The European part of the North American culture is in the throes of developing its own mythology. As time progresses the historical figures of Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett become the embodiment of the pioneering spirit. The myth of the American frontier as a boundless new horizon was subtly used by President J. F. Kennedy in the catchphrase for his administration as ‘The New Frontier’. Longfellow mythologised the Sioux Indian in The Song of Hiawatha, using the image of the noble savage, a rich Plains Indian mythology, and the metre of the Finnish Kalevala – a New World mythic tale told in Old World mythic form. Similarly the folk heroes of the American West have been raised to mythic proportions, embodying or having attributed to them traits that they never had or intended, and having attributed to them actions that embody or exemplify a philosophy from which, hopefully, later generations can learn. The historical proximity of such characters to the present means that some demythologising may also take place. Thus, the heroic bad guys such as Billy the Kid, Jesse James, Bonnie and Clyde, Ma Barker and, in Australia, Ned Kelly, are found, historically, to have feet of clay and black hearts. Yet they do not lose their mythic or heroic status, despite the assaults of historians from the groves of academe.
As the mythic heroes grew in the new lands, so a mythology developed about the new lands. The colonial ethic, the movement of peoples from the old homeland to the new, was historically motivated by economics and the need for supplies and wealth for the depleted home territories. As the colonial movement grew, colonies achieved strategic as well as economic significance. Yet the panacea which was used to encourage departure to the new lands was based largely upon the myths of ‘ennoblement of inferior races’ or ‘spreading the benefits of civilisation’ or the downright greed of ‘there’s gold in them thar hills’.
I do not dismiss such factors as poverty at home, bad crops or a general disenchantment with the old system. But the colonial movement used a form of myth which was factually based to a small degree, but which was inflated beyond reality to justify a wholesale system of landgrabbing.
The mythologising process continues as man searches for answers even today in the modern heroes. In a system that is so profoundly materialistic and historically based as Communism, mythical figures arise and some even suffer the fate of demythologisation. Large portraits of Marx and Lenin in Red Square on May Day attest to this fact as does the removal of Stalin’s body from its Kremlin tomb. Even the life of Lenin has much in common with that of the classic hero of epic. It is no accident that Soviet historians have seized upon this in the process of virtually deifying the founder of the Russian Soviet State. Yet, even more surprisingly, another Communist leader lived a life in which, from time to time, he engaged in symbolic acts and who was a myth in his own lifetime. Who can forget the 1967 photographs of Mao Zedung having a recreational swim in the torrents of the Yellow River in the midst of the Cultural Revolution. Mao, like Lenin, is a modern epic hero, whose quest is the liberation of a nation from oppression. The mere words ‘The Long March’ to a student of Chinese history conjure up a symbol which has its parallels in the exile phase of the epic hero in mythic literature.
Because the process of mythologisation continues, it is wrong to relegate myths to the status of children’s tales of the past which have their origins beyond the beginning of recorded history. The fact that the process does continue demonstrates the fact that myth is an important aspect in the continuing development of human society. So at this stage I should like to turn to what constitutes a myth, and how mythologies have developed. This is more an overview than a detailed study, and I intend to avoid an anthropological discussion of the significance of myth in primitive societies. Rather, what I intend to do is to view myths and mythologies as a factor in the development of societies and in a following chapter I shall look at how myths have become a part of the literature of societies.
There is no common definition of the word ‘myth’ or for the concept that it represents. Myth means one thing to an anthropologist, another to the psychologist and yet another to the thematologist. Curiously enough, within all the different views and opinions there is only slight divergence – a shift in emphasis. Each of the various definitions of myth have a small seed of common agreement and because myth has been so important in the past, and as a motivator in the development of man and of his institutions and as an inspiration for, and indeed a part of, much of his literature, we should understand the basis and meaning of myth.
Myth in its basic form was a vehicle of religious symbolism. It was symbolic in its approach. It was not like ritual which is symbolic or imitative behaviour, or a symbolic object such as an icon or a reliquary. It is a tale told in a symbolic language. A child’s definition of a parable is ‘an earthly tale with a heavenly meaning’. A parable uses everyday objects and events to symbolise a greater and often divine truth. Not so myth, for frequently the myth uses divine beings either as participants in, or symbols for, a supposed truth. In the main, myths are tales concerning gods or superhuman beings and extraordinary events, or amazing circumstances, in a time that is quite different from normal human experience.
Robert Graves defines true myth 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’.1 He then goes on to distinguish ‘true’ myth from what could otherwise be described as ‘mythlike’ accounts. He numbers these as:
1 Philosophical allegory, as in Hesiod’s cosmogony.
2 ‘Aetiological’ explanation of myths no longer understood as in Admetus’s yoking of a lion and a boar to his chariot.
3 Satire or parody, as in Silenus’s account of Atlantis.
4 Sentimental fable, as in the story of Narcissus and Echo.
5 Embroidered history, as in Arion’s adventure with the dolphin.
6 Minstrel romance, as in the story of Cephalus and Procris.
7 Political propaganda, as in Theseus’s Federalization of Attica.
8 Moral legend, as in the story of Eriphyle’s necklace.
9 Humorous anecdote, as in the bedroom farce of Herakles, Omphale and Pan.
10 Theatrical melodrama, as in the story of Thestor and his daughters.
11 Heroic saga, as in the main argument of the Iliad.
12 Realistic fiction, as in Odysseus’s visit to the Phaecians.
Thus, Graves defines true myth by elimination, and claims that it is a tale embodying a magical ritual, invoking fertility, peace, water, victory at war, long life to the ruler or death to the enemies. He also comments that genuine mythic elements may be found in the least promising sources. In studying mythic writing he says:
When making prose sense of a mythological or pseudo-mythological narrative, one should always pay careful attention to the names, tribal origins, and fates of the characters concerned; and then restore it to the form of dramatic ritual, whereupon its incidental elements will sometimes suggest an analogy with another myth which has been given a wholly different anecdotal twist, and shed light on both.2
Graves’ study of the Greek myths is as vast as some of the epics that he studies. His examination is not merely of the myths, or their religious background, but their significance within the political and religious systems that existed in Europe before the advent of the Aryan invaders. Yet his sources are the great writers of the classical period: Homer, Herodotus, Plato, Aeschylus, Plutarch, Ovid, Virgil among many others. In effect Graves must go deep into the stories, past the peripheral words of the tales to discover their true meaning, context and significance.
Graves’ approach to the Greek myths may lead him to one definition. His subject matter and his mythology are the best documented in existence. In settling upon his particular definition Graves is able to approach his subject from that point of view.
But