Mythology and Bundles
I have been revisiting my tribal mythology and culture, and found some important things to keep in mind in Karen's Armstrong's "A Short History of Myth":
Today the word ‘myth’ is often used to describe something that simply isn’t true. A politician accused of a peccadillo will say it is a ‘myth’, that it never happened. When we hear of gods walking the earth, of dead men striding out of tombs, or of seas miraculously parting to let a favoured people escape from their enemies, we dismiss these stories as incredible and demonstrably untrue. Since the eighteenth century, we have developed a scientific view of history; we are concerned above all with what actually happened. But in the pre-modern world, when people wrote about the past they were more concerned with what the event had meant. A myth was an event which, in some sense, happened once, but which also happened all the time. Because of our strictly chronological view of history, we have no word for such an occurrence, but mythology is an art form that points beyond history to what is timeless in human existence...
...In mythology… we entertain a hypothesis, bring it to life by means of ritual, act upon it, contemplate its effects upon our lives, and discover we have achieved new insight into the disturbing puzzle of our world.
A myth, therefore, is true because it is effective, not because it gives factual information. If, however, it does not give us new insight into the deeper meaning of life, it has failed. It is works, that is, if it forces us to change our minds and hearts, gives us new hope, and compels us to live more fully, it is a valid myth. Mythology will only transform us if we follow its directives. A myth is essentially a guide; it tells us what we must do in order to live more richly. If we do not apply it to our own situation and make myth a reality in our own lives, it will remain as incomprehensible and remote as the rules of a board game, which often seem confusing and boring until we start to play.
I wrote my M.A. thesis in Anthropology on the Sacred Bundles of my tribe, the Ioway Indians. We had lived in the upper midwest, centered in Iowa, until we were moved by the government to a reservation on the border of Kansas and Nebraska where the Missouri River flows by. The Sacred Bundles (waruxawe: "that which is flayed") were of many types, for war, protection, healing, social organization, tattooing, and more. My thesis examined them in detail (you can take a look at the thesis here and get a copy if so moved: http://stores.lulu.com/lancemfoster).
But the question I always ask myself, is, apart from understanding the past, what can we learn from the Sacred Bundles to help us in our lives today? Merely fetishizing the past does not necessarily help us now. It does not help our children and their children live in a damaged and transforming world so different from the one our ancestors lived in. Can we build a revitalized way of life around what the Sacred Bundles and the Sacred Myths have to teach us?
Mary Scriver writes about the Blackfeet revitalization of Sacred Bundle ways in Montana:
The “problem” (if that’s what it is) with the contemporary Bundle Keepers’ interpretation of the Bundle Ceremony is based on “doing what our ancestors did because we are their children.” But the old-time Circle, as they danced with the contents of the Bundle -- which are skins of animals meant to prompt thoughts of those lives on the shared prairies -- were relating to the actual animals, each well-known to them with its penumbra of characteristics. The modern Bundle Keepers are worried about maintaining their relationship with their culture. The ancient Bundle Keepers were worried about maintaining their relationship to the land which both preserved and destroyed them: it was their essential source of life itself, the foundation of their culture. (http://prairiemary.blogspot.com/2010/12/bundle-bundle-whos-got-bundle.html)
The Old People did what they did not because of a focus on the past but on a focus on proper relationship with the source of life.
In the Ioway Sacred Bundles I examined, there were plant medicines and animal skins. Not dead things, but living, the power of life in them in some mysterious way still. I know. I saw some of these things still sleeping,yet moving in their sleep. For example, there was a squirrel skin with a tiny woven sash tied around it like a man wears a belt. A squirrel skin in a warriors bundle? Hawk, eagle, bear, or wolf in a war bundle, okay, but a squirrel?? Surely you have seen the agility and speed of a squirrel, and its evasiveness and willingness to defend itself and its relations. This is the power of a squirrel.
A mother defending her child from a dog.
Defending a fallen comrade from enemies.
There is also a video of a squirrel attacking a snake. I have seen them attack cats. They do not always win, but they have courage, speed, aggressiveness, endurance...things a warrior needs. Things that live in a properly obtained and prayed-over squirrel skin war amulet, that can help a warrior out when he needs it.
It is good and necessary to know about the past, which is the source of where we come from and who we are. But one must also build knowledge of the present, and build a way of life, including the spiritual, that also answers where we are going.
What elements, plants, animals in your personal and observed life have not only lessons to teach you, but power to connect you to the source of life, our green-growing, four-legged, winged, crawling, swimming relatives of the Land?
That is what the Old People were doing in the past, not tradition for the sake of tradition only, but in order that they might live, and live in proper relationship to the source of life, and based on that relationship, to each other. That is the concern of culture.
This must be about building and maintaining our connection with the source of life: the land, animals, plants of the place we live in. Not only for ourselves, but for the generations to come.
Today the word ‘myth’ is often used to describe something that simply isn’t true. A politician accused of a peccadillo will say it is a ‘myth’, that it never happened. When we hear of gods walking the earth, of dead men striding out of tombs, or of seas miraculously parting to let a favoured people escape from their enemies, we dismiss these stories as incredible and demonstrably untrue. Since the eighteenth century, we have developed a scientific view of history; we are concerned above all with what actually happened. But in the pre-modern world, when people wrote about the past they were more concerned with what the event had meant. A myth was an event which, in some sense, happened once, but which also happened all the time. Because of our strictly chronological view of history, we have no word for such an occurrence, but mythology is an art form that points beyond history to what is timeless in human existence...
...In mythology… we entertain a hypothesis, bring it to life by means of ritual, act upon it, contemplate its effects upon our lives, and discover we have achieved new insight into the disturbing puzzle of our world.
A myth, therefore, is true because it is effective, not because it gives factual information. If, however, it does not give us new insight into the deeper meaning of life, it has failed. It is works, that is, if it forces us to change our minds and hearts, gives us new hope, and compels us to live more fully, it is a valid myth. Mythology will only transform us if we follow its directives. A myth is essentially a guide; it tells us what we must do in order to live more richly. If we do not apply it to our own situation and make myth a reality in our own lives, it will remain as incomprehensible and remote as the rules of a board game, which often seem confusing and boring until we start to play.
I wrote my M.A. thesis in Anthropology on the Sacred Bundles of my tribe, the Ioway Indians. We had lived in the upper midwest, centered in Iowa, until we were moved by the government to a reservation on the border of Kansas and Nebraska where the Missouri River flows by. The Sacred Bundles (waruxawe: "that which is flayed") were of many types, for war, protection, healing, social organization, tattooing, and more. My thesis examined them in detail (you can take a look at the thesis here and get a copy if so moved: http://stores.lulu.com/lancemfoster).
But the question I always ask myself, is, apart from understanding the past, what can we learn from the Sacred Bundles to help us in our lives today? Merely fetishizing the past does not necessarily help us now. It does not help our children and their children live in a damaged and transforming world so different from the one our ancestors lived in. Can we build a revitalized way of life around what the Sacred Bundles and the Sacred Myths have to teach us?
Mary Scriver writes about the Blackfeet revitalization of Sacred Bundle ways in Montana:
The “problem” (if that’s what it is) with the contemporary Bundle Keepers’ interpretation of the Bundle Ceremony is based on “doing what our ancestors did because we are their children.” But the old-time Circle, as they danced with the contents of the Bundle -- which are skins of animals meant to prompt thoughts of those lives on the shared prairies -- were relating to the actual animals, each well-known to them with its penumbra of characteristics. The modern Bundle Keepers are worried about maintaining their relationship with their culture. The ancient Bundle Keepers were worried about maintaining their relationship to the land which both preserved and destroyed them: it was their essential source of life itself, the foundation of their culture. (http://prairiemary.blogspot.com/2010/12/bundle-bundle-whos-got-bundle.html)
The Old People did what they did not because of a focus on the past but on a focus on proper relationship with the source of life.
In the Ioway Sacred Bundles I examined, there were plant medicines and animal skins. Not dead things, but living, the power of life in them in some mysterious way still. I know. I saw some of these things still sleeping,yet moving in their sleep. For example, there was a squirrel skin with a tiny woven sash tied around it like a man wears a belt. A squirrel skin in a warriors bundle? Hawk, eagle, bear, or wolf in a war bundle, okay, but a squirrel?? Surely you have seen the agility and speed of a squirrel, and its evasiveness and willingness to defend itself and its relations. This is the power of a squirrel.
A mother defending her child from a dog.
Click to viewDefending a fallen comrade from enemies.
There is also a video of a squirrel attacking a snake. I have seen them attack cats. They do not always win, but they have courage, speed, aggressiveness, endurance...things a warrior needs. Things that live in a properly obtained and prayed-over squirrel skin war amulet, that can help a warrior out when he needs it.
It is good and necessary to know about the past, which is the source of where we come from and who we are. But one must also build knowledge of the present, and build a way of life, including the spiritual, that also answers where we are going.
What elements, plants, animals in your personal and observed life have not only lessons to teach you, but power to connect you to the source of life, our green-growing, four-legged, winged, crawling, swimming relatives of the Land?
That is what the Old People were doing in the past, not tradition for the sake of tradition only, but in order that they might live, and live in proper relationship to the source of life, and based on that relationship, to each other. That is the concern of culture.
This must be about building and maintaining our connection with the source of life: the land, animals, plants of the place we live in. Not only for ourselves, but for the generations to come.