Myth and ritual school is used to refer to two movements, which were formed to fight against the ancient religions. The movements rose due to the recognition for the ancient religions and the myths. The movements aim was to seek the levels to which the ritual acts were pervasive and how people’s words were accompanying their words. The schools made the religions have a high prominence. The main aspirants of myth and ritual school were Robertson and Frazer. In a more broad perspective, it can be viewed as a group made of two branches one being the biblical group and the other being a Cambridge university group (Barry, 2002).
The ancient Egypt and Babylon religions were ritual religions. They were centralized by a drama showing death and resurrection of their king as a god. The ritual action was recited as a story and expressed that they had the same potency. As time passed, the actions and story separated and there arose different religions with dramatic genres. Assembling of evidences in support of this theory is what led to the myth and school to different analyses of rites and myths. They mostly concentrated on eastern cultures of the Euphrates, Nile and the Indus river Valleys. They concentrated much on the king of ancient Israel New Year’s activities. Hooke with the help of colleagues had reconstructed some rites to synchronize them with the cycles of seasons. During the planting, and harvesting seasons the king would be humiliated and then killed and thereafter he would descend into the underworld. He then arose to make orders on earth by use of formal combats of chaos and force. After his achievement over chaos, he would reclaim his throne, celebrate a wedding thought to be sacred and give the lands laws. Hooks research brought him to the conclusion that the symbolic events were accompanied by recitations of the story to explain the creation account. However, there have been critiques that challenge the history accuracy of the interpretations. They looked at it as a strong model, which expressed sacred kinship, which scholars tried to use in different cultures (Bell, 1997).
The Cambridge analysts developed the theory through arguing that folklore or the literature derives from the activities of the ancient kings. This was opposite of what people had earlier believed that it was from the real history. Some individuals tried to explain the model that described death and resurrection. They said that the model is similar to the ancient Greece fertility rites. One of the main scholars was Jane Ellen who made studies on the Greek religion. She tried to root the Greek myth origins, the dramatic theater and the Olympic Games that were included in the ritual activities. She also described the source of myth as ritual. She explained that the myths were what were spoken, but this is what correlated to all the activities included in a rite. In her studies, she developed the idea that the rituals activities would eventually end but the myths that accompanied them would continue for a long time and in various forms. She also put forward the argument that when the rituals that were original finally died out then a myths relationship to the ritual would be lost immediately. The myth would then try to give its own account of the existence. This means that if a certain myth initially existed and had accompanied a certain ritual, the death of that ritual would not lead to death of the myth. Instead, the myth would find an attachment to other events or histories, and it would then be adopted from there to explain a certain phenomenon (Bell, 1997).
The argument that was presented by Jane was the main Idea of the Cambridge school and after that other scholars began using and applying them broadly. There are several examples such as Cornfords trace of philosophical ideas back to the supposed origins of ritual Murray was able to apply ritual notions to the great Greek who was a dramatist, and Cook was able to apply the knowledge to analyze mythic heroes of Greek as Ritual concretizations. Cambridge school also influenced other scholars who were outside the classical studies. For example, the reappearance of Jane’s theory in Jessie’s ‘from ritual to romance’. It argued that the legends romance was nothing but a misinterpretation of the rite of dying and rising. Weston’s book also had influence, the poetry works of Eliot T.S about the wasteland and the literally studies carried out by Northrop Frye. There were other scholars who scrutinized fairy tales, children games, nursery rhymes, law, folk drama, and physics. They were keen to seek the original rituals that were preserved in them (Bell, 1997). Hobart’s study about kingship led him to finding that royal initiatory was the root of most historical survivals.
In 1937, Slagan made a study, which he published about myths and folktales. He argued that they all have a ritual activity, structure or pattern attached to it. At this time, his work was the most ambitious work of myth and ritual school although it faced criticism later. The earlier study of dying and rising of the king was viewed as a historical influence to the patterns of heroes in religions, folklore, and literature. Reglan came up with 22 elements that were common in heroes. He argued that the elements echoed the ritual activities of the ancient of the king who would die and come back to life. Through the 1930s and 1940s, the amount research done to support the myth and ritual school’s argument increased incredibly (Bruce, 2001).
Later Theodore changed the myth of dying and rising into a thesis of the seasonal pattern. In the ritual, the world’s total order is renewed and revitalized to embrace the thesis. The patterns included rites such as emptying and filling. The emptying rites were for mortification and filling for invigoration. If considered well it still meant for death and resurrection (Doty, 2000).
In Gagster’s analysis, the place for myths is viewed to change largely. It is not seen as an outgrowth of rituals or even what has simply been spoken. He sees myth as an often expression of aspects that are parallel. This translates ritual situations into a model that is ideal and one, which is timeless. Moreover, he still agrees that his view on myths separates from the ritual and assumes some literature form. He maintained that the seasonal pattern in the structure of different literature is nothing more than an argument on the primacy of ritual and the ritual logic that underlies culture (Bell, 1997).In order to keep the claims that already had been made about the structure of ritual, scholars continued with the search of ritual patters. This ended them in searching in American blues and Shakespeare’s works (Marc, 1995).
Stanley in1955 began some genetic theory about the origin of some myths. He later made large claims about the cultures and their formations. However, there were still no critics that challenged the theories that existed. All the premises and conclusions of the myths and ritual school were in continuous probe and disparagation. Frazer’s legacy was judged harshly, and its popularity lost. With time, there rose more powerful critical analyses, which were in constant accumulation. One important critique that arose was one that Clyde said that even though some myths are related to ritual it is not a wise idea to say that they are all related to one. It is impossible for this claim to be proved wrong. However, there are also a lot of relationships that have been seen to exist between myths and rituals already. The only disadvantage of this evidence is the presence of evidence also showing that there exists no relationship at all. Kluckon tried to improve the methods that the myth and ritual school used by calling for testing of the generalities and carried out studies in details of the actual relationships that exist between myth and ritual.
Joseph Fontenrose also came up with a critique. He called for attention to be paid to the mistakes that had been made in the myth literature and especially in Frazer’s work. He also demonstrated that there existed no historical data that could act as evidence for the sacrifice pattern in near eastern kingship. His critique included the challenges that Kluckon had raised, and it undermined the tendencies of the scholars concern about origins (Max, 1997).
Despite the critiques Ritual has always been an important study especially in religion and society. A common example is how ritual has commonly been a central contribution to the emergence of functionalism in anthropology. There also are other approaches that have been pursued on myth and ritual equation. Some of the original ideas of Frazer still remain very influential. Arguments have also been put forward that the value of myth and ritual school’s work is of great importance. They are said to have opened the way for other questions about the relationships that exist between practice and belief, religion and science and others that are important in the study of religion today (Max, 1997).
The myth and ritual school in Britain was also a remarkable collaboration of individuals. S.H Hooke argued that Myth was a scenario of dramatic ritual. He was an Old Testament scholar, and he edited studies on myth and rituals of Hebrews and it is related to the culture pattern. He also edited another volume about myth, ritual and kingship. He allowed the supporters and opponents to give their ideas. In this school of myth and ritual, the theorists gave the complex a name. The books were given titles were programmatic and pointed to the ancient near east. The theme was how myth and ritual are related and in the context kingship played an important role. The thesis was that there existed a wide spread of the cult pattern (Michael, 1999).
The pattern had started with the New Year festival of the Babylonians, which was commonly referred to as Akitu festival. During these festivals, all gods, which were headed by Marduk, would go to Babylon for the celebrations of the New Year, which included the cerebration of a sacred marriage. The king would be subjected to a ritual where his dignity, scepter, ring and crown were taken and laid on Maduks statue (William, 1986).
The king was then supposed to kneel, and a priest would pull one of his years. He was supposed to profess his innocence and give a promise to people about how his kingship would prosper. Then the insignia would be returned to him, and the priest would strike him till he cried. The king would then ride through the city in a procession to show his triumph along with Maduk. The studies seemed to have an ancient regicide, which involved humiliation and seemed to be too much for just a rite. For the myth, there was a recitation done during the festivals. It was a demonstration of how Marduk had led the other gods to war, which they fought against Tiamat, which was a monster who caused primeval flood. He had defeated her, cut her into two pieces and from the two [pieces fashioned earth and heaven (Richard, 1993).
This symbolized parallelism since the rite that the king performed was a reflection of what had happened to the gods in the mythical times. The cosmos created after gaining of victory was a correspondence of regeneration of the generation of kingship after the end of a chaotic anarchy during this time when the king was absent. The correspondence was explained by the sacred marriage of the king. It seemed to be a correspondence to the dying and rising however it was argued that Marduk did not die first. He was imprisoned and wounded. There were various correspondences according to this school which included a crisis of the old and new a rite which corresponded the myth that there were threats from a monster, the act of the king being dethroned was a rite corresponding the myth that Marduk was taken to prison and the rite of the king being reinstated corresponded to the myth that Marduk gained victory again. In Britain, there are many scholars who have tried to discover the New Year’s complex (Versnel, 1993).
Hook said that the theory cannot be blamed for the problems that aroused for in many cultures the only the mythical component that is preserved. This myth and ritual school did not have any earlier contact with Cambridge school. Frazer who in Cambridge school had got a lot of honor was greatly ignored by Hook and those that were his followers. Hook strongly opposed Frazer’s method of a comparative approach, and there were many more differences that existed between the two. He also opposed Harrison’s idea that everything started as a form of magic. Hooke was not interested at all on magical origins. He viewed myth and ritual to have developed through a diffusionist way. By doing so, he betrayed his origins (Wendy, 2000).
Conclusion
The relation of myth is given a reversed order by the schools. The Cambridge ritualizes believed that myths originates from rites whereas the new orientalist theorists shifted this emphasis. Hooke instead of including this sequence he side stepped the idea of the origin. He argued that the royal ritual was a dramatic mythical representation. The original form of myth was inseparable from ritual. Many other scholars have since joined to do research on myth and ritual (Marcel, 1998).
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