Natural References of Myth
By David Talbott
The extent to which world mythology reflects natural occurrences
is an issue on which the specialists find little agreement.
Despite the many competing interpretations by the different
schools, they share a common—usually unspoken—assumption: they
assume that no fundamental changes have occurred in the celestial
order. Wherever possible they refer the objects of ancient art
and myth to objects and events in our familiar world behaving
exactly as they do today. The Sun, the Moon, comets, meteors, the
pole star, the Great Bear or other constellations, or more
terrestrial phenomena such as thunder and lightning, earthquakes,
hurricanes, volcanoes, or local mountains, rivers, and common
animal forms.
If the great mythical dramas do indeed reflect natural events,
then we face an inescapable paradox. Despite many years of cross-
cultural research, the authors of this book have never found a
general mythical theme that could find an explanation in our
natural world. There is indeed a "sun" in the ancient sky, but
when the imagery is traced to its earliest forms, it neither looks
nor behaves like the sun in our sky. There is a crescent "moon",
but its character and movement contradict everything about our
moon today. While the planet Venus was venerated by all ancient
cultures, the earliest memories of Venus simply defy modern
observations of the planet. And as for other celebrated forms,
one seeks in vain for any meaningful reference at all. Where is
the famous fountain of the sun? Where is the ship of heaven?
Where is the world mountain, the temple of the sun, or the world
tree that spread its branches among the stars?
It is precisely such images which have fostered the modern view
equating myth with fiction. The storytellers understood nothing
about the world in which they lived, we are told. The possibility
that myth might reflect events no longer occurring simply does not
enter the minds of modern scholars.
Of course the skeptic will remind us that all sorts of strange and
exotic ideas have been proposed on the basis of myth. He will
suggest that you could argue for anything under the sun if all you
have to do is select a few myths for support. And who could
dispute this point? Bookshelves today are filled with adventurous
hypotheses, based in large part on mutually contradictory uses of
mythical fragments.
But the answer here is to stop the selective use of myth
altogether, to apply groundrules, which do not permit the
investigator to ignore any commonly held beliefs. In the new
approach we shall propose, the inquiry rests from start to finish
on globally-recurring themes of myth, deeply-rooted ideas that
have survived thousands of years of cultural evolution and tribal
mixing. Additionally, this approach will place the highest
emphasis on the oldest sources, those originating closest in time
to the experiences behind the myths, with the least opportunity
for distortion.
EVENT AND INTERPRETATION
The first step toward understanding the myth-making epoch is to
distinguish between the unusual and the imaginative. The events
are unusual, while the interpretations are imaginative. We are
not asking anyone to believe that a shining temple or city of
living "gods" once stood in the center of the sky. We will not
claim that a great hero of flesh and blood arose to rid the world
of chaos-monsters; or that this very same hero once consorted with
a "mother goddess". We WILL ask the reader to consider whether
these unexplained and global themes may have roots in uncommon
natural events. In its skepticism about such global themes the
modern world forgot the elementary distinction between event and
mythical interpretation, then tossed out the entire body of evidence.
The astonishing fact is that all of the archetypes speak for
celestial forms that are not present in our sky, and for events
that do not occur in nature today. The resulting situation is
untenable. Did early races, for reasons we cannot fathom, simply
repudiate all natural experience, in order to celebrate things
never seen? Or did the natural world in which the myths arose
present a range of sights and sounds unlike anything known in modern times?
THE ANCIENT STORYTELLER
It's impossible to immerse oneself in the mythical world without
realizing that the ancient storyteller himself is certain of the
reported events' occurrence, despite the obvious tendency to
project imaginative interpretations onto events. A "story"
entails both an event and an interpretation. No living dragon
ever flew about in the sky. But is it possible that something
viewed imaginatively as a "dragon" DID appear in the sky? To
allow this possibility is to open the door to systematic
investigation from a radically new vantage point.
The urge of ancient peoples to record and to repeat their stories
in words reflected the same fundamental impulse we see in all
other forms of reenactment and alignment in ancient ritual, art,
and architecture. Recitation of the story momentarily transported
both the storyteller and the listener backwards to the mythical
epoch, which was experienced as more compelling, more "true" than
anything that came later. That is why, among all early
civilizations, as noted by Mircea Eliade and others, the
prodigious events to which the myths refer provided the models for
all collective activity—
"One fact strikes us immediately: in such societies the myth is
thought to express the absolute truth, because it narrates a
sacred history; that is, a transhuman experience revelation which
took place at the dawn of the Great Time, in the holy time of the
beginnings (in illo tempore). Being real and sacred, the myth
becomes exemplary, and consequently repeatable, for it serves as a
model, and by the same token as a justification, for all human
actions. In other words, a myth is a true history of what came to
pass at the beginning of Time, and one which provides the pattern
for human behavior...Clearly, what we are dealing with here is a
complete reversal of values; whilst current language confuses the
myth with 'fables', a man of the traditional societies sees it as
the only valid revelation of reality."
It needs to be understood as well that the globally-recurring
themes appear to be as old as human writing. All of the common
signs and symbols we shall review in these volumes appear to
precede the full flowering of civilization. This rarely
acknowledged fact, which could be easily disproved if incorrect,
is of great significance. If our early ancestors were habituated
to inventing experience, we should expect an endless stream of new
mythical content—new forms and personalities arising as if from
nowhere. This absence of invention in historical times forces us
to ask how the original "creativity" of myth arose: what unknown
ancient experience could have produced the massive story content
of myth, including hundreds of underlying themes that have lasted
for thousands of years?
UNIVERSAL THEMES OF MYTH
By following the comparative approach, and by concentrating on the
universal themes of myth, a researcher is enabled to focus on the
substratum. Nothing will boost the researcher's confidence more
than discovering that the roots of myth are not only identifiable,
but coherent, each identifiable theme revealing an explicit
connection to the same taproot, while revealing verifiable links
to the other themes as well.
To illustrate this point let us consider just a few human memories
whose deep connections to each other are beyond dispute. Though
each of the themes listed here will require extensive review and
analysis, our immediate interest is in a possibility generally
ignored in our time—the possibility of a fully integrated and
consistent substructure.
AGE OF GODS AND WONDERS
It is an interesting fact that every culture remembered a lost
"age of the gods", a wondrous epoch clearly distinguished from all
that came later. The gods were visibly present, and they radiated
power and light—"the majestic race of the immortals", in the
account of the Greek poet Hesiod, or "the age of the primeval
gods" celebrated by the Egyptians. The gods ruled for a time,
then faded from view, took flight, or wandered off. And
everywhere will be found the compulsion to commemorate the
critical junctures in the biographies of the gods, to carry
forward the stories in pictures and words, to fashion replicas of
the gods in clay and stone, and to reenact these events at all
levels of collective activity.
One of the great deceptions in conventional approaches to
mythology is the pretense that this is all comprehensible in terms
of primitive ignorance and superstition. The issue is far more
fundamental than that. What demands explanation is the vividness,
the consistency of the images, and the extraordinary passion and
devotion with which ancient races sought to re-connect with the
gods. Nothing meant more to the ancient world than to recover
something distinctly remembered, but lost.
There is structure to the stories. Even a superficial review of
the world's mythical traditions will show that the different
personalities tend to fall into certain categories. Universal
sovereign, mother goddess, ancestral warrior, chaos monster: these
personalities (as we will illustrate at length) repeatedly
expressed the same relationships to each other. Moreover, the
age of the gods not only has a familiar ending (the gods go away)
it has a common beginning as well:
GOLDEN AGE
Certain general themes occur on every habitable continent. One is
the deeply entrenched myth of a lost Golden Age, a period of
natural abundance and cosmic harmony, when humanity lived under
the beneficent rule of visible powers in the heavens. In fact,
the Golden Age was universally invoked as the opening chapter in
the age of the gods, and that is just one of numerous indications
of unexplained and globally-repeated structure.
The Hindus called it the Krita Yuga or perfect age; the Chinese
the Age of Perfect Virtue, the Scandinavians the Peace of Frodhi.
For the Egyptians this was the Tep Zepi or "First Time", the
beneficent age of Re. The Sumerians knew it as the rule of the
sovereign An, "the Days of Abundance"; Greek tradition similarly
recalled the prosperous epoch of the god Kronos, when the whole
world enjoyed peace and plenty. The Romans celebrated this as the
Golden Age of Saturn.
In the general tradition, the Golden Age means a timeless epoch
before the fall, or before the arrival of discord and war, before
the linkage of heaven and earth was broken. Many traditions
recall the absence of seasons or of any time-keeping references,
claiming that the land produced abundantly without any need for
human labor. Skeptics have suggested that these are simply
exaggerated local memories of "the good old days". But that claim
is answered by comparative study. The theme of the Golden Age
cannot be separated from other themes for which such "explanations"
are entirely inadequate
KING OF THE WORLD
Why, for example, did all of the early cultures connect the Golden
Age with the rule of a figure remembered as the Universal
Monarch—a prototype of kings ruling in the sky before any king
ruled on earth?
This is hardly a frivolous connection. The Egyptian Atum-Re, the
central luminary of the sky, was the founder of the idyllic age,
to which every later king or pharaoh traced his lineage. It was
the Sumerian An, the Akkadian Anu, who inaugurated the "years of
abundance", and from whom the very institution of kingship
descended. Similarly, the Hindu Yama, Persian Yima, Norse Frodhi,
Chinese Huang-ti, and Mexican Quetzalcoatl are all distinguished
as founding kings, the first in a line of kings, and models of the
good king. What defined the ideal was the harmonious existence
and natural abundance, which marked the god's rule. Hence, human
memories of the Golden Age and of the exemplary king are
inextricably entwined, implying a substructure we cannot afford to
ignore.
DOOMSDAY
The fear of doomsday, of the orderly world going out of control,
ranks perhaps as the deepest of human fears.
From the first glimmerings of civilization, every ancient nation
kept alive its own tale of universal catastrophe, and if anything
deserves to be called a collective memory it is this idea. But
how are we to understand it? Various accounts describe the world-
ending disaster so differently as to leave mythologists groping
for a consensus. In one account a great deluge submerges the
race; in another a fiery conflagration, while many myths say a
celestial dragon's assault upon the world brought universal
darkness.
Such divergent story elements make it all too easy to overlook an
overarching principle revealed by comparative analysis. The
"mother of all catastrophes"—the event which ancient races feared
above all else—was that which brought the Golden Age to its
violent conclusion. Whether it is the ancestral rule of Re, or
the universal kingship of An, or the Golden Age of Kronos (not to
mention the numerous variations), the story culminates in earth-
shaking catastrophe.
But only rarely do psychologists or historians ask whether this
pervasive fear might have roots in natural experience as well—a
time when the world DID slip out of control, the stars DID
fall from the sky, and the rain of fire and brimstone DID overwhelm the
world. The Doomsday theme is not an isolated memory, but an integral
component in a more complete and unified memory. Indeed, comparative
analysis reveals numerous additional points of agreement, including the
fate of the Universal Monarch himself.
DYING OR DISPLACED GOD
The Buddhists tell of the primeval king, during whose prosperous
reign a vast wheel turned in the sky, remaining in one spot. This
ancient and benevolent ruler was himself "the wheel turning king".
But eventually the wheel fell from its established place, the king
died, and this golden age was lost.
The Zoroastrians spoke of the great cosmic wheel called the Spihr,
symbol of the god Zurvan, "Lord of the Long Dominion." It too
stood in one place, ever turning. And it was the fall or
destruction of this cosmic wheel, which terminated the god's
prosperous rule.
In whatever terms the local accounts might present the Doomsday
story, the consistent result is the death, flight, or displacement
of the original sovereign power. The Egyptian Re grows weary and
departs the human realm. The Sumerian An flees the scene as chaos
overtakes the world. The Greek Kronos is forced from his throne,
ending the Golden Age and plunging the world into darkness and
discord. For the Romans the fabled Golden age of Saturn ended
when, in the words of poet Ovid, "Old Saturn fell to death's dark
country." In such fashion did the ancient Paradise give way to
cosmic turmoil.
And here, too, one aspect of the story invariably merges with
another:
WARS OF THE GODS
As a mythical archetype, the Doomsday catastrophe is not merely a
terrestrial disturbance, it is the story of celestial upheaval.
The gods themselves battle in the sky so violently as to rearrange
the heavens. Their weapons include thunderbolts and stone,
flaming "arrows", fire-breathing dragons, and all-consuming wind
and flood. The tale is most familiar to us, perhaps, as the
famous clash of the Titans, recounted by Hesiod and other Greek
poets. This was the catastrophic aftermath of the Golden Age of
Kronos, when "wide heaven was shaken and groaned, and high Olympos
reeled from its foundation under the charge of the undying
gods...So, then, they launched their grievous shafts upon one
another, and the cry of both armies as they shouted reached to
starry heaven; and they met together with a great battle-cry.
Then Zeus...showed forth all his strength. From Heaven and from
Olympos, he came forthwith, hurling his lightning; and the bolts
flew thick and fast from his strong hand together with thunder and
lightning, whirling an awesome flame".
Such images are so common and occur on such a grand scale that
historians rarely give them a second look. What do these
"exaggerated" tales have to do with real history? In the Norse
cataclysm of Ragnarok, the wars of the gods bring an idyllic age
to an end, and this is surely one of the keys to understanding the
archetype. The wars of the gods occur during, or as, the "break"
that separates the Golden Age from the subsequent epoch. Witness,
for example, the celestial conflagration of Aztec thought, the
catastrophic interlude between world ages. So too in Hindu myth—the universe dissolves in flames, to be regenerated under a new
world age. To the same category belong the great conflagrations
separating the original rule of the Egyptian Re from the epoch
that followed.
Typically, scholars will "explain" the cosmic catastrophe theme
through more familiar or ordinary events, an eclipse of the Sun or
Moon, a local hurricane, earthquake, or volcano. Such
"explanations" can only discourage close examination of the
stories, with the result that vital, repeated elements are missed.
But it is the full complex of themes that must be explained. A
final example:
DRAGON OF DARKNESS
Nothing could be further removed from our familiar experience than
a flying serpent or dragon. And yet it was not long ago that
every race on earth remembered the fire-breathing dragon moving
among the stars, disturbing the motions of the planets, and
threatening to destroy the world. Such was the character of the
Babylonian dragon Tiamat, whose attack caused even the gods
themselves to flee. The Egyptian counterpart was the raging
Uraeus serpent; or Apep, the dragon of darkness. For the Greeks,
it was the Python serpent whom Apollo defeated in an earth-shaking
encounter, or the great dragon Typhon, under whose attack the
heavens reeled.
How did it happen that so many diverse cultures recalled—in such
vivid and similar terms—a biologically impossible monster? The
cosmic serpent or dragon cries out for an explanation, and an
explanation must be possible, even if we have missed it.
From one land to another such monsters were celebrated as visible
forms in the sky. If there is an inherent, irrational tendency of
the primitive mind to conjure dragon-like beasts out of nothing,
then one must wonder how this irrationality produced such
surprising parallels from one land to another—fiery serpents,
longhaired or bearded serpents, feathered serpents. The globally-repeated attributes are both impossible and absurd, and nothing in
familiar human experience can even begin to account for them.
The celestial serpent-dragon takes the form of a great storm or
whirlwind, breathes fire and smoke, battles against the gods, and
ushers in a period of universal darkness. But these are only a
few of the pervasive themes. When, for example, did this chaos
monster appear in the sky? It appeared specifically during the
break between world ages—following the death or departure of the
Universal Monarch, when the Golden Age collapsed—and prior to the
renewal of the world. Appearance of the Babylonian Tiamat is
synonymous with the flight of the original sovereign An. The
Uraeus serpent rages in the sky as a symbol of Re's loss of power.
The dethroning of Kronos, founder of the Golden Age, immediately
precedes the attack of Typhon.
CONNECTIONS
With this brief listing of connected memories, we wish to drive
home the principles of substructure and integrity. In considering
the serpent-dragon, for example, we do not just find an improbable
monster, but a monster figuring in a particular story in a
particular way, with clearly defined relationships to other
personalities. It is simply not useful to examine a mythical
theme as if that theme stands on its own. What needs to be
explained is the full complex of ideas embedded within a theme,
and that will invariably involve repeated and unexplained
connections to a larger story. |