Myths are traditional stories that seek to explain natural phenomena and the origins of human customs in terms of supernatural beings and events. Myths overlap with religion, history, and science and contain perceptions of divine truth. Mythology is the study of myths and their meanings within a particular culture or religious tradition. While early anthropologists like James Frazer viewed myths through an evolutionary lens, modern scholarship examines myths' social functions and structures rather than mental states. Despite criticism of his methods, Frazer made important contributions to the development of modern anthropology and helped establish myths and religions as subjects of academic study.

1. Culture and
Mythologies
INTRODUCTION

2. Myth
▶ noun.
1. A traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a
people or explaining a natural or social phenomenon, and typically
involving supernatural beings or events: ancient Celtic myths | [mass
noun] the heroes of Greek myth.
2. A widely held but false belief or idea: the belief that evening primrose oil
helps to cure eczema is a myth, according to dermatologists.
• a fictitious or imaginary person or thing: nobody had ever heard of Simon's
mysterious friend—Anna said he was a myth.
• an exaggerated or idealized conception of a person or thing: the book is a scholarly
study of the Churchill myth.

3. Myth Vs Literary Texts
• Myths are narratives that ask the big questions of human
existence:
• Overlaps with Religion
• Overlaps with history
• Overlaps with science
• Perception of Divine Truth
• Myths contain the wisdom of the lived experience of all our
ancestors; they contain truth of a different order from that of
other human constructs.

4. Mythology
▶ noun (pl. mythologies) [mass noun]
1. A collection of myths, especially one belonging to a particular religious or
cultural tradition: tales from Greek mythology | [count noun] Jewish and
Christian mythologies.
• a set of stories or beliefs about a particular person, institution, or situation, especially
when exaggerated or fictitious: we look for change in our thirties, not in our forties, as
popular mythology has it.
2. The study of myths: this field includes archaeology, comparative
mythology, and folklore.
Etymology
Greek: Mythos (story) + Logos (reason)

5. The Continuing Importance of Mythology
• How did the earth and heavens get here?
• Where did they come from?
• Why are they the way they are?
• The necessity to look at myth as a process as much as it is
a thing.
• Simultaneously look at myth for what it is and what it does.

6. James G Frazer (1854-1941)
• Frazer belonged to the old school anthropology of naive,
belletristic, philosophical evolutionism which was replaced (after
WW I) by the more pragmatic, functional, and professional
approach associated with the names of Malinowski, Radcliffe-
Brown, and Boas.
• Frazer and his work true affinities seems to be with the
seventeenth- and eighteenth century polyhistorians, each of
whom summed up in his turn what was then known of the
origins of religion, rather than with modern anthropology.

7. Arguments against Frazer
• Doubts about his comparative method
• Views against his “Age of Magic”
• Social function and social structure replaced mental states as
the central concerns of the student of primitive culture
• Frazer’s uncritical use of evidence.

8. Then, why Frazer?
• A towering figure that contributed to the birth of Modernism
alongside Marx, Freud, and Darwin.
• The work of all four has become a central part of the humanistic
legacy of nineteenth century science in that all have provided
key images and concepts for the twentieth century.

9. The Golden Bough
• Three Editions of The Golden Bough and a more famous
abridgment to the 3rd.