Myth and ritual

Myth and ritual are two central components of religious practice. Although myth and ritual are commonly united as parts of
religion, the exact relationship between them has been a matter of controversy among scholars. One of the approaches to this problem
is "the myth and ritual, or myth-ritualist, theory
," held notably by the so-calledCambridge Ritualists, which holds that "myth does not
stand by itself but is tied to ritual."[1] This theory is still disputed; many scholars now believe that myth and ritual share common
paradigms, but not that one developed from the other.[2]

Contents
Overview
Ritual from myth
E. B. Tylor
Myth from ritual (primacy of ritual)
William Robertson Smith
Stanley Edgar Hyman
James Frazer
Jane Ellen Harrison and S. H. Hooke
Myth and ritual as non-coextensive
Walter Burkert
Bronisław Malinowski
Mircea Eliade
See also
Notes
References
Further reading

Overview
The "myth and ritual school" is the name given to a series of authors who have focused their philological studies on the "ritual
purposes of myths."[3] Some of these scholars (e.g., W. Robertson-Smith, James George Frazer, Jane Ellen Harrison, S. H. Hooke)
supported the "primacy of ritual" hypothesis, which claimed that "every myth is derived from a particular ritual and that the
[2]
syntagmatic quality of myth is a reproduction of the succession of ritual act."

Historically, the important approaches to the study ofmythological thinking have been those ofVico, Schelling, Schiller, Jung, Freud,
Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, Lévi-Strauss, Frye, the Soviet school, and the Myth and Ritual School.[4]

In the 1930s, Soviet researchers such as Jakov E. Golosovker, Frank-Kamenecky, Olga Freidenberg, Mikhail Bakhtin, "grounded the
study of myth and ritual infolklore and in the world view of popular culture."[5]

Following World War II, the semantic study of myth and ritual, particularly by Bill Stanner and Victor Turner, has supported a
connection between myth and ritual. However,it has not supported the notion that one preceded an
d produced the other, as supporters
of the "primacy of ritual" hypothesis would claim. According to the currently dominant scholarly view, the link between myth and
ritual is that they share commonparadigms.[2]

Ritual from myth

One possibility immediately presents itself: perhaps ritual arose from myth. Many religious rituals—notably Passover among Jews,
Christmas and Easter among Christians, and the Hajj among Muslims—commemorate, or involve commemoration of, events in
religious literature.

E. B. Tylor
Leaving the sphere of historical religions, the ritual-from-myth approach often sees the relationship between myth and ritual as
analogous to the relationship between science and technology. The pioneering anthropologist Edward Burnett Tylor is the classic
exponent of this view.[6] He saw myth as an attempt to explain the world: for him, myth was a sort of proto-science.[7] Ritual is
secondary: just as technology is an application of science, so ritual is an application of myth—an attempt to produce certain effects,
given the supposed nature of the world: "For Tylor, myth functions to explain the world as an end in itself. Ritual applies that
explanation to control the world."[6] A ritual always presupposes a preexisting myth: in short, myth gives rise to ritual.

Myth from ritual (primacy of ritual)

Against the intuitive idea that ritual reenacts myth or applies mythical theories, many 19th-century anthropologists supported the
opposite position: that myth and religious doctrine result from ritual. This is known as the "primacy of ritual" hypothesis.

William Robertson Smith

This view was asserted for the first time by the bible scholar William Robertson Smith.[8] The scholar Meletinsky notes that Smith
introduced the concept "dogmatically."[8] In his Lectures on the Religion of the Semites (1889), Smith draws a distinction between
ancient and modern religion: in modern religion, doctrine is central; in ancient religion, ritual is central.[1] On the whole, Smith
argues, ancients tended to be conservative with regard to rituals, making sure to pass them down faithfully. In contrast, the myths that
justified those rituals could change. In fact, according to Smith, many of the myths that have come down to us arose "after the
gotten."[9]
original, nonmythic reason [...] for the ritual had somehow been for

As an example, Smith gives the worship of Adonis. Worshipers mourned Adonis's mythical death in a ritual that coincided with the
annual withering of the vegetation. According to Smith, the ritual mourning originally had a nonmythical explanation: with the
annual withering of plants, "the worshippers lament out of natural sympathy [...] just as modern man is touched with melancholy at
the falling of autumn leaves."[10] Once worshipers forgot the original, nonmythical reason for the mourning ritual, they created "the
[6]
myth of Adonis as the dying and rising god of vegetation [...] to account for the ritual."

Stanley Edgar Hyman

In his essay "The Ritual View of Myth and the Mythic," (1955) Stanley Edgar Hyman makes an ar
gument similar to Smith's:

"In Fiji [...] the physical peculiarities of an island with only one small patch of fertile soil are explained by a myth
telling how Mberewalaki, a culture hero, flew into a passion at the misbehavior of the people of the island and hurled
all the soil he was bringing them in a heap, instead of laying it out properly. Hocart points out that the myth is used
aetiologically to explain the nature of the island, but did not originate in that attempt. The adventures of Mberewalaki
originated, like all mythology, in ritual performance, and most of the lore of Hocart's Fijian informants consisted of
such ritual myths. When they get interested in the topology of the island or are asked about it, Hocart argues, they do
."[11]
precisely what we would do, which is ransack their lore for an answer

Here Hyman argues against the etiological interpretation of myth, which says that myths originated from attempts to explain the
origins (etiologies) of natural phenomena. If true, the etiological interpretation would make myth older than, or at least independent
of, ritual—as E.B. Tylor believes it is. But Hyman argues that people use myth for etiological purposes only after myth is already in
place: in short, myths didn't originate as explanations of natural phenomena. Further, Hyman argues, myth originated from ritual
performance. Thus, ritual came before myth, and myth depends on ritual for its existence until it gains an independent status as an
etiological story.

James Frazer
The famous anthropologist Sir James George Frazer claimed that myth emerges from ritual during the natural process of religious
evolution. Many of his ideas were inspired by those of Robertson Smith.[8] In The Golden Bough (1890; 1906–1915), Frazer
famously argues that man progresses from belief in magic (and rituals based on magic), through belief in religion, to science.[12] His
argument is as follows.

Man starts out with a reflexive belief in a natural law. He thinks he can influence nature by correctly applying this law: "In magic
man depends on his own strength to meet the difficulties and dangers that beset him on every side. He believes in a certain
[12]
established order of nature on which he can surely count, and which he can manipulate for his own ends."

However, the natural law man imagines—namely, magic—does not work. When he sees that his pretended natural law is false, man
gives up the idea of a knowable natural law and "throws himself humbly on the mercy of certain great invisible beings behind the veil
of nature, to whom he now ascribes all those far-reaching powers which he once arrogated to himself."[12] In other words, when man
loses his belief in magic, he justifies his formerly magical rituals by saying that they reenact myths or honor mythical beings.
According to Frazer,

"myth changes while custom remains constant; men continue to do what their fathers did before them, though the
reasons on which their fathers acted have been long forgotten. The history of religion is a long attempt to reconcile
[13]
old custom with new reason, to find a sound theory for an absurd practice."

Jane Ellen Harrison and S. H. Hooke

The classicist Jane Ellen Harrison and the biblical scholar S. H. Hooke regarded myth as intimately connected to ritual. However,
"against Smith," they "vigorously deny" that myth's main purpose is to justify a ritual by giving an account of how it first arose (e.g.,
justifying the Adonis worshipers' ritual mourning by attributing it to Adonis's mythical death).[14] Instead, these scholars think a
myth is largely just a narrative description of a corresponding ritual: according to Harrison, "the primary meaning of myth ... is the
[15]
spoken correlative of the acted rite, the thing done."

Harrison and Hooke gave an explanation for why ancients would feel the need to describe the ritual in a narrative form. They suggest
that the spoken word, like the acted ritual, was considered to have magical potency: "The spoken word had the efficacy of an act."[16]

Like Frazer, Harrison believed that myths could arise as the initial reason a ritual was forgotten or became diluted. As an example,
she cited rituals that center on the annual renewal of vegetation. Such rituals often involve a participant who undergoes a staged death
and resurrection. Harrison argues that the ritual, although "performed annually, was exclusively initiatory";[14] it was performed on
people to initiate them into their roles as full-standing members of society
. At this early point, the "god" was simply "the projection of
the euphoria produced by the ritual."[14] Later, however, this euphoria became personified as a distinct god, and this god later became
the god of vegetation, for "just as the initiates symbolically died and were reborn as fully fledged members of society, so the god of
vegetation and in turn crops literally died and were reborn."[14] In time, people forgot the ritual's initiatory function and only
[14]
remembered its status as a commemoration of the Adonis myth.

Myth and ritual as non-coextensive

Not all students of mythology think ritual emerged from myth or myth emerged from ritual: some allow myths and rituals a greater
degree of freedom from one another. Although myths and rituals often appear together, these scholars do not think every myth has or
had a corresponding ritual, or vice versa.
Walter Burkert
The classicist Walter Burkert believes myths and rituals were originally independent.[17] When myths and rituals do come together,
he argues, they do so to reinforce each other. A myth that tells how the gods established a ritual reinforces that ritual by giving it
divine status: "Do this because the gods did or do it."[17] A ritual based on a mythical event makes the story of that event more than a
[17]
mere myth: the myth becomes more important because it narrates an event whose imitation is considered sacred.

Furthermore, Burkert argues that myth and ritual together serve a "socializing function."[18] As an example, Burkert gives the
example of hunting rituals. Hunting, Burkert argues, took on a sacred, ritualistic aura once it ceased to be necessary for survival:
"Hunting lost its basic function with the emergence of agriculture some ten thousand years ago. But hunting ritual had become so
important that it could not be given up."[19] By performing the ritual of hunting together, an ancient society bonded itself together as
.[20]
a group, and also provided a way for its members to vent their anxieties over their own aggressiveness and mortality

Bronisław Malinowski
Like William Smith, the anthropologist Bronisław Malinowski argued in his essay Myth in Primitive Psychology (1926) that myths
function as fictitious accounts of the origin of rituals, thereby providing a justification for those rituals: myth "gives rituals a hoary
past and thereby sanctions them."[21] However, Malinowski also points out that many cultural practices besides ritual have related
[21] In other words, not all myths are outgrowths of ritual, and
myths: for Malinowski, "myth and ritual are therefore not coextensive."
not all rituals are outgrowths of myth.

Mircea Eliade
Like Malinowski, the religious scholar Mircea Eliade thinks one important function of myth is to provide an explanation for ritual.
Eliade notes that, in many societies, rituals are considered important precisely because they were established by the mythical gods or
heroes.[22] Eliade approvingly quotes Malinowski's claim that a myth is "a narrative resurrection of a primeval reality."[23] Eliade
adds: "Because myth relates the gesta [deeds] of Supernatural Beings [...] it becomes the exemplary model for all significant human
actions."[24] Traditional man sees mythical figures as models to be imitated. Therefore, societies claim that many of their rituals were
established by mythical figures, thereby making the rituals seem all the more important. However, also like Malinowski, Eliade notes
that societies use myths to sanction many kinds of activities, not just rituals: "For him, too, then, myth and ritual are not
coextensive."[21]

Eliade goes beyond Malinowski by giving an explanation for why myth can confer such an importance upon ritual: according to
Eliade, "when [ritually] [re-]enacted myth acts as a time machine, carrying one back to the time of the myth and thereby bringing one
closer to god."[21] But, again, for Eliade myth and ritual are not coextensive: the same return to the mythical age can be achieved
simply by retelling a myth, without any ritual reenactment. According to Eliade, traditional man sees both myths and rituals as
vehicles for "eternal return" to the mythical age (seeEternal return (Eliade)):

"In imitating the exemplary acts of a god or of a mythic hero, or simply by recounting their adventures, the man of an
T the sacred time."[25]
archaic society detaches himself from profane time and magically re-enters the Greatime,

Recital of myths and enactment of rituals serve a common purpose: they are two dif
ferent means to remain in sacred time.

See also
General

Comparative mythology
Mythology
Ritology
Religion and mythology
 Magic and religion
Etiology
Anthropology of religion

People

Walter Burkert

Notes
1. Segal 2004, p. 61
2. Meletinsky, p. 117
3. Encyclopædia Britannica entries onMyth and Ritual School (religion)(http://www.britannica.com/eb/topic-400991/My
th-and-Ritual-School)
4. Guy Lanoue, Foreword to Meletinsky, p. viii
5. Meletinsky, pp. 109–110
6. Segal 2004, p. 63
7. Segal, p. 14
8. Meletinsky pp. 19–20
9. Segal, p. 62
10. Smith, p. 392
11. The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 68, No. 270, Myth: A Symposium (1955), p. 91.
12. Frazer, p. 711
13. Frazer, p. 477
14. Segal 2004, p. 71
15. Harrison; quoted in Segal (no specific text cited), p. 72
16. Hooke; quoted in Segal (no specific text cited), p. 72
17. Segal 2004, p. 76
18. Segal, p. 77
19. Burkert (1979), p. 55
20. Segal, p. 78
21. Segal 2004, p. 73
22. Eliade, "Myth and Reality," p. 7
23. Malinowski, "Myth in Primitive Psychology" (1926; reprinted in "Magic, Science and Religion" [Nework:
Y 1955], pp.
101, 108), quoted in Eliade, "Myth and Reality
," p. 20
24. Eliade, "Myth and Reality," p. 6
25. Eliade, "Myths, Dreams and Mysteries," p. 23

References
Burkert, W. (1979). Structure and history in Greek mythology and ritual
. Sather classical lectures, v. 47. Berkeley:
University of California Press
Eliade, Mircea:

Myth and Reality. Trans. Willard R. Trask. New York: Harper & Row, 1963.
Myths, Dreams and Mysteries. Trans. Philip Mairet. New York: Harper & Row, 1967.
Frazer, James G. The Golden Bough. New York: Macmillan, 1922.
Meletinsky, Eleazar Moiseevich The Poetics of Myth (Translated by Guy Lanoue and Alexandre Sadetsky, foreword
by Guy Lanoue) 2000 RoutledgeISBN 0-415-92898-2
Sebeok, Thomas A. (Editor).Myth: A Symposium. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1958.
Segal, Robert A. Myth: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004.
 Smith, William Robertson.Lectures on the Religion of the Semites. First Series, 1st edition. Edinburgh: Black, 1889.
Lecture 1.

Further reading
Ackerman, Robert (2002)The Myth and Ritual School: J.G. Frazer and the Cambridge Ritualists, Routledge, ISBN 0-
415-93963-1.
Burkert, W. (1983) Homo necans: The Anthropology of Ancient Greek Sacrificial Ritual and Myth , trans. Peter Bing,
Berkeley: University of California Press.ISBN 0-520-03650-6.
Burkert, W. (2001). Savage energies: lessons of myth and ritual in ancient Greece . Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.
Kwang-chih Chang, Art, Myth, and Ritual: The Path to Political Authority in Ancient China . 1983.
Segal, Robert A. (1998).The myth and ritual theory: an anthology. Malden, Mass: Blackwell.
Watts, A. (1968). Myth and ritual in Christianity. Boston: Beacon Press.
Clyde Kluckhohn, Myths and Rituals: A General Theory. The Harvard Theological Review, Vol. 35, No. 1 (Jan.,
1942), pp. 45–79
Lord Raglan, Myth and Ritual. The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 68, No. 270, Myth: A Symposium (Oct.–Dec.,
1955), pp. 454–461 doi 10.2307/536770
WG Doty, Mythography: The Study of Myths and Rituals . University of Alabama Press, 1986.
Stephanie W Jamison, The Ravenous Hyenas and the Wounded Sun: Myth and Ritual in Ancient India . 1991.
Christopher A Faraone,Talismans and Trojan Horses: Guardian Statues in Ancient Greek Myth and Ritual . 1992.
R Stivers, Evil in modern myth and ritual. University of Georgia Press Athens, Ga., 1982
SH Hooke, The Myth and Ritual Pattern of the Ancient East . Myth and Ritual, 1933.
HS Versnel, Transition and Reversal in Myth and Ritual. Brill, 1993.
Barthes, Roland, Mythologies (Paladin, 1972, London) translated by Annette Lavers
Wise, R. Todd, The Great Vision of Black Elk as Literary Ritual, inBlack Elk Reader, Syracuse University Press,
June 2000.

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