Ritual and Power –
Lecture on myth § 2
31 August 2001
How did different anthropologists
approach myth? One of the main ways of interpreting it was through the study of
“myth and ritual”, which can be traced to the Scottish Semitist, theologian and
Biblical scholar, William Robertson Smith (1846-1894). But first, briefly, on
theories of some early scholars…
Sir
E. B. Tylor (1832-1917) considered myths to be expression of a kind of
“primitive mentality” that is incompatible with the modern ideas of progress
and reason. In his view, myth is totally opposed to and incompatible with
science. In order to study the progress of human race, one must study
“contemporary primitives”, in whose thought one could observe the creation,
function, and development of myths.
Sir
James George Frazer (1854-1941) in his monumental Golden Bough (first ed. 1890, abridged edition 1922) tried to
explain myths through studies of cultures where they originate. Myths are means
by which people make sense of the world, in the progress of human mind (which
he saw in three big stages: Magic, Religion, and Science). Frazer interpreted
myths symbolically: myths of the death and rebirth of the god of vegetation,
for example, testify to the natural cycles of death and rebirth of vegetation
itself.
Andrew
Lang (1844-1912) applied a comparative ethnographic method to the study of
ancient Greek myths. His intention was to compare “the apparent customs and
uses that don’t make sense of the civilised races with the similar customs and
uses that can be found among the civilised peoples, which still have their
plain signification.” He considered myths of the American Indians, Australian
Aborigines, the Bushmen and the Eskimos as the key to understand the mentality
of the ancient Greeks.
Unlike
many of his contemporaries, who wrote extensively about peoples and cultures
that they had never seen, Smith was able to make several trips to the
geographic area of his expertise. In the
winter of 1878/79 he went to Cairo and Palestine. His relatively dark
complexion, the fact that he wore native clothes, and his excellent command of
Arabic enabled him to blend easily with people and make friends. He returned to
the Middle East in 1880, and then traveled extensively throughout the Arabian
peninsula all the way to Suez, spending two months at Jeddah and visiting
Palestine, Syria, and Tunis (Smith 1912b).
He again traveled to the Middle East in 1889 and 1890.
Details
and observations from the 1880 trip were preserved in a series of 11 letters
published between February and June 1880 in the Scotsman. In this ethnographic account Smith demonstrates his great
knowledge of the countries that he traveled through and the customs of the
people inhabiting them. Unfortunately,
he was also a prisoner of the prejudices of his time, quite happy with his own
Britishness (ibid.: 493, 500), and
not particularly well disposed towards Islam (p. 511). In regard to the
distribution of Christian books in the area, he noted that “in the interests of
civilisation and of that progress which is seriously retarded by the current
Moslem notion that their dry and barren literature is the most perfect that can
be considered, it is heartily to be desired that a door should be opened to the
circulation of Christian literature” (pp. 566-567). This, among other things,
because he believed that “[t]he Koran is the bullwark of all the prejudices and
social backwardness in the East” (p. 568).
Smith
came to anthropology after the publication of Tylor’s Primitive Culture (1871), and he shared an evolutionist perspective
(cf. Smith 1914: 2; Jones 1984: 50-51)[1]
with his fellow anthropologists.[2]
He firmly believed that Christianity (especially as exemplified in Scottish
Presbyterianism) is the highest possible form of religion, although he did give
credit to the ancient Semitic peoples (especially the Jews) for being
essentially on the right track. Both the Arabs and the Jews, he felt,
represented religious practices that Christian religion had to pass in the
past, so it was very important to understand these religions (as well as other,
“primitive” ones, which could be successfully contrasted with them) in order to
fully understand Christianity.
The
“comparative method” that he advocated was based on the concept of “survivals,”
made especially popular by Tylor. These “survivals” were traits of the ancient
beliefs and social customs that have been preserved in the contemporary
societies, even though their original function and meaning were lost. The main
problem with this method, as pointed out
by Margit Warburg, was “that deciding whether something is a survival or not
must be based on a priori
suppositions of the direction and character of historical development. As a
consequence the method easily leads to tautologies and/or becomes supported by
prejudices” (1989: 45).
In
his article “Sacrifice” for the Encyclopædia
Britannica, Smith makes a distinction between “natural” and “positive”
religions (1886: 132). The former ones (“nature religions of the civilized
races of antiquity”) are defined as
... [the] religions which had
a predominantly joyous character, and in which the relations of man to the gods
were not troubled by any habitual and oppressive sense of human guilt, because
the divine standard of man’s duty corresponded broadly with the accepted
standard of civil conduct, and therefore, though the god might be angry with
his people for a time, or even irreconcilably wroth with individuals, the idea
was hardly conceivable that he could be permanently alienated from the whole
circle of his worshippers, — that is,
from all who participated in a certain local (tribal or national) cult.
(Smith 1886:
134; cf. also Smith 1914: 285)
On
the other hand, “positive” religions are the ones of the inhabitants of the
ancient Near East, or, as Smith put it, “Judaism, Christianity and Islam are
positive religions” because they “trace their origin to the teaching of the
great religious innovators, who spoke as the organs of a divine revelation, and
deliberately departed from the traditions of the past” (1914: 1). Smith also
saw these religions as “tribal or national” (1892: 281), a concept which
introduced a very important social component into the study of religion.
The god, it would appear, was
frequently thought of as the physical progenitor or first father of his people.[3]
At any rate, the god and his worshippers formed a natural unity, which was also
bound up with the land they occupied... The dissolution of the nation destroys
the national religion, and dethrones the national deity. The god can no more exist without his people than the nation without
its god [emphasis mine].[4]
(Smith
1892: 281)
The supreme deity is associated with
the concept of the ruler or king (1886: 133).[5]
The local god is in this perspective seen as a mediator between the people and
the various aspects of their environment (“nature”), so the worshippers are in
a permanent alliance with selected aspects of a natural life (1914: 124). The
beginnings of the sociology of religion do not seem too far from realizations
like this one:
We are so accustomed to think
of religion as a thing between individual men and God that we can hardly enter
into the idea of a religion in which a whole nation in its national
organisation appears as the religious unit, — in which we have to deal not with
the faith and obedience of individual persons, but with the faith and obedience
of a nation as expressed in the functions of national life.
(Smith 1902: 20)
This
social concept of religion predates Durkheim and, in fact, Durkheim (1982:
XV-XVI, 311, 371 ff; cf. also Beidelman 1974: 58) was quite clear in giving
Smith the credit that he deserves.[6]
Like
the great majority of his contemporaries (with the notable exception of Müller
and his followers), Smith believed that the best way to study religion was to
examine its most primitive form. In the case of the Semitic peoples, this form
was preserved in the life and customs of the Bedouin pastoralists, an argument
that he already made in his book Kinship
and Marriage in Early Arabia (1885). His emphasis on the social components
of religion led him to postulate that it is the action that matters, much more than the belief. The ritual, therefore, must come before the myth. The
passage where Smith argued for the supremacy of ritual over myth is one of the
most influential passages in the history of anthropology, so I will quote from
it extensively:
In all the antique religions,
mythology takes the place of dogma; that is, the sacred lore of priests and
people, so far as it does not consist of mere rules for the performance of
religious acts, assumes the form of stories about gods; and these stories
afford the only explanation that is offered of the precepts of religion and the
prescribed rules of ritual. But, strictly speaking, this mythology was no
essential part of ancient religion, for it had no sacred sanction and no
binding force on the worshippers. The myths connected with individual
sanctuaries and ceremonies were merely part of the apparatus of the worship;
they served to excite the fancy and sustain the interest of the worshipper; but
he was often offered a choice of the several accounts of the same thing, and,
provided that he fulfilled the ritual with accuracy, no one cared what he
believed about its origin. Belief in a certain series of myths was neither
obligatory as a part of the true religion, nor was it supposed that, by
believing, a man acquired religious merit and conciliated the favour of the
gods. What was obligatory or meritorious was the exact performance of certain
acts prescribed by religious tradition. This being so, it follows that
mythology ought not to take the prominent place that is too often assigned to
it in the scientific study of ancient faiths. So far as the myths consist of
explanation of ritual, their value is altogether secondary, and it may be
affirmed with confidence that in almost every case the myth was derived from
the ritual and not the ritual from the myth; for the ritual was fixed and the
myth was variable, the ritual was obligatory and faith in the myth was at the
discretion of the worshipper. (...) As a rule the myth is no explanation of the
origin of the ritual to any one who does not believe it to be a narrative of
real occurrences, and the boldest mythologist will not believe that. But if it
not be true, the myth itself requires to be explained, and every principle of
philosophy and common sense demand that the explanation be sought, not in arbitrary
allegorical categories, but in the actual facts of ritual or religious custom
to which the myth attaches. The conclusion is, that in the study of ancient
religions we must begin, not with myth, but with ritual and traditional usage.
(Smith
1914: 17-18, passim)
Smith
believed that ritual should be considered before myth not only in order of
importance (unlike the majority of the studies of his time), but that ritual
literally preceded myth in time (Beidelman 1974: 64). Actions come first, human
attempts to explain and rationalize them afterwards.[7]
This passage can also be understood as a reaction against the generalizations
on the lines of the idea of the “primitive science” of the “savages,” as
expressed by Lang (1884, 1887, 1911). Smith obviously believed that too much
attention in the works of his time was being devoted to the beliefs and
“stories about gods,” at the expense of the rituals. Rituals should form the
basis of any serious scholarship on “primitive religion,” since they are
essentially social in character, and since they reaffirm places and roles of
average human beings within their communities (ethnic groups or tribes). What
these individuals believed (or did
not believe) in was a matter of their
personal choice. What they were performing
or participating in was not.
In
the commentary to the third edition of the Lectures,
Stanley A. Cook noted that myths “are specifically of personal interest, but, in general, they appeal differently to the
different types of mind in normal mixed communities” (Smith 1969: 502). The
notion of the “personal interest” is very important here, considering Smith’s
emphasis on the social components in all religions. Naturally, since the
“positive religions” are much more elaborate and “advanced,” this social
component becomes more prominent in them. Myths might have been more important
to the less civilized cultures, but in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, they
play a secondary role, more as a remnant and a reminder of the less civilized
stages through which even these religions had to pass.
In
his commentary Cook distinguished between “primary” and “secondary” myths
(Smith 1969: 500-503). The “primary” ones are connected with the system of
beliefs and the specific worldview, and they are primarily associated with the
ritual action. On the other hand, “secondary” ones are less important in terms
of their value. “They are based upon misunderstandings (e.g. of images, words,
names); they are explanations of explanations, the key to an old tradition
having been lost” (Smith 1969: 501). It is possible for these myths to get
“purified” and reworked into the “pleasing tales,” but in all cases these myths
are very remote from the concepts associated with them in “primitive” cultures.
While accepting the concept of the greater importance of ritual action, Cook
also noted “the risk of going into another extreme and making the distinction
between myth and ritual too absolute” (ibid.).
Although
Smith’s theory received high praise by some of the leading scholars at the
beginning of the 20th century (cf. Reinach 1911: 437-438), it stood in sharp
contrast to the view about the complexity of the material that myths consisted
of (Lang 1884, 1911). Andrew Lang has already profoundly influenced the study
of myth with his notion that myths should be studied as some kind of a
“primitive science.” The idea of the essential difference between different
cultures was the fatal blow to the comparative study of myths. There is a degree of similarity necessary for
any comparison, and Lang showed that this degree is not present in, for
example, ancient Greek and Australian Aboriginal cultures.
The
concept of the subordination of myth to ritual was already challenged in the
articles for the another monument of scholarship, Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics (Fallaize 1924). In the
same project, Hartley Burr Alexander (1924: 752) noted that “the meaning does
not stop with the notion of act, it is also the attitude.” The attitude is
influenced by the belief, which is in its turn influenced by the faculty, etc.
The explanation of ritual action is extremely complex, and if we attempt to
understand myths primarily as something subordinate to rituals, we will not get
very far. The implications of Smith’s views for the study of totemism have been
criticized by Cook (1902),[8]
and his theory has been completely rejected by the disciples of Durkheim,
especially Mauss (1982). It is no wonder that Smith’s view of myth and ritual
did not exercise great influence in the history of religion, sociology of
religion, and related disciplines.[9]
Anthropology, however, was a completely different story.
William
Robertson Smith was the first scholar who tried to define the relationship
between myth and ritual. As already shown above, he clearly gave the preference
to ritual. This influenced anthropologists after him to the effect that they
were primarily looking at the social
(sociological) aspects of the cultures and societies that they were studying.
The myths were considered important primarily because they could tell something
about the social organization, kinship, customs, etc.
The
importance of myths was clearly recognized from the beginnings of anthropology
as a scientific discipline in the late 1880s. Chapters on “beliefs” and
“rituals” were standard in all major ethnographies. A view of the founder of
the American anthropology, Franz Boas (1858-1942), was that the native peoples’
customs and rituals were rapidly disappearing in light of huge technological
advances and enormous colonial expansion. This was leading to the permanent
disappearance of something that Boas saw as the legacy of the whole world. One
way to preserve this legacy was to go to the field and record Native American
narratives — as many as possible.
Of
course, now we know that the Native American societies were constantly changing
and adapting under new circumstances, not disappearing, but the misconception
of Boas and his followers led to the production of some excellent collections
of narratives. In fact, no period can match the amount of ethnographic data
gathered on the Native American cultures in the two decades at the beginning of
our century. Tsimshian Mythology
stands as perhaps the finest example of scholarship from this period.
In
this magnificent volume, Boas attempted to present a summary of the customs and
society of Tsimshian Indians from the British Columbia. This account was based
on the stories collected by a native Tsimshian, Henry W. Tate. Boas also
attempted to make a distinction between myths and tales (1916: 31), but without
much success, since for the Tsimshians, there was no difference — at least none
that the outside observer could be aware of. In the end, he settled for a
compromise, describing the subject of this volume “a series of tales all of
which are considered by the Tsimshian as myths” (1916: 595).
The
issue of distinguishing between myths and “ordinary” or “folk” tales has
puzzled anthropologists since Andrew Lang. The problem was clearly recognized
by the functionalists, beginning with Bronislaw Malinowski (1884-1942).
Malinowski’s
field work experience came virtually as an accident, since he was stranded at
the Trobriand Islands, off the Northeastern coast of Papua New Guinea, during
the WW I (1915-1918). This experience eventually resulted in a monograph
devoted to the Trobriand islanders (Malinowski 1979[10]).
Parts of this monograph deal with the myths and rituals connected with the
Kula. Malinowski believed that myths represent a “pragmatic charter,” a set of
rules or codes of conduct, that enable the social functions of the culture to
flourish. “The myth comes into play
when rite, ceremony, or a social or moral rule demands justification, warrant
of antiquity, reality, and sanctity” (1926: 28). Like Boas before him,
Malinowski sought to distinguish between three types of tales that he
encountered in the Trobriand Islands. Unlike fairy tales and legends, which are
told “for amusement” and as “a social statement” intended to “satisfy social
ambition” (Malinowski, ibid.), myth
is “a reality lived” (1926: 18), “not symbolic, but a direct expression of its
subject-matter; it is not an explanation in satisfaction of a scientific
interest, but a narrative resurrection of a primeval reality” (1926: 19).
This,
of course, stood in sharp contrast to the words of Smith, since for Malinowski,
myths offer justification for belief. They are again intimately associated with
rituals (on mythology of the Kula, see Malinowski 1979: 196-198, 256 ff), but
in an inverted order of importance. Even if rituals do come first, myths are
necessary in order to comprehend their meaning and true function. If rituals
form a reenactment of the events that are considered to have happened in
another reality,[11]
myths are necessary in order to place individuals (and the society or the
culture itself) within that reality.
In
the Argonauts of the Western Pacific,
Malinowski distinguished between several classes of myths (1979: 268-270). The ancient myths describe events that
occurred when the earth was being inhabited from the underworlds, and they are
related to the origin of the first human beings, clans, and villages, as well
as the relationship between this world and any future world. The culture myths relate to ogres and
cannibals, as well as to the human beings that institute certain customs and
ceremonies. They relate to the events when human beings already inhabit the
earth, and when the social customs are already established. Stories about the
Trobriand culture hero, Tudawa, were also included within this class. Finally,
the third class consists of myths in
which only ordinary human beings appear. These human beings do have
extraordinary powers (magic, which is, for Malinowski, closely related to
religion), and these stories describe the origins of witchcraft, love potions,
flying canoes (1979: 275-279), as well as some Kula myths.
Of
course, many myths fall within two or even all three of these categories (1979:
269), and the distinctions between them are not always clear. The main force
that lies behind the life of the Trobriands is inertia of the customs (1979:
288). Since the Trobriands pay so much attention to the customs, Malinowski
concluded that “the past is more important than the present” (ibid.). Stories from the past also
possess an element of universality (everybody knows them and everybody talks
about them), and this contributes to the normative function of myths.
The
emphasis on normative and social aspects clearly distinguishes anthropology
from the other disciplines that deal with myths, like philosophy (Ricœur
1990), history (Ricœur 1987), or history of religions (Boon 1987). Another
important distinction is the emphasis of anthropologists and ethnologists since
Smith on the ritual action itself. As far as anthropologists and ethnologists
are concerned, this emphasis was mostly taken for granted, and myths and
rituals were studied together, without any attempt to clarify their
relationship. One of the first anthropologists that attempted to clarify this
relationship was Clyde Kluckhohn (1905-1960).
In
his seminal article “Myths and Rituals: A General Theory,” originally presented
in 1939,[12]
Kluckhohn elaborated on the “connection between rite and myth,” clearly
recognized by the psychoanalysts like Reik and Freud, who “verbally agreed to
Robertson Smith’s proposition that mythology was mainly a description of
ritual” (1942: 45-46). This reference to psychoanalytical interpretations is
not an accident, since Kluckhohn was very interested in various psychological
explanations (1942: 50-52), which he believed to have been neglected in prior
anthropological research. He also pointed at the difficulties of making a clear
distinction between myths, legends, and fairy tales (1942: 46-47) — unlike
Malinowski before him.[13]
He did consider a definition of myth as a “sacred tale” (p. 47),[14]
but found it unsatisfactory because of the lack of association with ritual.[15]
And, while there are cultures that associate myths and rituals (Kluckhohn gave
an example of the Christian Mass), there are clearly others (and here he drew
on his extensive fieldwork experience among Navahos and Pueblos) that do not.
As a matter of fact, “the whole question of the primacy of ceremonial or
mythology is as meaningless as all the questions of ‘the hen or the egg’ form”
(1942: 54).
The
truly important thing is the recognition of the “intricate interdependence of
myth (which is one form of ideology) with ritual and many other forms of
behavior” (ibid.). Here Kluckhohn
gave full credit to Malinowski (Malinowski 1926), although he in fact went much
further by pointing at the potential absurdity of another “hen or egg” type
problem. Together with Boas and Benedict, Kluckhohn opposed any grand generalizations
or “simplistic statements.” There is no practical way to establish the primacy
of one or the other, but one can only look at the “general tendency” within
specific culture. This tendency will depend on a number of specific cultural
traits, as well as on the individual responses to these traits (1942: 70). In
the end, Kluckhohn remained close to the psychology-influenced theories, since
he concludes that “[m]yths and rituals equally facilitate the adjustment of the
individual to his society” (p. 74). They have “a common psychological basis”
(p. 78), and in a sense they are “supra-individual.” They are both “cultural
products, part of the social heredity of a society” (p. 79).
The
idea of both myth and ritual as cultural products was further developed by Sir
Edmund Leach (1910-1989). Like Malinowski, Leach was caught up during the war
(in his case, WW II) in the area where he was doing his field work, Burma
(Myanmar). Several years before (in 1938), his fieldwork in Kurdistan had been
frustrated by another political crisis (München declaration), so this almost
looked like a pattern. However, Leach was able to save most of his field notes,
and, after the intensive archival work after the war, he was able to put forth
his monograph on the Political Systems of
Highland Burma in 1954.
Like
Smith’s, Leach’s discussion of myth and ritual is rather brief, confined to
less than seven pages of the Introduction. Unlike most of his famous
predecessors, Leach did not attempt to define ritual, and from his perspective
any particular definition (except one as broad as “a system of symbolic
communication” [cf. Aimer 1987: 7]) is irrelevant. What is relevant is the very
specific context he provides for any situation where rituals are observed. In
this approach, Leach attempted to reconcile divergent views represented by
Durkheim, Mauss, and Malinowski before him. The solution, in his opinion, was a
view of a ritual as something related
to technique just as sacred is related to profane. They “do not denote types of
action but aspects of almost any kind of action.” Ritual “is a symbolic
statement which ‘says’ something about the individuals involved in the action”
(1970: 13).
“Myth,
in my terminology, is the counterpart of ritual; myth implies ritual, ritual
implies myth, they are one and the same” (ibid.). In this sense, Leach consciously stepped away
from what he regarded to be “the classical doctrine in English social
anthropology” which, according to him, claimed
that myth and ritual are conceptually separate
entities which perpetuate one another through functional interdependence — the
rite is a dramatization of the myth, the myth is the sanction or charter for
the rite (...) As I see it, myth regarded as a statement in words ‘says’ the
same thing as ritual regarded as a statement in action. To ask questions about
the content of belief which are not contained in the content of ritual is
nonsense
(1970:
13-14)
This
presents a radical break with the functionalism, and an important step towards
the structural interpretations of myth.[16]
For Leach, myths are only “one way of describing certain types of human
behavior” (p. 14). Furthermore, “ritual action and belief are alike to be
understood as forms of symbolic statement about the social order” (ibid.). This is possible because rituals
in their cultural contexts are always patterns of symbols, and they have the
same structure as the other pattern of symbols, consisting of the phrases and
technical terms that the anthropologist devises in order to interpret them
(1970: 15).
This
structure is “the system of socially approved ‘proper’ relations between
individuals and groups” (ibid.).
Although this system is not always practically recognized, “if anarchy is to be
avoided,” members of the society must be reminded of the underlying structure
that provides the frame for all of their social activities. “Ritual
performances have this function for the participating group as a whole; they
momentarily make explicit what is otherwise a fiction” (p. 16).
In
a later stage of his career, during his experiments with the interpretation of
the Biblical myths, Leach came to regard myths as information (1969: 8; cf. supra, p. 7), not unlike the bits in the
contemporary information systems. However, he eventually rejected this view and
the structuralism notion of the universal processes in human minds as a kind of
“metaphysics.”[17] His
negative attitude towards grand generalizations places him as one of the
important predecessors of the “narrative approach.”
In
1955, the article “The Structural Study of Myth” by Claude Lévi-Strauss
(b. 1908) announced the coming of
structuralism to the anthropological study of myth. In this extraordinary article, the French
professor argued that we should proceed directly from the apparent
contradictions that myths pose (1963: 208). Myths offer direct insights into
the ways the human mind operates. Although Lévi-Strauss studied myths of
American Indians (from both North and South America), he considered the
cognitive processes to be universal – hence, myths provide us with the key to
understand how the human mind functions.
Just
like Frazer before him, Lévi-Strauss advocated symbolic approach to the study of myths. (Unlike Frazer, of course,
there are no “primitives” for L-S, the most traditional and pre-literate
society is just as complex as any industrialized society.) Approximately at the
same time as Leach, but more clearly and much more explicitly, Lévi-Strauss
recognized myths as communication. In fact, he recognized a clear connection
between myths and language (since myths are expressed through language). Along
the lines of the great Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Assure, as well as
Trubetzkoy, Jakobson and Hjelmslev,[18]
Lévi-Strauss recognized another system of signs that could be interpreted in a
similar way as language. Since myth,
just like language, is made of constitutive units, these units “presuppose the
constituent units present in language when analyzed on other levels — namely,
phonemes, morphemes, and sememes — but they, nevertheless, differ from the
latter in the same way as the latter differ among themselves; they belong to a
higher and a more complex order” (1963: 210-211). He called these units mythemes. It is only through the analysis of the
relations of different mythemes
(whose structure remains in the unconscious) that we can understand the meaning
of a myth. Understood in this way, we can say that myth, using Saussurean
terminology, should serve as a kind of an allochronic device, bridging the gap
between the synchronic and diachronic perspective.
Lévi-Strauss
began teaching Amerindian “mythology” in 1952/53, and in an outline of his
first course, he presented three ways of analyzing a myth: “in terms of the
reversible or irreversible character of the sequences present in it,” in terms
of “the tests of commutability,” and,
finally, “the myth, considered as a thought
ritual, is submitted to a direction which is in some way natural and
emerges from the analysis of ritual considered as an acted myth. This third method provides a valuable verification of
the results obtained by the other two” (1987: 200-201).
His
view of the relationship between myth and ritual is a little bit more
elaborated in his lectures for 1954/55. Unlike his predecessors (especially
Leach), Lévi-Strauss pointed at the fact that in many cases (he was still
working primarily with the Amerindian material, mostly Pueblo and Pawnee) there
is no proof of the interrelationship between myth and ritual.
There is no myth underlying
the ritual as a whole, and when foundation myths exist, they generally bear on
details of the ritual which appear secondary or supernumerary. However, if myth
and ritual do not mirror each other, they often reciprocally complete each
other, and it is only by comparing them that one can formulate hypotheses on
the nature of certain intellectual strategies typical of the culture under
consideration.
(Lévi-Strauss
1987: 204)
In
a way, this brings us full circle in the consideration of the relationship
between myth and ritual. For Lévi-Strauss (as for Smith, but for entirely
different reasons), this relationship is not a matter of great importance.
Theoretically speaking, any myth can be reenacted just by being spoken
(narrated or written down). As far as the meaning of the myths and their
interpretation is concerned, rituals are irrelevant.
Although
it exercised enormous influence in anthropology (Mandelbaum 1987),
Lévi-Strauss’ theory of the interpretation of myth was severely criticized (for
example, Kirk 1970, Cohen 1969: 345-347).[19]
Some of his basic theoretical assumptions were questioned by Geertz (1973,
1988) and Ricœur (1981, 1987, 1990). While acknowledging its importance,
Ricœur criticized structural analysis for “de-chronologizing” the
narrative, since “[the] structural analysis tends to reduce the role of plot to
a secondary function of figuration in relation to underlying logical structures
and the transformation of these structures” (1981: 280).
Barthes
(1988: 170) questioned the binary oppositions that form the basis of
Lévi-Strauss’ (and all other structural)
theoretical models:
Binarism is seductive logical
hypothesis: we know its success in phonology, in cybernetics, even in
physiology. Yet limits are already appearing, and certain compromises are
required; Martinet refuses to grant a universal
status to the binarism of phonological oppositions, and Jakobson has
completed the schema of the binary opposition (a/b) by the adjunction of
two derived terms, one neutral (neither a
nor b), the other mixed (both a and b); Lévi-Strauss himself has often acknowledged the importance of the
neutral term or zero degree.[20]
It can be argued that, by taking the structuralist method from Saussurean linguistics, Lévi-Strauss tries to extend the usefulness of this method far beyond the Saussure’s original intent. In doing this, he would have to modify significantly the method itself (which he does not do) in order to succeed. Nevertheless, the structuralist insistence on language (Saussurean langue and parole, von Humboldt’s ergon and energia), as well as on the use of signs and symbols in the explanation of myths, was the important step forward. In more than a century since Smith’s death, the world had changed. So have our attempts to understand it.
[1] The following lines from Lectures provide a good example: “Savages, we know, are not only incapable of separating in thought between phenomenal and noumenal existence, but habitually ignore the distinctions, which to us seem obvious, between organic and inorganic nature, or within the former region between animals and plants” (1914: 85-86).
[2] With the possible exception of Lang who, while drawing heavily on Tylor’s work in his earlier publications (1885, 1887), is very critical of both Tylor and Frazer in his Magic, Science, and Religion (1901).
[3] On the concept of the deity as father (“progenitor and lord”), cf. Smith 1886: 135.
[4] Cf. Smith 1912a: 463: “There is nothing surprising in the conception that the worshippers are sons of their god.” On the “kinship between gods and men,” cf. also Smith 1914: 87-88. “Broadly speaking, the land of a god corresponds with the land of his worshippers; Canaan is Jehovah’s land as Israel is Jehovah’s people,” in the same way as “the land of Assyria (Asshur) has its name from the god Asshur” (1914: 92). Smith also ventures in the attempts to explain the concept of the holy (1914: 91ff), making the distinction between the sacred and the profane. Like many other aspects of his work, this distinction came into the anthropology via Durkheim.
[5] This closely corresponds to information that has been gained from subsequent research into the extensive written records of the ancient Near Eastern cities, since it seems that all of them had a principal deity, who was paired with a consort (Pritchard 1991: 68). The ancient Greek texts, beginning with the Iliad and Odyssey, indicate the same pattern.
[6] “Émile Durkheim indicated that he owed Smith his insights regarding the close relation between people’s perceptions of nature and their experience in society, his views on the periodic need for ritual to reinforce social beliefs and values, and his method of explaining religion in terms of the irreducible elements exhibited in its most primitive state” (Beidelman 1987: 366).
[7] A similar view was expressed in the early 1940s by Susanne K. Langer (1971: 126 ff), who noted that “[i]t is not at all impossible that ritual, solemn and significant, antedates the evolution of language” (1971: 128). Cassirer also believed (following the predominant anthropological theories of his time) that ritual comes before myth (cf. Krois 1987: 85-99).
[8] S. A. Cook actually noted that if Smith was still alive, he would have modified his position (1902: 447).
[9] With the exception of the British and Scandinavian “myth and ritualists” (cf. Harrelson 1987).
[10] All the page references refer to the Serbo-Croatian edition of the Argonauts (Argonauti zapadnog pacifika, BIGZ, Beograd, 1979).
[11] Which is, nevertheless, as real as the one that we live in.
[12] Several years before this article, an interesting (although very brief) discussion on the value of “Myth and Ritual” approach was published in the September and November 1936 issues of Man. On the one side was the greatest anthropological proponent of this approach, A. M. Hocart. On the other side was the famous Classical scholar H. J. Rose. Rose’s expertise in a specific area (ancient Greece) outweighed Hocart’s general argumentation.
[13] A clear impossibility of making this kind of distinction was demonstrated by Kirk (1974: 31-37) on the material from Greece.
[14] Nevertheless, there is at least one place in the text (1942: 59) where he does use this definition himself.
[15] In this article, Kluckhohn uses words ritual, rite, and ceremony interchangeably.
[16] The works of Lévi-Strauss became better known in the English-speaking world only after 1955. However, it is reasonable to expect that Leach was aware to a certain extent of some of his concepts before that.
[17] The word “metaphysics” is used in this context in the same sense as it is used by Popper and logical positivists: to denote something that cannot be proved or disproved by a rational argumentation, and something that is, therefore, not worthy of any discussion. Lévi-Strauss sometimes himself stressed the intuitive part in his reasoning (Lévi-Strauss 1978).
[18] For the practical as well as theoretical aspects of their works, I refer to Nöth 1990. See also chapter on myth (almost exclusively dedicated to the structuralist aspects of study) in this volume (1990: 374-377).
[19] For the reply to Kirk (and Mary Douglas), see Lévi-Strauss 1987: 96-101.
[20] For example, see his Introduction in Mauss’ Sociology and Anthropology (originally published 1950). [This is also referred to in a footnote by Barthes.]