Saints, Heroes, Myths, and Rites

Classical Durkheimian Studies of Religion and Society

Marcel Mauss, Henri Hubert, Robert Hertz

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781594517747
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317252597
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Cultural & Social Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

Classical Durkheimian Studies of Myth and the Sacred presents English translations of several important essays, some never before translated, by members of the famous Annee sociologique group around Emile Durkheim. These works by Marcel Mauss, Henri Hubert, and Robert Hertz are key contributions to today's growing interest in and reinterpretation of Durkheimian thought on culture, religion, and symbolism. The central thrust in this new interpretive effort uses the Durkheimian theory of the sacred to understand the symbolism and meanings of cultural structures and narratives more generally. This book is vital to any contemporary collection emphasizing social theory.

1 Myths

Marcel Mauss and Henri Hubert¹

DOI: 10.4324/9781315632292-2

INTRODUCTION

In the five preceding volumes of the Année, a large amount of space has been devoted to the study of mythology, but we never had the opportunity to say what the sociological interest of this study was. We successively examined some questions that mythologists discuss without trying to coordinate them. It goes without saying that we consider myth to be a social fact, that is, a product or normal manifestation of collective activity. This implies that we do not consider myths, in a given society, as contingent and supererogatory; even when borrowed, they are not exotic trinkets; when thinking about myths, we cannot ignore the collaboration of the people who adopted them, who think and repeat them, and who, in sum, believe in their truth. Myths are social institutions. This clarified, we can now study them by using two angles of approach: first, by trying to determine the mechanism of the formation of myths, and the usual processes of their creative imagination, which presupposes enquiring about some of the laws of human mental activity in society; second, by then focusing on the sociological function, and in particular on the religious function, of the myth; by asking what is religious in myth, what place it occupies in the system of religious things, what objects it represents, to what needs it corresponds, and how it satisfies them; by doing, in short, everything entailed by a study of function.

The first angle of research is naturally divided into two tasks: a study of collective psychology and logic. We have already talked about the latter² as a sort of mythological analysis or as a rhetoric of mythology, of which the object would be to show how the fundamental, psychological or logical, laws of the mind are conditioned in the fabrication of myths. The myth applies to its objects its own processes of analysis; it has particular modes of image association, in sum, a whole specific logical apparatus.

Unfortunately, it is not yet possible to pursue these various studies by themselves and in a completely theoretical way. We are still at the stage of preparing the materials of a mythology, and often of simply demonstrating that myths are social phenomena. For now, mythology must above all be historical. But first we must put aside the question of knowing whether myths come from one or several centers of dispersion, and what the latter are. This does not directly interest us: the answer would mostly have an ethnographic interest, the attribution of myths or series of myths to specific human groups serving first of all to characterize them. For us, the critical sorting of collections of facts is simply a good preparation to the study of myths; moreover, it is always good to know with precision that myths can be passed on while remaining or becoming myths again.

One fundamental question concerns the relation between rites and myths. It is frequently stated that a myth corresponds to a regularly practiced rite; the myth provides the reason for carrying out the rite by telling the story of the fact or event that the rite commemorates or simply imitates. One can wonder whether this coincidence is universal or only very general, and to what extent. The definition of the myth, considered as a religious phenomenon, depends in part on the answer to this question, which cannot yet be formulated. It is still more frequently asked which, of the myth and the rite, is anterior and gave birth to the other. We have seen³ that some mythologists still consider the rite as the dramatic representation of a preexisting myth. Others argue the opposite. As for us, we believe that the question is not well posed, and we have argued our point elsewhere.⁴ “The myth and the rite,” we said, “can be dissociated only on the abstract level.” The myth attached to the rite is nothing but the representation of the act that accompanies the act; depending on the case, one or the other member of the pair can be prominent; there exist rites that are very strongly inspired by the processes of representation specific to the myth, as well as myths that are overwhelmed by incoherent details borrowed to the adventitious effects of the rite (supplementary sympathetic actions) and not to its principal action; moreover, we note moreover that each term follows its own evolution. There exist rites that are almost empty of mystical meaning. There exist myths that are no longer the direct representation of the corresponding rite. Finally, there exist rites that are accompanied by myths of diverse age. Additionally, it is obvious that, while the rite is usually doubled by a myth, independent myths, unattached to any rite, must in turn create rites by analogy. In sum, this question cannot be answered in a general way. The observation and analysis of facts will touch on the mechanism of myths. Supposing that the myth is not empty, the sort of deformation that it imposes on reality can be assessed by the differences that separate the ritual act from the corresponding mythical act.

We are therefore led to approach the study of the function of myths by its most accessible side; not only is their religious nature clarified by that of the acts they explain and of the things they concern, their place is generally determined by their liturgical role since, in a great number of cases, the recitation of the myth is part of the ritual ceremony.

Another question that deserves to be studied is the composition of myths. The lack of variety of episodes and combinations is striking; there are a small number of types of myths, and in the multiples versions of each type, parts are presented in an almost constant order. This order is far from always being the one that appears natural. This apparent illogicality of the myth reveals its particular logic, and the persistence of its obscure forms is an index of its function.

CONCLUSION

The preceding studies of myths⁵ do not solve the question of their origins. The only progress comes from the ones that concern the material of myths, the way in which it accrued by the doubling up of characters and episodes and by the intervention of various particular features. From a collection of studies, we have seen specific types of myths appear, although their formation cannot yet be explained. The way in which these cycles were formed, and how these frames of collective thought persisted to the point that they imposed themselves upon the novel during the emergence of legend in literature, is all the more unexplained. Thus, while progress is being made concerning a certain number of phenomena, how many, hence, are still unknown!

But our work during this year at least provides us with a definition, or rather with a description, of what we mean by myth.

Unlike the tale, the myth is not a play of images; it is the object of belief. But this is not enough to characterize it. When the object of belief is a concept, when it can be formulated as a proposition and take its place in a credo, then it is called dogma. Moreover, a narrative of personal experience can also be an object of belief. But the myth is anterior to any possible experience; it is a thing of the collectivity, which imposes itself on the individual as a category of his thought. Hence the narratives relative to heroes, that is to characters that have lived or are supposed to have lived, can up to a point be considered as myths, since they act as such when the event that they tell of is commemorated in festivals; however, they differ from myths in the sense that their action occurs in time, is more or less dated, and is not susceptible to being reproduced; on the contrary, mythical actions are continuous, and either are indefinitely reproduced⁶ or are perpetuated by their effects. Placed in a generally undefined past, they are in reality placed out of time. Myths, for instance those concerning cosmology, have as a goal the explanation of eternal facts. It follows, and that is one of its main characteristics, that the myth commands action as sciences does; the representation of the sun riding a boat or as a wheel is a myth because it suggests that by moving a boat or a wheel under special circumstances, one will act upon the movements of the sun; the myth is repeated by virtue of the rite, the gesture, the spell; it can be said to be a prayer. This fully realized fact is observed among the Huichol of Mexico. Thought even replaces action, as Mr. Powell notes in his analysis of the psychology of the savage thinker of myths;⁷ that is how the associated rite and myth form an inseparable whole; let us add to this that the idea of power is not implicated only in simple myths, the ones attached to rites, but in the whole effort of the creative imagination of myths that tends to frame the myths of ritual and to form a systematic representation of the universal and sacred forces manifest in the world.

The belief attached to the myth implies that it is representative or expressive, as already noted. It is a system of signs; with its own means it reproduces, as language does, a constructed or perceived reality. But it possesses its own force and autonomy. It often presents itself as a continuous image. The statue of Henri IV, in the memory of a child who often looked at it, advances at a regular pace; the distinction between the immobile original and the mobile image is confused, but it exists; this child’s impression is a rudiment of the myth; a perfect myth would transport the cavalcade of Henri IV to the origin, or to a divine world; it would be both temporary and continuous; hence the myth attempts to fix things that are continuous; it frames its objects within time and space.

Moreover, the myth uses a special form of the idea of causation. Powell⁸ argues that the special characteristic of myth is that it creates imaginary bodies to which is attributed the production of phenomena. He says elsewhere that causality, in the myth, is magical causality, two propositions that are equally correct so long as their consequences are not exaggerated.

Myth is essentially vague and multiform. When it is ancient, liturgical redactions are elementary, incoherent, and can be developed and commented on in many ways. Moreover, as soon as a place of worship is well known, there are always several different versions of particular myths. It does not follow that their variability is indefinite; there are a few fixed points; the variation is found in the connections and the filling. Myth appears as a confused and nearly subconscious state of mind, yet common to all members of a group. Moreover, the union of the parts of a myth is not logical, and it cannot be adequately expressed in rational terms; it is given by the material of the myth, or it is emotional.

It results that what could be called the meaning of the myth is as wavering as its form. By specializing it, we run the risk of damaging it. In reality, it suggests rather than designates things. As soon as we want to explain it rationally, it dies, or rather it mutates. We will not follow it in these transformations.

NOTES

1. Editors’ note: This chapter was first published as “Introduction aux mythes” and “Conclusion” in Année sociologique, 6, 1903, pp. 243–246, 268–271 and reprinted in Marcel Mauss, Oeuvres, volume 2 (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1968–69), pp. 269–272. Translated and used by permission of Georges Borchardt, Inc., for Les Editions de Minuit.
2. Année sociologique, 1898–99, 3, p. 270.
3. Ibid., p. 272.
4. Année sociologique, 1897–98, 2, pp. 243 and 245.
5. Editors’ note: A number of reviews of books on specific myths intervened between these two remarks on myth that Mauss and Hubert prepared for this issue of the Année.
6. Cf. the Ascension, book review of G. Pitré, in Année sociologique, 6.
7. American Anthropology, 1901, 3, p. 57.
8. Ibid, p. 55.

2 Art and Myth according to Wilhelm Wundt

Marcel Mauss¹

DOI: 10.4324/9781315632292-3

Mr. Wundt is one of the last encyclopedic minds in Germany. After physiology, physics, and psychology, he is now tackling sociology. His Ethik already had a sociological character, which was noticed. The seeds contained in the Ethik are now being developed in a monumental Völkerpsychologie.

The first part of this work, Die Sprache, which was soon revised, has already been reviewed here,² and we know that linguists agree in recognizing the remarkable intelligence with which Wundt assimilated their methods and the results of their science. Now the two first volumes of the second part, Myth and Religion, have been published,³ and the specialists of the science of religion will bow to the divination shown by the old master in selecting his sources, the range of his information, and the marvelous sense he has of the things he discusses. If we find again in his work the usual flaws of the philosopher—excessive systematization, hasty generalization, multiplied and complicated divisions—philologists themselves will have to take into account this book that shows a great effort to clarify the facts and define concepts too often overlooked by the specialists even though they frequently use them.

I. ART

On opening the first volume, the reader has the pleasant surprise of finding a complete theory of the forms of art, from the most primitive to the most recent ones. There are even ingenious remarks on Romanticism and modern drama.⁴ According to Wundt, there exists a close relationship between poetry and myth: it is difficult for him even to distinguish one from the other.⁵ According to him, in fact, there is no other difference between the mythical image and the artistic image than the collective and involuntary character of the former, and the individual and voluntary character of the latter. The primitive forms of the myth belong, like art, to the ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Editors’ Introduction
• Chapter 1 Myths
• Chapter 2 Art and Myth according to Wilhelm Wundt
• Chapter 3 Preface to Saint Patrick and the Cult of the Hero
• Chapter 4 The Preeminence of the Right Hand: A Study of Religious Polarity
• Chapter 5 A Contribution to a Study of the Collective Representation of Death
• Chapter 6 Saint Besse: Study of an Alpine Cult
• About the Editors