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Anorigin myth is a type ofmyth that explains the beginnings of anatural orsocial aspect of the world.Creation myths are a type of origin myth narrating the formation of the universe. However, numerous cultures have stories that take place after the initial origin. These stories aim to explain the origins of natural phenomena or human institutions within an already existing world. In Greco-Roman scholarship, the termsfounding myth oretiological myth (fromAncient Greek:αἴτιονaition 'cause') are occasionally used to describe a myth that clarifies an origin, particularly how an object or custom came into existence.
In modern political discourse the terms "founding myth", "foundational myth", etc. are often used as critical references to official or widely accepted narratives about the origins or early history of a nation, a society, a culture, etc.[1][2]
Origin myths are narratives that explain how a particular reality came into existence.[3] They often serve to justify the established order by attributing its establishment to sacred forces[3] (see§ Social function). The line between cosmogonic myths which describe the origin of the world and origin myths is not always clear. A myth about the origin of a specific part of the world assumes the existence of the world itself, which often relies on a cosmogonic myth.[3] Therefore, origin myths can be seen as expanding upon and building upon their cultures'cosmogonic myths. In traditional cultures, it is common for the recitation of an origin myth to be preceded by the recitation of a cosmogonic myth.[4]
Within academic circles, the termmyth is often used specifically to refer to origin and cosmogonic myths. Folklorists, for example, reserve the termmyth for stories that describe creation. Stories that do not primarily focus on origins are categorized aslegend orfolk tale, which are distinct from myths according to folklorists.[5]Mircea Eliade, a historian, argues that in many traditional cultures, almost every sacred story can be considered an origin myth. Traditional societies often pattern their behavior after sacred events and view their lives as acyclical return to a mythical age. As a result, nearly every sacred story portrays events that establish a new framework for human behavior, making them essentially stories of creation.[6]
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An origin myth often functions to justify the current state of affairs. In traditional cultures, the entities and forces described in origin myths are often considered sacred. Thus, by attributing the state of the universe to the actions of these entities and forces, origin myths give the current order an aura of sacredness: "[M]yths reveal that the World, man, and life have a supernatural origin and history, and that this history is significant, precious, and exemplary".[7] Many cultures instill the expectation that people take mythical gods and heroes as theirrole models, imitating their deeds and upholding the customs they established:
When the missionary and ethnologist C. Strehlow asked the Australian Arunta why they performed certain ceremonies, the answer was always: "Because the ancestors so commanded it." The Kai of New Guinea refused to change their way of living and working, and they explained: "It was thus that the Nemu (the Mythical Ancestors) did, and we do likewise." Asked the reason for a particular detail in a ceremony, a Navaho chanter answered: "Because the Holy People did it that way in the first place." We find exactly the same justification in the prayer that accompanies a primitive Tibetan ritual: "As it has been handed down from the beginning of the earth’s creation, so must we sacrifice. … As our ancestors in ancient times did—so do we now."[8]
Founding myths unite people and tend to include mystical events along the way to make "founders" seem more desirable and heroic. Ruling monarchs or aristocracies may allege descent from mythical founders, gods or heroes in order to legitimate their control. For example,Julius Caesar and his relatives claimedAeneas (and through Aeneas, the goddessVenus) as an ancestor.
Afounding myth oretiological myth (Greekaition) explains either:
Beginning in prehistorical times, many civilizations and kingdoms adopted some version of a heroic model national origin myth, including theHittites andZhou dynasty in the Bronze Age; theScythians,Wusun,Romans andGoguryeo inantiquity;Turks andMongols during the Middle Ages; and theDzungar Khanate in theearly modern period.[10]
In the founding myth of the Zhou dynasty in China, Lady Yuan makes a ritual sacrifice to conceive, then becomes pregnant after stepping into the footprint of the King of Heaven. She gives birth to a son,Hou Ji, whom she leaves alone in dangerous places where he is protected by sheep, cattle, birds, and woodcutters. Convinced that he is a supernatural being, she takes him back and raises him. When he grows to adulthood, he takes the position of Master of Horses in the court ofEmperor Yao, and becomes successful at growing grains, gourds and beans. According to the legend, he becomes founder of the Zhou dynasty after overthrowing the evil ruler of Shang.[11]
Like other civilizations, theScythians also claimed descent from the son of the god of heaven. One day, the daughter of the god of theDnieper River stole a young man's horses while he was herding hiscattle, and forced him to lie with her before returning them. From this union, she conceived three sons, giving them their father's greatbow when they came of age. The son who could draw the bow would become king. All tried, but only the youngest was successful. On his attempt, three golden objects fell from the sky: a plow and yoke, a sword, and a cup. When the eldest two tried to pick them up, fire prevented them. After this, it was decided the youngest son, Scythes, would become king, and his people would be known as Scythians.[11]
TheTorah (or Pentateuch, as biblical scholars sometimes call it) is the collective name for the first five books of the Bible:Genesis,Exodus,Leviticus,Numbers, andDeuteronomy. It forms the charter myth of Israel, the story of the people's origins and the foundations of their culture and institutions, and it is a fundamental principle of Judaism that the relationship between God and his chosen people was set out onMount Sinai through the Torah.
A founding myth may serve as the primaryexemplum, as the myth ofIxion was the original Greek example of a murderer rendered unclean by his crime, who needed cleansing (catharsis) of his impurity.
Founding myths feature prominently inGreek mythology. "Ancient Greek rituals were bound to prominent local groups and hence to specific localities",Walter Burkert has observed,[12] "i.e., the sanctuaries and altars that had been set up for all time". Thus Greek and Hebrew founding myths established the special relationship between a deity and local people, who traced their origins from ahero and authenticated their ancestral rights through the founding myth. Greek founding myths often embody a justification for the ancient overturning of an older, archaic order, reformulating a historical event anchored in the social and natural world to valorize current community practices, creating symbolic narratives of "collective importance"[13] enriched with metaphor to account for traditional chronologies, and constructing an etiology considered to be plausible among those with a cultural investment.[14]
In the Greek view, the mythic past had deep roots in historic time, its legends treated as facts, as Carlo Brillante has noted,[15] its heroic protagonists seen as links between the "age of origins" and the mortal, everyday world that succeeded it. A modern translator ofApollonius of Rhodes'Argonautica has noted, of the manyaitia embedded as digressions in that Hellenistic epic, that "crucial to social stability had to be the function of myths in providing explanations, authorization or empowerment for the present in terms of origins: this could apply, not only to foundations or charter myths andgenealogical trees (thus supporting family or territorial claims) but also to personal moral choices."[16] In the period afterAlexander the Great expanded theHellenistic world, Greek poetry—Callimachus wrote a whole work simply titledAitia—is replete with founding myths. Simon Goldhill employs the metaphor ofsedimentation in describing Apollonius' laying down of layers "where each object, cult, ritual, name, may be opened... into a narrative of origination, and where each narrative, each event, may lead to a cult, ritual, name, monument."[17]
A notable example is the myth of the foundation of Rome—the tale ofRomulus and Remus, whichVirgil in turn broadens in hisAeneid with the odyssey ofAeneas and his razing ofLavinium, and his sonIulus's later relocation and rule of the famous twins' birthplaceAlba Longa, and their descent from his royal line, thus fitting perfectly into the already established canon of events. Similarly, the Old Testament's story ofthe Exodus serves as the founding myth for the community of Israel, telling howGod delivered theIsraelites from slavery and how they therefore belonged to him through theCovenant of Mount Sinai.[18]
During the Middle Ages, founding myths of themedieval communes of northern Italy manifested the increasing self-confidence of the urban population and the will to find a Roman origin, however tenuous and legendary. In 13th-centuryPadua, when each commune looked for a Roman founder – and if one was not available, invented one—a legend had been current in the city, attributing its foundation to the TrojanAntenor.[19]
Media related toMyth of origins at Wikimedia Commons