TRAVERSING CULTURES: TOWARDS AN INTERPOSING WORLD MYTH

This paper examines the correlation between African, American Indian and Judeo-Christian myths, with the intention of answering the perplexing questions whether there is a possibility of an interposing world myth. The paper also an extension of Alexander Eliot’s concept of universality in The Universal World Myths: Heroes, Gods, Trickster, and Others as it emphasizes on the fact that the issue of an interposing world myth should be viewed more within the ambit of the mythic faculty of the Supreme Being at the origin of things than in recurring archetypes, which Eliot christens “eightfold treasures of the world”. The work in this vein anchors on the supposition that even though each culture has developed its own myths to answer pressing questions about creation, death, life and man’s place in the universe, etc, these myths only prefigure that humanity and the universe are products of a mythic faculty of a supreme being at the origin of things. The paper as well brings into the limelight the precedence of myth over science. The comparisons obtained from the analysis present myths as (warped) vestiges of desired fantasies of the Supreme Being and humanity. The parallels and variations in world myths only help give a better knowledge of the relationship of human life to the mystery of being. The differences, in no way, do not fiddle with the original dream, but facilitate man’s comprehension of the complexities in man’s relation to earth and the cosmos. These differences explicate how the personal dream of the Supreme Being manifests, is received, re-enacted and transmitted with time and space at varying degrees of intensities. It becomes evident that the drive towards an interposing world myth should be premised on the faculty at creation, for it helps find expression for the repressed longings and fears that humanity is different. We must note that humanity differs in “kind” and not “degree”.