Myths and Memory
By Bartolomeo di Giovanni - Walters Art Museum: Home page Info about artwork, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18783132
A myth is typically viewed as a thing of folklore, stories that are somehow religious in nature, but a myth was so much more for our ancestors. Myths were quite often poetic or musical in nature so they'd be easier to remember and pass down. They were also used to build a sense of unity in a group of people as well as help remind members of a group of of when things should be done, where they should be done, what things should be avoided, where people came from, and to make friends.
By Milenioscuro - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3791072
As many of the myths also have components of the night sky in them, with heroes or animals being turned into constellations, we can trace how those stories moved and how people moved. For example, there are stories that involve the constellations of Ursa major and Ursa minor that show up in South America because people who started in the far north moved south and the stories were too important to be forgotten. We can also trace myths by their themes, like how some myths have the creation of land by a creature diving or by a deity-figure calling up land from water. We can trace these ideas, these motifs, through their travels around the world.
By USGS - World Wind (go), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4302322
Myths also moved in ways that we can trace through genetics, but slightly out of sync with genetics. Often, stories would go before genetic mingling occurred through an area. People would join together and share their songs and myths over a meal or while cooperating in a hunt, only later would one group move into an area or have children with each other. One example is that mythology about horses reached parts of Europe before horses did, based on the archaeological record.
By William Wallace Denslow - Library of Congress[2], Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7640324
We know that mythology was poetry or music not just because the oldest surviving literature we have access to is poetic in form, but also because it's far easier to remember and recite. We enjoy rhythm, rhyme, alliteration, assonance, all the poetry vocabulary that we learned in school. We also still use poetry and song to communicate important myths, like how to identify a disease (ring-a-ring of rosies), how to identify dangerous plants (leaves of three), or a tax on wool (baa baa black sheep). While these don't feel sacred to us as the word 'sacred' has come to be limited to religion only, they are passed on through generations both by guardians and educators.
Mythology was sacred, but in a way different to how we use the word today. It would possibly be m ore 'modern' to say that mythology was vital to the life of our elders the way that stories and songs are vital to us today.
Further Resources:
Crecganford YouTube Channel: By researcher Jon Fielder-White
