REVIEWER

EL 107
MYTH
- Set of stories or beliefs about a particular person, institution, or situation, especially when
exaggerated or fictitious.

Prominent people define myths

Frye- stories of gods and supernatural's

Eliade- story of origins, “illo tempore”

Levistrauss-linguistic analysis

Freud- dreams, unconscious mind

Jung- archetypes

Cassirer- symbolic and metaphorical

Campbell- metaphysical dimensions, validate social issues, innermost depths of the psyche

Frazer- prescientific attempts to interpret the natural word

Malinowski-functional and are the science of primitive people

Hooke- rituals

Durkheim- sacred history

Saussure- semiotic expressions

Muller- disease of language

Kirk-individual and social in scope

FOLKLORE
- Traditional beliefs, customs, and stories of a community, passed through generations by word of
mouth
- Body of popular myths or beliefs relating to a particular place, activity, or group of people
- A metacultural category used to mark certain genres and practices within modern societies as
being not modern

FOUR BASIC MEANING OF FOLKLORE

1. Denotes oral narration, rituals, crafts, and other forms of vernacular expressive culture
2. Folklore of ‘folkloristics,’ names an academic discipline devoted to the study of such phenomena
3. Colorful ‘folkloric’ phenomena linked to music, tourist, and fashion industries
 4. Can mean falsehood

TYPE OF MYTHS
1. AETIOLOGICAL MYTHS
- Also known as ETIOLOGICAL
- Reason or explanation
- Not the real
- Why something is it is today

SUB TYPES

Natural etiological myth- explain an aspect of nature

Etymological aetiological myth- explains the origin of the word
Religious aetiological myth- origin of a religious ritual
2. HYSTORICAL MYTHS
- Historic events
3. PSYCHOLOGICAL MYTHS
- Human emotion
- Unconscious mind
- Archetypes are example of how human think alike when it comes to matters that are the to
them mysteries and fears.

Terms Used in Discussing Myths

•Aetiological-the study of causes, origins, reasons

•Apotropaic- warding off or "turning away" evil

•Autochthonous-native to a particular place; aboriginal; indigenous

•Cosmogony-the study of or a theory of the creation and evolution of the universe

•Cosmology-similar to cosmogony above, but with less emphasis on creation or origins and more on the
study of how the universe works now

•Chthonic- pertaining to gods and spirits of the underworld.

•Ennead-any group or set of nine

•Eponymous- giving one's name to something, as to a city, country, era, institution.

•Etymology-the study of word origins and derivation.

•Mythology-literally, the study of myths

•Theogony-a recitation of the origin and genealogy of the gods, especially as in ancient epic poetry.
•Theriomorphic-in the form of a beast

•Dethrone-to remove from a high position, to depose

•Diffuse-to scatter widely

•Pinnacle-the highest point; a pointed mountain top

•Oracle-a divinely inspired priest or priestess through whom the ancient gods spoke

•Venerate-to honor and hold in high esteem

•Seize-to take hold of forcefully and suddenly

•Wield-to handle or use a weapon or tool

•Aegis-a protective shield

•Revere-to regard with deep respect

•Hearth-the floor of a fireplace that extends into a room (usually stone or brick)

•Ascend-to move upward; to rise

•Divinity-aged or goddess, a deity

•Infidelity-disloyalty; unfaithfulness

•Trident-a three-pronged spear

•Pallid-pale, lacking natural color, white, ashen, pasty.

THEORIES OF MYTH INTERPRETATION

Xenophanes

- inherently flawed

- Disrespectful to the gods to conceptualize them as being subject to human weaknesses and illicit
acts.

Plato

- Stories would corrupt the minds of young children who did not yet know the difference between
right and wrong

ALLEGORICAL INTERPRETATION

 ALLEGORY – is a narration or description in which events, actions, characters, settings or objects

represent specific abstractions or ideas.

PHYSICAL ALLEGORY
THEAGENES

- interpreted myths in which gods fought every one-of-a-kind as illustrating

physical/cosmological facts about nature and opposing herbal forces.

Example: apollo assaults Poseidon

MAX MULLER

- He believed myths began as an allegorical description of nature

HISTORICAL ALLEGORY

EUHEMERUS

- Possibly comprise historical truths

ANIMISM

EDWARD TYLER

- Myths are created out of animism

- The belief that everything has a soul
- Myth is a mistaken protoscience or philosophy, born out of fear and ignorance of natural
phenomena
 A belief that all objects and living things possess a soul or spirit
 Anima- means soul or breath of life

RITUAL THEORY

ROBERTSON SMITH

- Humans begin to perform rituals for reasons not associated to myths

JAMES FRAZER

- Myths are explanations for non-secular rituals: a secondary elaboration of rituals

PERIODS IN THE PHILIPPINE LITERATURE

1. PRE-COLONIAL PERIOD
2. SPANISH COLONIAL ERA
- Noli Me Tangere, El Filibusterismo, Ninay, Florante at Laura
3. AMERICAN COLONIAL ERA
4. CONTEMPORARY PERIOD

The Philippines Epics

- Lifestyle of native hero

1.Bicol Epic Poetry: The Ibalon

 - Explanation for how man got here to be
- Aslon and Ibalon
- Flood story

2. Visayan Epic Poetry: The Maragtas Chronicles of Panay

- origins of the Filipinos and tells the story of 10 Datus or chieftains from Borneo that sail across the
oceans to escape the cruel reign of the Sultan Makatunaw

3. Mindanao Epic Poetry

- Darangan (very much like Greek mythology)

* Romantic adventures of noble warriors from Mindanao

* It is sung, rather of simply said

4. Igorot Epic Poetry: Aliguyon

- the lifestyles of the hero

- marry Pumbakhayon’s sister

5. Ilokano Epic Poetry: Biag ni Lam-ang

- uncommon lifestyle of a boy who may want to talk and right after he was born

- Innes Kannoyan

6. The Bagobo tribe has an epic hero named Tuwaang

- Tuwaang was a brave and robust warrior with several powers

-he rode a lightning

-wind

7. Ifugao Epic Story: Hud-Hud

-the lifestyle and heroism of the native Ifugao

- Aliguyon (Gohadan tribe)

- electricity and strength

8. Ullalim

- epic of the Kalinga of northern Luzon

- Banna and Lagguanawa

- gassumbi (Gawan)

- Dangdang-ay (Magliya or Cono)

9. Handiong

- Bicol epic

- Handiong kils special monsters

10. Gaddaang

-Biwag and Malana

-earth god BUNAG

-sea god LIMAT

Baltog- pioneer in the epic Ibalon of the Bikolano

BALTOG is considered the first man to settle in Bikol, who came from Bota Vara and of the race
Lipod. He slays a great boar with his bare hands when it destroyed his taro field.

FOLKTALES

- They are not considered as dogma or history

- Human tales, animal tales, trickster tales, tall tales, dilemma tales, formulistic tales, and
moral tales or fables
CLASSIFICATION OF FILIPINO FOLKTALES

- Humorous tales
 Trickster tales
 Numskull tales
Animal tales and fables

- Human qualities are ascribed to animals

- The absurd predicaments into which the animal’s stupidity leads him

Fables

- Carries a moral applicable to humanity

The Marchen or Tales of Magic

- There is a magic involve

Novelistic tales

- There is not explicitly magical or supernatural element

Religious- Didactic Tales

- The entertainment function of storytelling is subordinated to the instructive function

- Tales told primarily for the moral instruction they convey
Human trickster tales

- None too admirable a character

Numskull tales

- About stupidities’

Classification of Filipino Folktales

(1) proverbs expressing a customary mind-set closer to lifestyles and the legal guidelines
that govern life
(2) moral proverbs recommending certain virtues and condemning certain vices
(3) proverbs expressing a device of values.
(4) proverbs expressing prevalent truths and observations about life and human nature
(5) humorous proverbs and
(6) miscellaneous proverbs.
Examples of proverbs
1.When there’s smoke, there’s fire.
2. Of what use is the grass when the horse is already dead.
3. Useless labor if someone else eats from it.
4. If you so arrows, you will reap sorrows.
5. Don’t count chicks until the eggs are hatched.
Philippine Folk Songs
1.Bahay kubo
2.Pakitong kitong
3.Magtanim Ay ‘Di Biro
4.O ilaw
5.Ang pipit
6.Sa Ugoy ng Duyan
7.Sa Libis ng Nayon
8.Bayan Ko
ANCIENT MIDDLE EAST
1.Babylonia-The Enuma Elish
2.Sumeria-The Gilgamesh
3.Egypt-Isis and Horus

MESOPOTAMIA

- Euphrates and Tigris rivers

- Babylonia is the historic cultural place occupying southeastern Mesopotamia (South of
Baghdad).
- Babylonia has come to refer to the entire tradition that developed in the region from the
time it was once first settled, about4000 BC.
MARDUK

 is the God of storms is at once associated with the introduction

myth.
 He is usually linked with the origin of agriculture, the increase of
vegetation, and water fertilizer action.
TIAMAT

 Tiamat is a folklore figure (ASIRIO-BABILONICO) is a dragon that

symbolized the ocean water in Babylonian mythology, the origin of
life together with Apsu, which symbolized the clean water.
EA

 Ea is the father of Marduk, who created the world

 Ea and his brothers were the children who annoyed their parents
enough to provoke a war of the gods
ABZU

 Abzu is the patron god who fathers the second-generation gods,

Ea and his brothers, with his wife Tiamat.
 Abzu is the fresh waters and Tiamat is the oceanic waters.
MUSHUSSU

 Another dragon, which is a three-headed demon created with the

aid of Tiamat.
 This fought the gods, who were led through Marduk.
ISHTAR

 She was once firstly a goddess mother, subsequently eclipsed all

the other girl deities of Babylon.
  She was once additionally referred as the daughter of Anu, the
sky or the goddess of the Moon, and the sin.
NIMROD

 was a professional hero in killing wild beasts

 He took position asking with the approval of their peers.
SAMMUR-AMAT

 the stunning spouse of Nimrud

KING HAMMURABI

 is a powerful ruler in Babylonia’s history.

 He created the first written laws and warranted that they remain
immutable by way of his successors; so they should not introduce
any change to his code or abolish this legislation.
KING NEBUCHADNEZZAR

 Most powerful and longest-reigning ruler of the Babylonian Empire

(from BC 605-562) who figured prominently in the Bible books of
Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel.
 He is deemed to be the greatest king of the Chaldean dynasty of
Babylonia.
NERGAL

 is the God of plague in Babylonian mythology, who was firstly the

God of death or war.
TAMMUZ

 is the son of the Solar God. He was symbolized by a golden calf.

GILGAMESH

 he was an adventurer with supernatural power, trying to find to

free the land from the evil inflicted on through the monster
Huwawa
ETANA

 The Myth of Etana is the story of the Sumerian antediluvian King

of Kish who ascends to heaven on an eagle to request the Plant of
Birth from the gods so that he might have a son.
 Etana is named as the first king of Kish in the Sumerian King List.