Earth-Diver: Creation of the Mythopoeic Male

Abstract

Earth,Diver: Creation of the Mythopoeic Male ALAN DUNDES University of Kansas EW anthropologists are satisfied with the present state of scholarship with respect to primitive mythology. While not everyone shares Levi-Strauss's extreme pessimistic opinion that from a theoretical point of view the study of myth is very much the same as it was fifty years ago, namely a picture of chaos (1958: 50), still there is general agreement that much remains to be done in elucidating the processes of the formation, transmission, and functioning of myth in culture. One possible explanation for the failure of anthropologists to make any notable advances in myth studies is the rigid adherence to two fundamental principles: a literal reading of myth and a study of myth in monocultural context. The insistence of most anthropologists upon the literal as opposed to the symbolic interpretation, in terms of cultural relativism as opposed to transcultural universalism, is in part a continuation of the reaction against 19th century thought in which universal symbolism in myth was often argued and in part a direct result of the influence of two dominant figures in the history of anthropology, Boas and Malinowski. Both these pioneers favored studying one culture at a time in depth and both contended that myth was essentially nonsymbolic. Boas often spoke of mythology reflecting culture, implying something of a one-to-one relationship. With this view, purely descriptive ethnographic data could be easily culled from the mythological material of a particular culture. Malinowski argued along similar lines: Studied alive, myth, as we shall see, is not symbolic, but a direct expression of its subject matter (1954: 101). Certainly, there is much validity in the notion of my­ thology as a cultural reflector, as the well documented researches of Boas and Malinowski demonstrate. However, as in the case of most all-or-nothing approaches, it does not account for all the data. Later students in the Boas tradition, for example, noted that a comparison between the usual descriptive ethnography and the ethnographical picture obtained from mythology revealed numerous discrepancies. Ruth Benedict (1935) in her important Introduction to Zuni Mythology spoke of the tendency to idealize and com­ pensate in folklore. More recently, Katherine Spencer has contrasted the correspondences and discrepancies between the ethnographical and mytho­ logical accounts. She also suggests that the occurrence of folkloristic material which contradicts the ethnographic data may be better explained in psycho­ logical than in historical terms (1947:130). However, anthropologists have tended to mistrust psychological terms, and consequently the pendulum has not yet begun to swing away from the literal to the symbolic reading of myth. F