OAE11641 Myth with Rituals Essay – Arts and Humanities Assignment Help

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Task

During the childhood, one must be get apprehended by one’s friends or siblings, when one mistakenly gulped down the seeds, and friends used to say now this seed will take the form of a tree, and all. Yes, now it is laughable, but it is a universal incident, and we must have come across such incidents. Now we have a scientific reason that it would not have been possible. In the same way, myths are, but they do not have supports for enlightenment in an educational setting. In this paper, myth means mythology of cultures.

Myths are the part of every culture across the globe. It tells the story of ancestors, and justifies the particular action of human being which is not scientifically true. This document talks about the association of myths with rituals. It takes the reference of incidents across the globe, especially giving reference to the Greek, Egyptian and Biblical myths. This document will explore the practices based on myths and will try to get the historical insights.

If we seethe literal meaning of myth from the source ‘Merriam Webster’ an online dictionary, it sale traditional story (usually) of ostensibly historical events that serves for unfolding the parts of the world view of a people or explain a practice, belief, or natural phenomenon”. According to Kluckhohn, (1942) Myths are the symbolic elaboration of natural phenomena. We all must have gone through many such stories throughout our life, which could not be believed as those stories had no robust evidence to justify the facts in that story, but we stored it in our memory. Myths are generally associated with religious sentiments. Because ‘myth’ deals with the story of Gods too (HARLOW, 1961), this is the reason another meaning of myth is ‘sacred story’ (Kluckhohn, 1942). That is the reason, if someone does not follow a particular ritual, as he or she does not believe in that myth, then due to the religious sentiment, people start hating that person who has no faith in the religion.

Raglan, (1955) illustrates, that according to Hooke, myth with associated ritual meets the recurrent human needs. There could be a myth, even it is across the globe, that there are various Gods for various purposes; for instance, God for causing rain, God for justifying one’s deeds, and giving results by reckoning his or her deeds. Suppose, a farmer wants to have rain for his crops, he knows that, God of Rain exists, then he or she would do some ritual to make that God happy, and by doing it, he will get rain. Here the association of myths with ritual is adequately elaborated. Myth is a noun, while the ritual is action.

Myth and Ritual, are interdependent sometimes, but sometimes not. There are some rituals, which we do without knowing the fact, which means not even there is a myth but rituals are also independent. If we see in real life, then we can notice that we perform a slew of rituals daily. Even our doing brush daily is also the part of ritual we take bath, and all are daily finials. Here it is quite evident, that rituals are sometimes not connected to myth. Rituals can be man¬made (by the way, everything is the man-made story, if we do not find any empirical data). Here myth means, the mythology of the cultures, which tells a particular story or incident of that time, and people who follow or keep believing in it, try to connect that scenario with their current scenario and perform some rituals whatever have been followed by characters in that myth or sacred story. People accept, that if they follow it, then same way they will be benefitted. Later in this paper, the story of Persephone has the same context, she walks 14 miles to get the blessing of Hades.

Myth is a story, a sacred story in most cases. Raglan, (1955, Each culture has an alignment with the myth and rituals. The question is about the association of myths with ritual, whether both are the same or different or complementary to each other etc. But if we use our commonsensical knowledge, then we can find that sometimes rituals and myths are different from each other, and sometimes it is the same. In the case of any religious festival, the close association of myth with ritual plays a role. For instance, any festival in form of a ritual gets celebrated by the followers of the particular culture to appease the Almighty of that culture. Therefore, we can see, the festival as a ritual, and the reason behind celebrating that particular festival is a mythology of that culture. To justify the myths or rituals there is no solid evidence in the globe but it is a matter of beliefs and debate based on perceived facts. Where J. Frazor’s contribution is noticeable and Starck.

The story of ‘Oedipus’ is considered a myth but Freud took it to elaborate the psychological fact of his research which was accepted worldwide. In this case, the myth had no evidence, still, it get support in psychoanalysis of the theory (Weeks, 2015).
Segal, (1997), says that among the theories of myths and rituals, it has been seen that both are distinctive in connecting myth and ritual; it further says, that the myth and ritual theories elucidate, myth and ritual operate together. Myth is what we believe in such stories which have no strong supporting evidence, but due to this myth we also perform rituals, therefore, it is quite evident that myths and rituals are connected.

Raglan, (1955), says, some people consider myth as highly imaginative things, but the people who claim it should also consider it, that imagination takes place only after one listens about it or heard from other sources. Raglan, (1955) further says, we see Sun as the Sun, but in Greek, they see it as a god Helios, who is mounting his chariot towards the east in the morning, then reaching at the solid heaven at mid-day, and finally reach to the west where horses get fatigued. In the same way, Christian see the consecrated wafer as the body of Christ. The thing, which has no empirical data, is considered to be assumptions of someone. But in the case of myth, we do not look for such data, and we use our discretion to accept it as a fact or false. In India, Diwali is the festival of light, but there is mythology, that on this auspicious, Shri Ram came back to his land after 14 years of spending life in the woods, and he also killed the devil Ravana. Therefore, to greet the Ram, the people of his place lighten the Diya all over the place. Including their homes too. But it has been seen, that even the great personalities follow this ritual who does not belong to India. It means, they accept the myth as fact and perform the ritual to justify it.

In Egypt Ra, Sun-God is the greatest God. (Haikal, n.d.) illustrate that, before the creation, the dark has stakeddhe primeval ocean. When the breath of life gets ready, then Autom decided about creation, and then an island got emerged from the water to support this divinity; later it manifested it as Ra, sun-god. In Egypt to keep this mythology alive, kings, especially Osiris in ancient, started building temples to show their faith in the Sun-God. Here we can say, that mythology is static or we can say that it is an incident, but carrying it throughout the centuries is the ritual. Worshiping God and making temples and all is the form of rituals. Here we can see the association of myths with rituals.

The 12 hours day and 12 hours night have also emerged in Egypt from a myth, that is related to the story of Osiris. Who sailed  the Sky during the visit to the underworld. Osiris the first king of Egypt who gets killed by his twin, and Osiris has married his sister. There is also an association of another myth, that when Isis was hiding from Set, who had killed her husband, then she was getting accompanied by the Scorpians. Isis was in bad condition by look, when she asked a lady for accommodation, the lady refused her. Then Isis got shelter at another home. But scorpion was angry, that how a person denies our Goddess Isis, then Scoropian went to that lady’s home, who had refused to give accommodation to the Isis and bitten her child. When Isis got to know, then she spelled out some chants to make the poison effectless inside the child. Since then chants for reducing the poison of scorpions got into practice as a ritual when a person gets stung by a scorpion. Therefore, we can find the mythology behind the chanting of the spell during the bitting of the scorpion.
In Greek, The m’ of Persephone has associated rituals that include the multi-day ritual, which copies some mythic actions of Demeter when she had lost Persephone. Walking fourteen miles from Athens to Eleusis in the same way that Demeter had wandered the earth in the search of her daughter. Participants have beliefs that this action will give them happier life by Hades (Glencairn Museum News, 2012). Mostly it has been seen, that myths are thoroughly connected to rituals or vice-versa (Segal, 1997).

One of the arguments of this essay, though many works of scholars say, is that myth is alone, a ritual is alone, and it is quite right too therefore, myths may be alone but to justify that myth there would be always a need for rituals. If a mythmaker makes any myth, then it is obvious, that he or she would give some rationale that would be followed by ritual. In Christian, there are some deeds, that are considered to be in, as their myths depict in the bible, but one committed it, then there is a ritual of confessing in Church. Here myth tells the natural phenomenon of sinning by telling the repercussion of doing sin. (Doty, 2000) illustrated, that mythmakers, collect the information from the cultures into pieces and then assemble it. After it, they construe their assumption or create a myth that considers the contemporary situation of that civilization or of epic. When any calamity happens around the world, then many people start construing that God is angry.

But on the other hand, Kluckhohn, (1942) elucidated, that the generalization of myth as a reason behind rituals should not be claimed. Because the same myth can have different responses in a different society. Myth and ritual satisfy the needs of society. Some might do not get importance, while the same myth can get greater importance in other societies. A ritual can be compelled by a myth in donor cultures, but carriers of recipient culture simply as a form of activity (Kluckhohn, 1942). To support it, this essay would go out of the context of specified culture and will consider the scene of Hindu mythology. Some rituals get performed on a particular occasion. In the South part of India, when girls hit puberty they celebrate it, and in the north part of India, they do not care much about it, only the mother or elder sister tells the reason, and the practices after happening it.

The Sumerian Sacred Marriage, The Prelude to a number of Akkair incantations, Assyrian Cult Commentaries, Egyptian ritual, The Hittite myths, and the Festivals of Passover and Booths in the Hebrew Bible are some scenario that depicts the association of myth and rituals.

Because each story is a product of myth and it is associated with a particular ritual, for instance Sumerian marriage is relted to the fertility.

It has been in faith regarding Easter that, on this day, Christ rose from the dead, it is in celebration as a festival on the name of resurrection day of Christ.

After looking at this essay, it is quite evident that the relation between myth and rituals is interconnected in the most cases. Rituals may be autonomous but myth keeps the status of justifying any ritual. Egyptian do not see Sun as the sun but they see it as God Helios. The ritual of walking miles to get the blessing of Hades, by which, the performer’s life can be joyful, is justifiable by the myth of Persephone. The celebration of Easter and many more festivals are the forms of ritual, that get justified by the myth related to that culture. The Sumerian Sacred marriage and its relation to the marriage of Human beings with Goddess.

We can find robust evidence to justify the association of myths with rituals as interdependent. Both cause each other. Sometimes, ritual justifies myths, and sometimes myth does the same for ritual. It can be concluded, that the association of myth with ritual is at extended level.

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