia. This is an art alongside and included within poetry (the two fields overlap), an art with a special assumption as regards its subject-matter. A particular kind of material determines the art of mythology, an immemorial and traditional body of material contained in tales about gods and god-like beings, heroic battles and journeys to the Underworld -- 'mythologem' is the best Greek word for them -- tales already well known but not unamenable to further reshaping. Mythology is the movement of this material: it is something solid and yet mobile, substantial and yet not static, capable of transformation."
VI. Mircea Eliade, Myth and Reality, New York, Harper & Row, 1963, pp. 5 -6.
"Myth narrates a sacred history; it relates an event that took place in primordial Time, the fabled time of the 'beginnings.' In other words, myth tells how, through the deeds of Supernatural Beings, a reality came into existence, be it the whole of reality, the Cosmos, or only a fragment of reality -- an island, a species of plant, a particular kind of human behavior, an institution. Myth, then, is always an account of a 'creation'; it relates how something was produced, began to be. Myth tells only of that which really happened, which manifested itself completely. The actors in myths are Supernatural Beings. They are known primarily by what they did in the transcendent times of the 'beginnings.' Hence myths disclose their creative activity and reveal the sacredness (or simply the 'supernaturalness') of their works. In short, myths describe the various and sometimes dramatic breakthroughs of the sacred (or the 'supernatural') into the World. It is this sudden breakthrough of the sacred that really establishes the World and makes it what it is today. Furthermore, it is a result of the intervention of Supernatural Beings that man himself is what he is today, a mortal, sexed, and cultural being."
II. Narthex & Neolithic:The Goddess and Her Consort
I. Chronological Chart: From the Appearance of Homo Sapiens Sapiens to the Rise of the First Civilizations in the Ancient Near East.
A. Origin of Universe: [15 billions years ago]
B. Origin of the Earth: [4.5 billion years ago]
C. Origins of life on Earth:
1.Pre-cambrian
2. Cambrian
3. Palaeozoic:
4.
D. Branching out of Primates and Hominid Development:
E. Ice Age:
F. Cultural Categories of the Palaeolithic Period: [after H.Breuil]
1. Aurignacian [40,000 - 25,000 BP]
2. Gravettian [25,000 - 20,000 BP]
3. Solutrean [20,000 - 15,000 BP]
4. Magdalenian [15,000 - 10,000 BP]
G. The Neolithic Revolution:
H. First Civilizations of the Near East: Sumer & Akkad:
II. On Palaeolithic Cave Art and Shamanism:
Fate of Shamanism in the evolution of Civilization: declines in proportion to the rise of the polis and priesthood. See Code of Hammurabi [#2: Against sorcery: p. 139 in Pritchard]
III. Neolithic Revolution and Goddess Cultures:
IV. First Civilizations: Sumer & Akkad; the Origins of Patriarchal Society:
Urban Revolution occurred first in China, Mesopotamia, Egypt, India and Mesoamerica
Progressive development from
(1) Neolithic villages (like Çatal Hüyük and Hacilar) to
(2) Agricultural communities, which evolve into
(3) Urban centers (i.e. walled city-states like Jericho) and finally
(4) Nation-states.
According to Gerda Lerner [The Creation of Patriarchy (1986)], archaic states exhibit the following characteristics:
1. Propertied Classes & Hierarchical Social Structure
2. Commodity Production, Specialized Division of Labor, Trade of Surplus
3. Urbanism
4. Emergence & Consolidation of Military Elites
5. Kingship
6. Institutionalized Slavery
7. Transition from Kinship Dominance to Patriarchal Family Structure. Patriarch has the power to distribute wealth. Wives and female children are considered property.
VI. Ancient Mesopotamia: [3900 - 2300 BCE]
A. Female subordination in the family becomes institutionalized and codified in law:
[hierodule = Gr. hieró(n) temple + doûlos slave]
B. Code of Hammurabi: [1728 - 1686 BCE]:(from J.B.Pritchard, Ancient Near East, Princeton Univ. Press, 1958, pp. 138 - 167)
1. #2: 139/ On Sorcery
2. #108-109: 149-150/ Woman Wine Seller
3. #127-184: 152-160/ Domestic life, esp. for women--patriarch as proprietor
4. #209-214: 162/ Injuries inflicted on women
C. Biblical parallels to the Code of Hammurabi:
1. Ruth 3:10/ Boaz buys the widow Ruth to be his wife
2. Deuteronomy 22: 13-30/ strictures on wives & infidelity
3. Numbers 5:11-31/ strictures on wives & infidelity [water of bitterness]
4. Leviticus 18: 1-30/ Nakedness and abomination; Leviticus 20: 10-21/ more abomination
D. Bible on Sex & Drugs:
Quotes
VII. From Palaeolithic Shaman to Neolithic and Bronze Age:
A. Paul Radin, Primitive Religion, "From Magicians to Priests" [pp. 105-133]
105: Whole page;
106: "We shamans of the interior..."
108-109: "The shaman was thus labelled and set apart"
111-113: Eskimo initiation
132: Normal people attracted to Priesthood
B. Neolithic Revolution: Agriculture and Grain
8000 BC--earliest evidence for domesticated grain --from Tell Aswad, Jericho and Nahal Oren (near Red Sea)
4000 BC--earliest evidence for Beer consumption
The Hymn to Ninkasi
Wadley & Martin, "Origins of Agriculture":
1: "Transition to Agriculture": Par. 1 & 2
2: "Rise of civilization": Par. 1-3.
2: "Problems explaining agriculture": Par. 1
3: "Exorphins: opioid substances in food"
5: Exorphins and the Origins of Agriculture