- Kathleen Scavone
- Posted On
Lake County Time Capsule: American Indian mythology
“A word has power in and of itself. It comes from nothing into sound and meaning; it gives origin to all things.” – N. Scott Momaday, “The Way to Rainy Mountain”
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – According to anthropologist Alfred Kroeber, in his book, “The Religion of the Indians of California,” “The California Indians were in an animistic state of mind, in which they attributed life, intelligence, and especially supernatural power, to virtually all living and lifeless things.”
The native peoples of Lake County – the Pomo, Miwok, Yuki, Wappo and Patwin – all incorporated myth into their various cultures.
There were specialists in some American Indian groups who sometimes traveled to tell the stories, or myths, which could explain their world in a unique way.
At times the storytellers were presented with food, furs and baskets. In his book, “Pomo Myths,” S.A. Barrett said, “In fact this region was an ideal 'Indian country', and here there was developed a special culture, with certain variants in each of the environmental units. Such variations are reflected even in the mythology of the people.”
Over time, in the western traditional literary circle myths have come to mean make-believe or fairy tale.
Studies done on mythology in the fields of anthropology, history, linguistics and archaeology have come to understand and value the meaning of myth in American Indian culture.
Since most California Indians were of the oral tradition, then it serves to follow that not only is the true meaning obscured by writing it down, but it loses much in the language translation as well.
Myths of many types were important to the peoples of times past. Some of the themes were cosmogonic, or origin myths – how the world came into being.
Through studying myths of different cultures in Joseph Campbell’s works it is fascinating to find themes that play out over and over across the cultures, such as the world coming into being from nothing (Mayan, Greek, Australian, first book of Genesis), or that of emergence from the lower worlds such as that of the Hopi and Navajo.
In Siberia and Romania the motif is that of an animal such as a bird or turtle who dives into primeval water and surfaces with a bit of earth that later grows into being the world.
The traditions of times past continue. These traditions are valuable, when so many have faced obliteration.
As Paula Gunn Allen states in “Spider Woman’s Granddaughters – Traditional Tales and Contemporary Writing by Native American Women,” “Indian storytellers seldom write or speak as isolated individuals, cut off from their communal context. Rather, they use their tales to entertain, enlighten, educate, and above all to reveal to the audience their connection to the wisdom and experience of the tribal group. In this way the continuity between daily life and the tribal matrix is reaffirmed, and the audience’s participation in the sacred life of the group and of the universe gains an added dimension.”
Myth, it is now understood, is of vast importance to each culture’s education.
When the stories are no longer told then it serves to follow that they are no longer in your mind.
With the loss of myth, you lose perspective about what’s occurring in your day-to-day life.
This valuable information from ancient times has everything to do with ideas we have, our religion, problems we may face, and life passages.
The stories and traditions become a rich source of meaning for life.
Kathleen Scavone, M.A., is an educator, potter, writer and author of “Anderson Marsh State Historic Park: A Walking History, Prehistory, Flora, and Fauna Tour of a California State Park” and “Native Americans of Lake County.” She also writes for NASA and JPL as one of their “Solar System Ambassadors.” She was selected “Lake County Teacher of the Year, 1998-99” by the Lake County Office of Education, and chosen as one of 10 state finalists the same year by the California Department of Education.