Mythology: The Reason Why Page Two

Mythology
The Reason Why

As early as 316 BC the writer Euemerus maintained that myths are history in disguise, and that all the gods were once men whose feats had been decorated and distorted through the generations. This theory was greatly to the liking of St Augustine and the early Christian writers, and it was revived in the seventeenth century by philosophers, noticing there were some myths that had a startling resemblence to passages in the bible. They considered the myths were a distorted form of an original revelation, the bible being the pure version. One french abbey in 1738 went so far as to systematically resolve all the Greek myths, wild and wonderful as many of them were, into ordinary history, no easy task..
In fact, the great enemy to the understanding of mythology were the writers on mythology, who scholarly and with dedication, pursued their own furrows, disregarding commonsense and creating mystery where there was none. There was a good deal of discussion about whether primative races had the same thought processes as modern man, , whether as they put it, there was "a period of temporary madness, through which the human mind had to pass, and it was a madness identically the same in the south of India and the north of Iceland?"
Early academics and anthropologists working amongst the native peoples of Africa and the "red men of the American continent" were mostly unable to separate their studies from the racist attitudes of the time. But Max Muller, who carried out much of this research, was able to make one or two persuasive comments about the stages of myth making. The 'savage" needs to know the "reason why".
What was the origin of the world, and of men, and of beasts? How came the arrangement of the stars and why do they move around? How are the movements of the sun and the moon to be accounted for? why did a certain tree have red flowers and why were some birds black and some white? there was such an eagerness to find out the answers to these questions that there was always someone ostensibly wiser than the rest who would supply them, and even the most ludicrous theories were given considerable thought until they were rejected in favour of something better -"world myths". The simplest of these was the sun was a great god.
There was intense interest in the way the same myths were spread throughout the world, and notions of hazardous journeys of exploration were debated. The simple answer of course is that mankind everywhere observed the heavens with awe,and it is not surprising that the most common myth is worship of the Sun.

There may be civilizations which are ahead of others (just as the Chinese was when the western world was in the throes of the dark ages) but there is no question that all the cultures have passed through the phase when little makes sense and what does is often terrifying. Another common myth is the strange concept of death. Natural death was simply not believed in; when someone died it was automatically assumed that he or she was the victim of some supernatural plot, had failed to make the requisite rites, or had somehow incured the wrath of the gods. Naturally enough some of the myths were not thrown out, simply because there was nothing better to put in their place. Some of them were startlingly bizarre. The Aborigines in Australia thought that the wild dog, the Dingo, had the power of human speech; peasants in Britanny( which had much the same historical background as Ireland, a country to which the ancient Celts fled) credited all birds with language which they claimed to be able to interpret; the Mexicans believed that pregnant woman would turn into beasts and sleeping children into mice if certain rituals were not carried through. These theories were held often over many centuries and refutal was impossible, but before we scorn other ancient and modern races they would surely regard our superstitions about walking under ladders and the number thirteen with the same incredulity. Superstition and mythology are inextricably linked.
Primative people were fearful, and every object, animate or inanimate could arouse dread. They wanted protection from the malevolent forces which they saw all around them, and they were never quite certain what was evil and what was not. Whether the smiling sun would turn into a howling gale with thunder and lightening. So they turned to one of their own who was braver and bolder than they were, who had proved himself in battle, and thus began the hero worship which is characteristic feature of mythology.
When all communication was by word of mouth, travelling story tellers, by all the different names they were known as, were greatly in demand, and have been until recent times. As it was their business, the story tellers, while claiming to be giving fact, gave their audiences what they wanted to hear - Tales of daring do and heroism, not of this world, together with horror stories, the "silly, savage and senseless" elements so denounced by the learned professors. And they were open in admitting this; a story teller who could not make a coherent tale by taking bits of this story and bits from that one was no true poet..

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