Introduction to Semiotics of Cultures, 2010
Claude Lévi-StraussSavage Mind, Mythologies
Vesa Matteo Piludu
University of Helsinki
Myths and Science
Mythical thought and scientific thought are living on the same historical reality, not in different steps
Even today there are many mythological systems working in native cultures and in modern ones (nationalist propaganda and commercials – Barthes)
Remember the “magic powers” of Mr. Clean and their physical and psychological effects
Myths acooding to L-V
Traditional sense: Archaic narratives related to gods, heroes, animals, fantastic beings
that have a deep meaning, subject to speculation
Barthes use myth in another, negative, way: simple modern narratives that considers natural and obvious what is historical and bourgeoisie
Myths and Science
Myths and science are only two different way to organize the dates of experience
They are parallel axes, similar at the formal level, different in their presupposes about the essence of the natural world
The natives domesticated a great number of plants also for the pleasure to know new things, not only for their practical use
The native world is more close to the sensible qualities and it have a more immediate connection with nature
Marcel Griaule
Demonstrated how sophisticate are the systems of thought of West Africa
The mythological thought: savage
Science of concrete
Actor: bricoleur, someone that have many objects to create many results, that are more casual
It is possible to built, break and built again Many variations of the same mythological theme The natural object acquire a cultural meaning, that is clearly not
natural
The thought is savage in the sense that is more casual, more free
The mythological thought is alive in modern art
Scientific thought: domesticated
Science of projects
Actor: engineer
the scientist has a clear project from the beginning, rigorous methods
The possible results are limited, not so various as myths
The though is domesticated in the sense that is less free, more rational, less subject to fly of fantasy
Magic thought
Also magic is a way to think, a way to organize reality based on its own rigorous logic, it’s an independent system
If we understand the logic of the mythological or magical thought, we are able to understand their meaning
Different systems could be transformed into other ones reversing the importance of single elements
Australian totemistic systemand Indian caste system
Exogamic: each group should marry another clan Social group divided on the base of natural species: the natural world
is considered social and cultural
Endogamic: members of caste couldn’t marry a member of another caste
Social order considered as natural
The two system are logically opposed, based on the opposition of the same elements: variant of a combinatory system
The human mind is working using the same logic, but with reversal meaning
A system is in theory transformable in another one if their elements are put in opposition
That happens often in politics: a party give a different interpretation of the symbols of the other party
Myths in Structural Anthropology 1
The Boas’ school collected a large amount of myths, but the result of the research were deluding
The myths seemed extremely chaotic: disorder and disorganization in their analysis
Simple speculations Evil Grandma in myth = in this society there were evil grandmothers Evil Grandma in myth = in this society the Grandmother is a symbol
for some feeling lost in the unconscious
The Structural Study of Myth: Chapter XI in Structural Anthropology 1
Linguistic: connects a groups of sounds (phonemes) to certain meanings
The meaning in in the system, not in the single souns
Mythology: is not useful to analyze the “best version of the myths” (single myth), it is necessary to analyze all the versions of the myths to find out analogies and differences (system of myths)
The meaning is the relations: there are relations between different version of the myths
Myth and language
The myth is inside and over the language
Is in the language, because is based on a set of linguistic enunciates (it’s a narrative)
Is over the language, because what is important in the myth isn’t the style or syntaxes, but the story or narrative itself
Mytheme
It’s the myth reduced to short, essential sentence or even to a group of symbols: a simplification of the whole plot
Different mythemes should be connected in pairs of mutual or opposite elements
If the meaning of a mytheme is different in a different version, we have a transformation of the myth itself
The mythemes are element of variation
Vladimir Yakovlevich Propp (Владимир Яковлевич Пропп) 1895 - 1970
Formalism
Considered possible the variation of contents in fables, but it considered the changes as purely arbitrary
For L-S there is a logic in the transformation of myths
Propp
Methods
Should be considered different explications for a single myth
A myth shouldn’t considered as an isolated element, but in its relation with other myths
It’s important to connect the myth to all the other relevant ethnographic information about the societies in which the myths was born and told
Mythologiques I–IV (1964-71)
Mythologiques I–IV (trans. John Weightman and Doreen Weightman)
Le Cru et le cuit (1964, The Raw and the Cooked, 1969) Du miel aux cendres (1966, From Honey to Ashes, 1973) L'Origine des manières de table (1968, The Origin of Table
Manners, 1978) L'Homme nu (1971, The Naked Man, 1981)
Myths
No evident practical function
Cultural function: when it is possible, to reduce the contrasts present in the existence and social life
Contrast life and death
Tricksters
Sacred fool
Creator of disorders and order
He is smart, but often is punished by his own tricks
Trickster: Coyote
Raven
Raven and Coyote
Eaters of dead corpses
Middle position between predators (killers of other animals), and herbivorous (animals that don’t kills other animals)
Mediator between oppositions Life coming from death
Similar situation: war (destruction) and agriculture (creation) Middle position: hunt (nutrition and life given by killing)
Life and death mutually connected: unthinkable without each other
The myth doesn’t resolve completely the contradiction (life-death) , but give an interpretation about their connections
Myths: many answers
No religious dogmas There isn’t an answer, but many possible answers: variation of myths
Possibilities in the past, in the present, in different societies
The mythological thought is creative: The same concepts in a similar myths are revolted and in
contradiction with each other
Influence of Dumézil
Importance to work comparing myths of people that are historically connected
Lévi-Strauss analyzed myths of Amazion indios or Pueblo natives searching for all the possible variants of the same myth, including the ones that are opposite
La Potière jalouse (1985, The Jealous Potter, trans. Bénédicte Chorier, 1988)
Variation 1: A thirsty man asked his son water to drink, the son refused Variation 2: A thirsty man asked his wife water to drink, the wife refused Variation 3:
Opposed variation 3: A mother want to wash her son, the son refused
Situation 1: water inside the body
Situation 3: body inside the water
Inversion: woman that refused, woman that impose
Lévi-Strauss ”mysticism”
The humans doesn’t think myths, but the myths are thinking each others in humans
The myths are thinking in us, and we don’t think about that
Mythical though as a cultural imposition to subjects (similarity between Lévi-Strauss and Barthes)
The narrator loose importance
Comparition
If the comparison is extended to other people, there are more similarities , but many of them aren’t of great significance
If the comparison is more restricted to a certain group of peoples, it is possible to find out differences in the variations
The differences are significative
Myths: nature and culture
In myths there are fenomena of centralization, fragmentation and oppositions of variants … but all in a common vision of the world
Problems: Division between the nature and culture: Raw – cooked naked – clothed
Refuse or acceptation of exchanges: food, cultural products, marriages, importance of gifts
Lévi-Strauss: lost in myths
Myths are superb stories, literary texts I’ve lived in another world, I lived with myths
The mythologist is like a crazy artists, working continuously with his materials
Myths and music
Wagner has done structural mythology in music
Affinity between music and myths: variation on same themes
Myths and melodies use the time to annul the time and to throw us in a dimension outside the time
Creator of music similar to a demiurge
Music and myths are impossible to translate in other languages (written ones)
A melody could only change into another melody and a myth into another myth
Myths and music are able to express something that couldn’t be expressed in other ways: both are emotional, full of pathos
Analysis
The analysis impoverish the myth, we can’t enjoy completely the myths analyzing them, because we are operating simplifications and schemes
The goal of the analysis isn’t esthetical: is to find sense and what are the fundamental questions in the myths
Myth and ritual
The ritual is a set of action based on myths
Ritual is fragmented in gestures and procedures, that are continuously repeated: less information that in myths
Myths distinguish, separate the elements of reality to transform them in instrument of thought
The ritual is always connected to a myth, not to natural reality
Rituals are connected to the world view present in myths
Ritual is a “bastard” son of myth: thought connected to the necessity of life
This negative interpretation of ritual has been criticized
Top Related