W
ith rare exceptions—
such as a recently
discovered Amazonian
tribe, the Pirahãs—every human
culture has developed its own
mythology to explain its origins
and make sense of the phenomena
observed in the natural world.
The word “mythology” comes
from the Greek muthos, meaning
“story,” and logia, “k nowledge.”
Myths tell of the creation of the
world or predict its end; they
explain how animals were made
and the land formed; they bridge
the world of humans and the world
of the spirits or gods; they try to
impose order on a terrifying chaos,
and to confront the mysteries of
death. Crucially, myths are also the
foundation of religions: they define
cultures and codify their values.Ancient civilizations
The mythologies of the ancient
world take up much of this book.
In ancient Mesopotamia—in the
crucible of civilization of the 4th
millennium BCE, when humankind
first learned to live in cities—the
Sumerians developed the first
recorded pantheon of deities. It
was preserved in statues, carvings,
and ancient texts, such as The Epic
of Gilgamesh, in which the
eponymous hero searches forimmortality. Such a quest was
repeated in myths the world over.
Subsequent Mesopotamian
civilizations developed, demoted,
or culled the Sumerian gods and
the myths associated with them.
The powerful goddess Inanna, for
example, became Ishtar in the
Babylonian pantheon and later the
Phoenician goddess Astarte.
Like other civilizations, ancient
Mesopotamia was shaped by the
narratives it used to explain the
cosmos. Its rulers were guided by
the gods, whose capricious will
was interpreted by priests. The
gods had to be continually praised
and placated. During the Akitu,
a 12-day festival held in the great
temple of Marduk, people chantedthe Enuma Elish, the Babylonian
myth of Creation, with the force of
a magical incantation in their ritual
reenergizing of the cosmos.Great cultures
Myths had a great influence on the
societal fabric of history’s greatest
civilizations. The rich and complex
mythology of ancient Egypt
emphasized the creation of order
out of chaos. Such stories validated
the governance of society and
legitimized a status quo in which
the pharaoh himself was viewed
as divine and therefore worthy of
being served. The Egyptians also
saw time as cyclical; events that
happened in their society were
merely repeating what had
happened before and had been
recorded in their myths.
In ancient Greece and Rome,
the foundation myths of city-states
were fundamental to the concepts
of citizenship; they bound ideas of
patriotism and common interest
with divine authority. In Greece,
which consisted of more than 1,
city-states, each had a founding
myth and a protective deity, which
led to a highly complex set of myths
that was often contradictory. It took
the poets Homer and Hesiod to
create a comprehensive, pan-
Hellenic record of Greek mythology.12 INTRODUCTION
Myth is the facts of the
mind made manifest in a
fiction of matter.
Maya Deren
AnthropologistUS_012-013_Introduction.indd 12 05/12/17 4:15 pm
Homer’s epic stories—the Iliad and
Odyssey—and Hesiod’s Theogony
comprised the first and most
authoritative attempts to weave
the disparate Greek myths into
one narrative thread.
In ancient Rome, the local
myths of Italic peoples, such as the
Latins and the Etruscans, blended
with the Greek myths that had
gone before them. The poet Virgil
composed a foundation myth for
Rome, the Aeneid, consciously
modeled on the epics of Homer,
while Ovid retold many Greek
myths in his narrative poem
Metamorphoses, and recorded the
myths of a number of purely Roman
deities in his poem on the religious
year, Fasti. The Romans enriched
the mix by adding deities from
Phrygia (such as the Great Mother
Cybele), Egypt (the goddess Isis),
and Syria (Elagabal, or Sol Invictus,
briefly the chief god of Rome).Preserving myths
The line between literature, myth,
and folktale is blurry; many myths
have been preserved as literary
works. The popular tales of King
Arthur are rooted in Celtic myth,
while the Ramayana and the
Mahabharata, the great works of
Hindu mythology, are celebrated
masterpieces of epic poetry.In preliterate societies, myths were
recited and passed along orally.
The written recording of a myth
depended on luck, which probably
led to the disappearance of a great
many mythologies. Even in literate
societies, such as the Viking-Age
Norse, some myths survived
through only a single source. Had
the manuscripts of the mythological
poems known as the Edda—and of
Snorri Sturluson’s later Prose
Edda—been destroyed, we would
know as little about Norse
mythology as we do about the
myths of the ancient Britons.Living religions
Many tribal peoples—including the
Dogon of Mali, the Baiga of central
India, the Tikopia of the Solomon
Islands, and the Ifugaos of the
Philippines—still live in a world
suffused by what outsiders might
call myths. Oral tradition in these
societies is remarkably enduring:
as proven by the abundant myths
or Dreamings of the Aboriginal
Australians, the myths of the
déma (creation spirits) among the
Marind-Anim people of New
Guinea, or the eloquent Chantways
of the Navajo in North America.
Many myths from these peoples,
however, have not reached the
outside world because they aresecret, or they have not been
collected or translated, or they have
been lost as exposure to outsiders
has attacked and destroyed
indigenous cultures.
Mythology is the territory of
poetic imagination, and the stories
individual cultures tell are a
profound expression of the creative
impulse. Yet myths are more than
simply stories; they are the stories
cultures tell themselves about the
great mysteries that perplex and
intrigue us all: questions of birth
and death and everything in
between. Even now, myths remain
the bearers of tradition and the
spiritual and moral guide of peoples
all across the globe. ■INTRODUCTION 13
Myth ... takes all the things
you know and restores to them
the rich significance hidden
by the veil of familiarity.
C. S. Lewis
Writer, scholar, and author of
The Chronicles of NarniaUS_012-013_Introduction.indd 13 21/12/2017 12: