On Myth and Story

Also see: How to Tell a Story | The Seven Seas of Story | More Stories

As a professional storyteller, I gave nearly 1000 performances. Audiences ranged from 1 (a mom thought I was the event day care and left her six month old with me) to hundreds, and from the infant to people in their 90s. (If you get a chance, ask me who the state's reigning champion liar is.) I watched them as they watched me, and I learned a great deal about the power of story. Most of all, I learned that storytelling is far too powerful to be relegated to the children's room at the library or the bookstore. It is, instead, the heart of religious experience, the way religious traditions make the Ultimate Power of the universe present in the life of an individual and of the community.

It isn't enough to recognize that the religious traditions of ancient cultures -- and many contemporary cultures as well -- are oral traditions. There are numerous ways to be oral: legal material can be memorized and passed on, as the Brehons of Ireland have shown; non-narrative, didactic sermons (that is, they are doctrine and not story) can be passed from generation to generation; ritual practices can be transmitted from generation to generation orally, as in the tradition of the Diné. So why stories?

The ancient Greek language allowed that there were two ways for words to carry truth. One word for "word" would be logos -- a word especially familiar to Christianity ("the logos became flesh and dwelt among us"), but also widely used in English words like "biology" (bios plus logos; or "words about living things") and "psychology" (psyche plus logos; or "words about the psyche"). The clearest use of it in English, however, is "logic". In essence, logos is the attempt to describe truth. As such, it invites conversation, dialog, even disagreement. Thus, a scientist uses certain words to describe why things happen the way they do, knowing that others will engage his or her words, with the dialog leading to better expressions about truth over time.

The other word used for word was mythos. This isn't "word" to describe truth describe, but "word" to make truth present -- that is, myth leads not to an intellectual understanding of truth, but to an experience of truth. This is easy enough to establish, if you consider an infant. The love with which a mother enfolds a newborn is cannot be said to be iintellectually grasped by the infant -- indeed, it is probable that the mother herself cannot intellectually describe "love" in any sophisticated, unchallengeable way. But the infant "knows" love.

Staying with love for a moment may help in another aspect. When a lover sings to his beloved (OK, at least when he plays that Frank Sinatra CD on the stereo for her), he is not actually engaging in logos about love (amorology). What he is doing, however, is loving -- making his love present. That would be the role of myth.

Logos is truth that is considered -- one step removed from mythos, logos is (critical) reflection on the story. Myth does not ask what the story means, but rather asks if the story works -- Does the story (or act) have the power to (re-)create the people (as community, as part of the earth, as individuals). Thus, the question of myth is not whether the historical details are correct (cultures often have several creation stories that do not fit together). Mythic peoples do not normally understand the truth of myths to be a zero-sum item--the truth of one myth does not deny the truth of others.

It is, then, conceivable to have a historically accurate description of an event ("creation" springs to mind) that does not succeed at making that event present. The event is left as part of history only, intellectual fodder. The other side of this is that it is possible to have a narrative that has power to create and shape human attitudes, categories, experiences, and so on, while historically inaccurate or even historically unfounded. An example of this is the body of story we have surrounding the "Founding Fathers" of America. Does anyone really believe in the historical moorings of the story of George Washington and the Cherry Tree? Still, it creates a mindset that being American is built on integrity. More challenging is the story of George Washington at Valley Forge in February 1778. Washington wrote a letter describing his troops: "Naked and starving as they are, we cannot enough admire the incomparable patience and fidelity of the soldiery." Evidence now suggests that his troops were not "naked and starving", but out of ammunition. His plea for funds would, however, have fallen on deaf ears if it were for powder and balls. Such were more needed elsewhere. But the story's power is that it creates, generation after generation, an American mindset that liberty (even if it IS only liberty from taxes) is worth suffering for.

Myths are often consciously embodied in ceremony, told inside sacred places at sacred moments--celebrations of annual cycles, healing ceremonies for individuals, at key points in a life journey (e.g., at puberty rites). Examples include the story of Jesus Christ crucified being enacted in the Roman Catholic Mass daily, and the story of Coyote placing the stars being enacted in the chantways of the Navajo. But myths also function in informal settings--a particular hero story may be told in a variety of ways, by grandparents, professional storytellers, or in working gatherings of men or women (in such cases the way the story is told often varies greatly). The informal tellings allow the myth greater opportunity to shape perspectives, and the same story may be told to correct behavior, illustrate a human characteristic, or explain a given reality. The context itself does not give them their power. Rather, their power is recognized and tapped for the ceremony.

Where does that power come from? Frankly, that may be too difficult a question to answer. One person's myth is another person's fairy tale. But I would suggest that there are a variety of dimensions of story that allow power to come through, regardless of culture or tradition.

• Stories are face to face — personal.
• Stories are ambiguous — they allow a diversity of "truth".
• Stories are uncontrollable.
• Stories are concrete, not abstract.
• Stories are engaging, emotive, enjoyable and evocative.
• Stories are memorable.
• Stories ask for discovery more than present.
• Stories allow the experience of otherwise unexperienceable moments.
• Stories are always a renewed experience, never the same twice.
• Stories cut across age, gender, class and other divisions.
• Stories embody the teller.
• Stories are subversive.
• Stories create desire in listener to share with another.
• Stories are safe — we don't have to live the consequences.

All cultures have mythic traditions -- Native American traditions, Shinto, Asatru, and African religion are openly mythic traditions today. At the same time, Hinduism, Judaism and Christianity are "modern" religions that continue to tell their myths (Lord Krishna on the battlefield, the Exodus, and the death/resurrection of Jesus are all mythic accounts--their greatest power is in their presentation rather than in analytical reflection on their meaning). Every significant religion in the world has its roots in mythic experience.