Category Archives: Myths

Sacred narratives

Apollo and the Island of Rhodes

Informant Info:

  • Nationality: Greek
  • Occupation: Professor
  • Residence: Connecticut 
  • Primary language: Greek

Text and context:

I.T chose to inform me on one of the most well known myths from Rhodes, the island in Greece where he is originally from. The myth surrounds the island of Rhodes and involves Helios, which is the sun in Greek. The myth begins with the day the Greek Gods met to decide who would be the patron god for each island/ region. Zeus gifted a beautiful island that was beginning to emerge from the ocean to Apollo. This island is Rhodos, and this is why the patron god of Rhodos is Apollo. I.T informed me that Rhodes has more days with Sun than any other place, even while other places are more South and should be receiving more sunlight than Rhodes. The god sun is Apollo, and I.T says Apollo was carrying the sun behind his horses as he rode across the universe. Apollo rode with his horses and the Sun, and he would stop more times in Rhodos, hence why Rhodes has more sun. 

Analysis:

I recently went to Greece for the first time, specifically in the islands of Rhodes and Athens. I spent the majority of the time in Rhodes, where I.T is from. I.T introduced me and my fellow USC peers to the history of Rhodes, which is his true home. As I walked the streets of Rhodes, I saw symbols of Apollo carved into buildings. At the center of all the symbols, Apollo’s head was always located. I.E informed us that in the head of Apollo is the symbol for Rhodes. Through this myth, I was able to see how the Greek people also use creation stories to explain how parts of Greece came to be. Some Greeks also believe that Rhodes is the most sunny place on Earth because of their Patron God, and they use Apollo to explain this. In Rhodes, people greatly praise Apollo, and they carefully cherish the Acropolis of Rhodes, where the remains of the temple of Apollo is also located.

Zodiac Animal Order Origin

Context: the informant is a 21 year old USC student and the daughter of 2 Taiwanese immigrants. She told me that this was the story of how the zodiac animals were ordered the way they were, and said it was a story she learned growing up

The story goes that one day, the gods held a contest for all the animals. She was unsure exactly if the animals had been chosen beforehand or if it was for all the animals, but essentially, twelve animals were in competition with each other, and the ones that completed the race first would be earlier in the zodiac cycle. The biggest obstacle in this course was a large river. The rat, which is first, won by jumping onto the ox and waiting for it to ford the river normally; once the ox had crossed, the rat ran further ahead, which is why the rat is first and the ox is second. The tiger came next, with the rabbit following quickly after as it had to jump across logs to make it across the river. The dragon was fifth, as it had stopped to help others out on the way. The snake and horse came next; the horse was initially first, but was scared by the snake and fell behind. The monkey, rooster, and sheep followed after, having tried to help each other through. The dog came second to last, and the pig came last, as it had accidentally fallen asleep during the race. The order that the animals arrived in was the solidified zodiac order.

Analysis: this is very much a myth about the origins of the Chinese zodiac calendar, attaching stories to animals in a way similar to how ancient Greek constellations were categorized. It’s not a story that’s meant to be questioned — only to be believed. The informant and her family don’t necessarily believe in this directly but they know the story regardless, and believe that children born in different zodiac years carry different qualities. I’ve been friends with many East Asian kids growing up, and all of their parents attach different qualities to the zodiac years, much in the way that Westerners typically do with astrology. They’re aware that it acts as a sort of pseudo-science, but this does not affect their belief in it, which stands in line with the idea that myths are not questioned, only believed.

Hou Yi and Chang’e Legend

Context: The informant is a 21 year old USC student and the daughter of two Taiwanese immigrants. She told me that she was definitely missing some details, but this is the story she learned growing up about the origins of the Mid-Autumn festival. The following are her exact words.

“So, there’s a couple, right, and the guy has like superhero strength – warrior vibes. At the time, there were 10 suns in the sky, and they were so hot that they were burning everything up, so he shot 9 of them out of the sky, leaving only one behind. As a reward, some higher power gave him this magic potion to make him stronger, but in the middle of the night, the day before he was meant to take it, his enemy poisoned it. For some reason, he still wanted to take it, so before he could, his wife drank the whole thing to save him. She ended up floating up into the moon, and so during the Mid-Autumn festival, because the moon is full, people say you can still see her silhouette up there.”

After doing some research, I found out that this is known as the story of Hou Yi and Chang’e, an immortal archer and his wife, the moon goddess before the latter becomes the moon goddess; this seems as if it would count as a mythic narrative. Not only is this the origin story of the sun, but it’s also the origin of the designs present on the moon. There’s a pretty common history of humans seeing faces where there are none (tree trunks) and looking at the moon would reasonably yield the same result. It’s not a story that anyone thinks could have happened, but also not a story that one would disagree with, considering the nature of it. Interestingly, there’s multiple different versions of this story online, including ones where Hou Yi goes mad with power rather than having his elixir poisoned and instead Chang’e must protect others by acting against him. It would be interesting to see if these differences revealed anything about typical historical conflicts that a certain region might have faced or a regional variation in values that might have caused this oicotypical difference.

Nigerian Burial Myth

“God was like, to this one dog – cause everyone lived together in a realm or whatever – he was like “dude, go fetch the bones of these little guys to ensure that once they die, they do the little cycle and they come back here” – it’s like a loop. And the dog is like, well let me just go ask this one random sheep to do the work for me. But that doesn’t work out well, cause the sheep is just fucking tired and lazy as hell apparently. And so that disrupts the connection between everyone, being like, in harmony with each other because they couldn’t bury the people’s bones. I think what happened is that it created the separation between the creator and his creations, and condemned the people to mortality, so they couldn’t do the loop.”

Context: The teller attributes their knowledge of the story to their Nigerian mother, who offhandedly and vaguely mentioned the story in a conversation. The teller then individually did their own research into the details of the myth through the internet out of personal curiosity. The story was told to me in a casual conversational context after I asked if they knew of any legends, myths, or stories that they could tell me. 

Analysis: The narrative presented here acts as a creation myth that works to explain the nature of human mortality and separation from the gods as well as provide reasoning for traditional burial practices. The teller does not give a specific identity to the main God, but the identities of the other figures are attributed to specific animals. While the teller originally learns of this myth from a parent, in order to gain the full story, the teller had to seek a full understanding of the story through the Internet. Their process of learning of the story points to the new role that the internet plays in the transmission of myths and other folk narrative through generations and populations; in order to gain the full picture of a particular narrative, individuals may be more inclined to look towards sources on the internet to confirm their understanding of the narrative or fill in the holes of areas that they may have missed. Even so, the telling of the myth still manages to change as it is reconveyed through human speech, and the teller chooses to focus on specific aspects of the story over the other. When comparing the teller’s version of the story to the source that they provided as a reference (https://sites.pitt.edu/~dash/burydead.html), it is clear that the details and styles are changed, though the core points of the story are still conveyed due to the specific sequence of events and core details that are included. 

Nian Myth

“So there’s this village that gets terrorized by this monster called Nian every year, and they all gathered and said “we’re sick of thai shit! We’re going to go hide in the mountains this year so Nian can’t get to us.” But then there’s this one guy who, last year, Nian got to his family, so he was like “I have nothing to lose, I’m going to stay here! I don’t want to go run, I’m tired.” And so he stays at home, but then, as Nian is approaching – as the day is drawing near – this old lady, who is later revealed to be a God, comes by and is like “I have a request for you: I need you to go hang up a red cloth on the door.” And this guy is like what the fuck why. And later on we found out it’s because Nian is scared of the color red but he [the man] doesn’t know that yet. And then she’s like “actually, I’m hungry, so I want to eat dumplings – you should make dumplings for me.” And he’s like “what the fuck why” but he can’t say no to a sweet old lady, so he goes to make dumplings. And the dumplings make a “dududududududu” sound as he’s mincing up the meat. He doesn’t know why he’s doing it but we find out that it’s because Nian is scared of loud noises, and that becomes the culture of making loud noises and setting firecrackers to ward off the Nian. And then Nian gets scared away, and they’re [the villagers] are like woah, this shit worked. And so this becomes a culture of how to keep Nian away.”

At this point, I asked to hear another version of the same story from a second teller. He began telling the story in a dramatic, kind of sarcastic impression of an old man. 

“A long, long time ago, there was a village in a deep forest in China. This village was terrorized by a monster called Nian everyday… I don’t know.”

We interrupted this moment to laugh at the mistake and correct the line. 

“Then, the village people angrily said “what do we do!?” Then, an old man from the corner says “you want to know how to defeat the Nian?” The village people said “yes, please old man. Please tell me!” And then, the old man says “if you want to defeat Nian, you must wear red colors. The Nian is very afraid of red. And you must also make big explosive sounds.” and the village people listened to the old man, and the next day, they all wore red and played with the firecrackers – “boom boom boom.” And the Nian, very scared, went “ooooooohhh, no red no!” The village people were very happy, and the old man was very happy too. The end.” 

Context: This story was told to me in a group conversation setting after I had requested for any myths, legends, or tales to be told to me. The first teller is a Chinese American student, and she attributes her knowledge of the story to her education in Chinese school as a child. The second teller is a Malaysian student, and he does not attribute his knowledge of the story to any specific source other than just the experience of growing up in Malaysia, as well as the experience of being a lion dancer performer in Lunar New Year celebrations. 


Analysis: This story is a well known Chinese myth that explains the traditions of the Lunar New Year, which as aforementioned involves wearing red, making dumplings, and other noisy forms of celebration. The monstrous villain of the story – the Nian – is the same character for the Chinese word for year, hence it may be explained that the original conception of the year may have come from the cycle of destruction by the beast. There’s an interesting contrast to be drawn between each iteration of this story told by each teller, given their different environments for learning the story. The first teller, who had learned of the myth from a more formal, academic setting, had a more detailed, intricate telling of the story that called back to the involvement of divinity, and an overall more precise version of the sequence of events. The second teller, on the other hand, had a relatively more simple telling of the story, with more drama put into the actual procedure of telling the story. While the differences in style could certainly be attributed to the different personalities of each teller, the contrast in levels of formality and detail can also point to their different ways they learned of the story. For the first teller, the story of the Nian has to be precise and structured in a way that can be accepted in an academic setting, while the second teller does not have the same restrictions and instead may choose to focus on a remember the core point of the story more so than the sequence of details.