Comparatist Mythology

See also Capturing the Kerberos from an Ideological and Comparatist Perspective

Commentary

Myths go back extremely far in time, before written language. It is a natural human instinct to try to personify things that we do not understand, and nature and the beginnings of existence are very difficult to explain. Most ancient peoples may have personified the earth as a a female (bringing new life, things being 'born' out of the ground like trees and rivers etc) People today still describe good nutrient land as 'fertile'.

The sky was mostly male, as people may have personified rain as ejaculation, as the rain always brought 'fertile' land where things grow. In Greek tradition and Hittite, they may have believed that the only way to explain the birth of Gods is not through rain but the ejaculation or castration of other Gods, as rain is not divine enough to bring about the birth of gods.

Similartities do exist between Greek and Hittite mythology, such as castration, swallowing of genitals/embryos, blood/sperm from gods impregnating Earth, infant god concealment, swallowing of stones instead of infant gods as well as various parts of Zeus' battle in his ascent as ruler being similar to Teshub's battles.

This leads us to reconsider the idea of comparative mythology. Previously we had dismissed such similarities as coincidenses based on the human condition, on the premise that as humans we may have similar ancient mythologies based on our experience of the World. Similarities such as the triadic succession of gods could still be classified as so. But comparative similarities such as mentioned above that are somewhat specific, and such as the importance of Mount Casius, leads us to believe these mythologies did indeed influence one another - or may perhaps both be based on a prior myth.

Comparison with Hittite Mythology

The geographical location of Hittite is strongly important of how these myths were created and why they are so similar. Kumarbi spits out the stone child he ate because he chipped his tooth. It is interesting how both Greek and Hittite myths involved the war of families and the "monsters" they created. The son overthrowing his father seems to be reoccurring throughout many stories

The son-overthrows-father is a very interesting motif. Is it related to the way that these societies worked - i.e. that at some stage the son would indeed take over from his father as head of the household, though not in quite the violent way that occurs in the myths, and that this then filters through into the mythology?

• The Greek and Hittite versions of the origins of the gods share some similarities but also many divergences which tend to show that they are not variants of the same tales nor come from a single origin. Either the events are dissimilar or they use different motifs and themes.

• There are also some similarities between these Greek stories of the origin of the gods and Egyptian and other contiguous Indo-European cultures but the dissimilarities are even more apparent.

• If it is not the retelling of the same tales then it could be the pool of common motifs and themes (storms, love, vengeance, fertilization, sea, sky and land, etc), which were shared between the cultures and languages of the region, were used to develop the stories to suit a Greek, Hittite of other cultures’ worldview .

The many branches, many trees analogy to describe the transmission of the myths is appealing. The structualist Trubetskoy suggested that distinct linguistic groups would borrow vocabulary from each other. A could influence B who in turn influences C. C and B can also influence A. So it is not surprising to me that there will be similarities. Csapo uses the same tree model to describe the transmission of myths but supplements it with an image of an ever changing network, which seems apt in an internet-connected world

Criticism of Comparatism

Comparative studies may well be entertaining in themselves but are only useful to me if they enlighten material within the Greek myths. It is very interesting to see how many similarities there are but much more enlightening to see the differences. Some myths try to explain the phenomenon of nature and it is interesting how this differs from other cultures. It would appear that the Greeks (or really their predecessors) incorporated the elements of nature (storm, lightening, dawn etc.) into the character of their Gods whereas the Hittites seems to base their myths on manifestations of the weather. As is often the case with comparative studies, we may not be comparing like with like.

So, Comparative studies are useful but merely as a tool for better understanding of the Greek Myths and why they have endured. But they do not describe the myths and are limited in their usefulness. Comparative Studies do not:

• Tell us why certain of the gods were in the Olympian house and why some were not,
• Tell us how particular gods got there Greek character
• Tell us how the ancients lived by their myths
• Tell us why the mystique has endured
• Tell us why they resonate in our psyche
• Tell us why the legends are so brilliant and are such wonderful vehicles of myth
• Tell us why we still use these myths

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