ASDIWAL
Revue genevoise d’anthropologie
et d’histoire des religions
Sommaire
Entretiens
WILLI BRAUN ________________________________________________________ 7
A NN TAVES _________________________________________________________ 19
Études
CLAUDE CALAME
Le concept de « religion » en question : entre paradigme
christianocentré et relativisme anthropologique ______________________ 27
BRUCE LINCOLN
Reflexions on the Genre of Myth ____________________________________ 47
David Graeber and the Religions of Mediterranean Antiquity
WILLIAM A RNAL et
EDUARD IRICINSCHI
Introduction : Thinking about the Past — and a Future ?
— with David Graeber ______________________________________________ 67
THIBAUD NICOLAS
Inventing Money and Cancelling Debts : On Graeber’s Use of
Mesopotamian Documentation in Debt, the first 5000 years ___________ 75
PIERLUIGI L ANFRANCHI
David Graeber and the Economy of Sacrifice _________________________ 89
CARLIN BARTON
The Governing Emotions of Humans in Society with Other Animals __ 105
A NDREA A NNESE
Jesus, Debt, and Society : Bringing David Graeber into Dialogue
with Social-Scientific Research into the Historical Jesus ______________ 127
WILLIAM A RNAL
An Anarchist Meets the Demiurge : Power and Utopia
in Hypostasis of the Archons _______________________________________ 145
La mission des juifs, d’hier à aujourd’hui.
Relire Pax Nostra de Gaston Fessard _______________________________ 165
CATHERINE
DARBO -PESCHANSKI
Jean-Louis Durand ou le carrefour en Y _____________________________ 175
Comptes rendus
__________________________________________________________________ 181
MIRIAM BENFATTO, Gesù frainteso. La polemica ebraica anticristiana nel Sefer ḥizzuq emunah di Yiṣḥaq ben
Abraham Troqi (c. 1533-1594), Rome, Viella, 2022 (Daniel Barbu) ; YANN BERTHELET, BRUNO ROCHETTE éds.,
L’Astrologie et les empereurs romains. 150 ans après Cumont, Liège, Presses Universitaires de Liège,
2022 (Fabio Spadini) ; K ATELL BERTHELOT, Jews and Their Roman Rivals. Pagan Rome’s Challenge to Israel,
Princeton, Oxford, Princeton University Press, 2021 (Michaël Girardin) ; MARINELLA CERAVOLO, L’historiola
nella Mesopotamia antica. Mito, rito e performatività, Roma, Bulzoni, 2022 (Beatrice Baragli) ; A LEXANDRA
DARDENAY, L AURENT BRICAULT éds., Gods in the House. Anthropology of Roman Housing - II, Turnhout,
Brepols, 2023 ; (Beatriz Pañeda Murcia) ; SERGE DUNIS, L’ours, la vague et la lionne. Anthropologie de la
mort en couches, Paris, CNRS éditions, 2022 (Christophe Lemardelé) ; CHRISTOPHE GRELLARD, La Possibilità
dell’errore. Pensare la tolleranza nel Medioevo, Rome, Aracne, 2020 (Emily Corran) ; JASON A NANDA
JOSEPHSON STORM, Metamodernism : The Future of Theory, Chicago, Chicago University Press, 2021 (Giulia
Bertoli Miraglia) ; A ARON J. K ACHUCK , The Solitary Sphere in the Age of Virgil, Oxford – New York, Oxford
University Press, 2021 (Coralie Santomaso) ; BRUCE LINCOLN, Religion, Culture, and Politics in Pre-Islamic
Iran: Collected Essays, Leiden – Boston, Brill, 2021 (Sepide Taheri) ; A LESSIA LIROSI, A LESSANDRO SAGGIORO
éds., Religioni e parità di genere: percorsi accidentati, Rome, Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2022 (Andrea
Priori) ; TANYA LUHRMANN, Le feu de la présence. Aviver les expériences de l’invisible, Bruxelles, Vues de
l’esprit, 2022 (Nicolas Meylan) ; NICOLAS MEYLAN, The Pagan Earl. Sigurðarson and the Medieval Construction
of Old Norse Religion, Odense, University Press of South Denmark, 2022 (Chen Cui) ; SARA PETRELLA , Quand
les dieux étaient des monstres. La Mythologie hybride de Natale Conti e Vincenzo Cartari, Rennes, Presses
Universitaires de Rennes, 2023 (Paola von Wyss-Giacosa) ; R ADY ROLDÁN -FIGUEROA , The Martyrs of Japan :
Publication History and Catholic Missions in the Spanish World (Spain, New Spain, and the Philippines,
1597-1700), Leiden – Boston, Brill, 2021 (Stefano Rodrigo Torres).
ASDIWAL n°18 / 2023
Débats
BRUNO K ARSENTI
Mots-clés :
mythe ;
mythe comme idéologie ;
mythe comme culture ;
mythe comme discours ;
mythe nuer ;
Mythes du vol de bétail ;
1776 comme mythologie
état-unienne
Keywords :
myth ;
myth as Ideology ;
myth as Culture ;
myth as Discourse ;
Nuer myth ;
cattle-raiding myths ;
1776 as American
mythology
Reflections on the
Genre of Myth*
Bruce Lincoln
University of Chicago
Résumé :
L’auteur reconsidère sa vision antérieure du mythe comme « idéologie sous forme narrative » et réfléchit
à des alternatives telles que suggérées par Marshall Sahlins (connaissance culturelle) et Michel Foucault
(discours qui constitue les choses dont il parle). Deux exemples font figure de test : un mythe Nuer de la
première razzia de bétail et des versions rivales, mais également mythiques, de la révolution américaine.
Sur la base de ces données, l’article suggère que tous les trois modèles – idéologie, connaissance et
discours – ont leurs mérites.
*
Paper for the Cologne Mythological Network January 19, 2023.
47
64
ASDIWAL n°18 / 2023
Abstract :
The author reconsiders his earlier view of myth as « ideology in narrative form » and considers alternatives
as suggested by Marshall Sahlins (cultural knowledge) and Michel Foucault (discourse that constructs the
things of which it speaks). Two examples are entertained as test cases : a Nuer myth of the first cattle
raid and rival, but equally mythic accounts of the American Revolution. On the strength of these data, it is
suggested that all three models – ideology, knowledge, and discourse – have their merits.
Reflections on the
Genre of Myth
Bruce Lincoln
I
48
I first became interested in the study of myth as an eager, but confused and misguided college
student in the heady days of the late 1960s. I began my undergraduate career with an interest in
philosophy, believing that was what serious, intelligent people should study. My interest went
into decline, however, as my first classes in the subject moved from the pre-Socratics (whom
I found fascinating) toward Kant (whom I couldn’t for the life of me fathom). I next turned to
literature and like countless others became enchanted with T.S. Eliot’s « The Waste Land ».
While most readers skip Eliot’s pedantic footnotes, however – which he added to make the
poem long enough for publication as a self-standing work – I found them captivating. In truth,
I have always been drawn to footnotes, believing they give access to an author’s workshop,
where one can glimpse his or her sources, methods, and inner thoughts, including doubts and
flights of fancy. Eliot’s notes pointed me to sources with which I previously had only the most
superficial knowledge, including Ovid, the Upanishads, the Grail Romance, and Sir James
George Frazer’s Golden Bough, all of which I sought out and pored over. Impressionable
adolescent that I was, I imagined that in so doing, I was excavating precious things society
once possessed : myth, mystery, and a pervasive sense of the sacred, whose loss – as Eliot’s
poem poignantly argued – was largely responsible for the modern world’s sterility.
Following up with some then-popular secondary literature on the topic (Joseph Campbell,
Alan Watts, Cornelius Loew, and others), I came to believe myth stood at the origins of
literature, philosophy, religion, and science. What I didn’t realize was the connection of this
exaggerated estimation to German Romanticism, which celebrated myth, folklore, and ancient
legends as alternatives to the internationalism, anticlericalism, and critical spirit of the French
Enlightenment. Romantic revalorization of myth was no simple lament for a bygone world or
quirky bit of nostalgia but a strategic point of resistance to modernity, its idea of progress and
its confidence in a regime of truth that appealed to universal reason, while dismissing local
traditions and ancestral faith.
Having been exposed to such a perspective by Eliot’s poem (and not realizing how
radically different was Frazer’s position), I initially gravitated toward authors whose Romantic
valorization of myth implied a similar critique of the modern : C.G. Jung (1875-1961),
Ananda Coomaraswamy (1877-1947), Heinrich Zimmer (1890-1943), and above all Mircea
Eliade (1907-86), who became my graduate Doktorvater. Under Eliade’s tutelage, I was
subsequently introduced to a number of scholars who combined the expertise of accomplished
specialists, high regard for the importance of myth, and reactionary politics : Georges Dumézil
Reflections on the Genre of Myth
(1898-1986), Otto Höfler (1901-87), Stig Wikander (1908-83), Jan de Vries (1890-1964), Jean
Varenne (1926-97), Jean Haudry (1934- ), and even René Guénon (1886-1951)1.
Most of these scholars studied mythic narratives as they appear in canonic religious
scriptures where, they believed, ancient wisdom had been preserved (the Vedas and
Brāhmaṇas, Homeric Hymns, Old Norse Eddas, for example). As my own research led
me toward myths in which the relations among groups and categories of human subjects
were primarily at issue (rather than philosophical questions, natural phenomena, or abstract
categories of time, space, and classificatory logic), my reading turned toward anthropology,
where myth was generally treated in the context of culture, rather than that of religion.
Consistent with that, in contrast to my mentor, I came to regard mythic narratives as potent
instruments for the reproduction of cultural values and social forms, rather than reservoirs of
ancient wisdom and sacred truth.
II
Among the examples that particularly influenced my thinking were two myths preserved
through countless retellings until recorded by pioneering anthropological fieldworkers. First
is a story much favored by the Nuer people of the Nilotic Sudan as recorded by E.E. EvansPritchard (1902-73) :
Nuer and Dinka are presented in this myth as two sons of God, who promised his old cow
to Dinka and its young calf to Nuer. Dinka came by night to God’s byre and, imitating the
1
I have discussed some of these figures in Death, War, and Sacrifice : Studies in Ideology and Practice, Chicago,
University of Chicago Press, 1991, pp. 231-68 ; and Theorizing Myth : Narrative, Ideology and Scholarship, Chicago,
University of Chicago Press, 1999, pp. 121-37 ; and I discuss Eliade in Secrets, Lies, and Consequences : A Great
Scholar’s Hidden Past and his Protegé’s Unsolved Murder, New York, Oxford University Press, 2023. On Eliade,
see I VAN STRENSKI, Four Theories of Myth in Twentieth-Century History, Iowa City, University of Iowa Press, 1987,
pp. 70-128 ; C ARLO G INZBURG, « Mircea Eliade’s Ambivalent Legacy », in C HRISTIAN K. WEDEMEYER , WENDY D ONIGER eds.,
Hermeneutics, Politics, and the History of Religions : The Contested Legacies of Joachim Wach & Mircea Eliade,
New York, Oxford University Press, 2010, pp. 307-23, M OSHE I DEL , Mircea Eliade : From Magic to Myth, New York,
Peter Lang, 2014 ; and P HILIPPE BORGEAUD, « Un mythe moderne : Mircea Eliade », in I D., Exercices de mythologie,
Geneva, Labor et Fides, 2015, pp. 179-205. On Dumézil, C ARLO G INZBURG, Clues, Myths, and the Historical Method,
Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989, pp. 126-45 ; C RISTIANO G ROTTANELLI, Ideologie, miti, massacri.
Indoeuropei di Georges Dumézil, Palermo, Sellerio, 1993 ; and A RNALDO M OMIGLIANO, Studies on Modern Scholarship,
edited by G.W. BOWERSOCK , T.J. C ORNELL , translated by T.J. C ORNELL , Berkeley, University of California Press, 1994,
pp. 286-301. On Höfler, O LAF BOCKHORN , « The Battle for the Ostmark : Nazi Folklore in Austria », in JAMES D OW,
H ANNJOST L IXFELD eds., The Nazification of an Academic Discipline : Folklore in the Third Reich, Bloomington, Indiana
University Press, 1993, pp. 135-55 ; and E STHER G AJEK , « Germanenkunde und Nationalsozialismus. Zur Verflechtung
von Wissenschaft und Politik am Beispiel Otto Höfler », in R ICHARD FABER ed., Politische Religion, religiöse Politik,
Würzburg, Königshausen & Neumann, 1997, pp. 173-204. On Wikander, STEFAN A RVIDSSON , « Stig Wikander och
forskningen om ariska männerbund », Chaos 38 (2002), pp. 55-68 ; and M IHAELA TIMUS , « Quand Allemagne était
leur Mecque. La science des religions chez Stig Wikander », in H ORST J UNGINGER ed., The Study of Religion under
the Impact of Fascism, Leiden, Brill, 2008, pp. 205-28 ; WILLEM H OFSTEE, « The Essence of Concrete Individuality :
Gerardus van der Leeuw, Jan de Vries and National Socialism », in H ORST J UNGINGER ed., The Study of Religion under
the Impact of Fascism, pp. 543-53, On Haudry and Varenne, B ERNARD S ERGENT, « Penser – et mal penser – les indoeuropéens », Annales 45 (1990), pp. 941-49 ; and H ENRY ROUSSO, Commission sur le racisme et le négationnisme
à l’université Jean-Moulin Lyon III. Rapport à Monsieur le Ministre de l’Éducation nationale (2004), [https://www.
vie-publique.fr/sites/default/files/rapport/pdf/044000492.pdf]. On Guénon, M ARK S EDGWICK , Against the Modern
World : Traditionalism and the Secret Intellectual History of the Twentieth Century, New York, Oxford University
Press, 2004.
49
Bruce Lincoln
voice of Nuer, obtained the calf. When God found that he had been tricked, he was angry
and charged Nuer to avenge the injury by raiding Dinka’s cattle to the end of time.2
Second is the Trobriand narrative that led Bronislaw Malinowski (1884-1942) to theorize myth
as a form of social charter :
The problem of rank which plays a great role in their sociology was settled by the emergence
from one special hole, called Obukula, near the village of Laba’i. This event was notable
in that, contrary to the usual course (which is : one original « hole, » one lineage), from this
hole of Laba’i there emerged representatives of the four main clans one after the other.
Their arrival, moreover, was followed by an apparently trivial but in mythical reality, a most
important event. First there came the Iguana, the animal of the Lukulabuta clan, which
scratched its way through the earth as iguanas do, then climbed a tree, and remained there
as a mere onlooker, following subsequent events. Soon there came out the Dog, totem of
the Lukuba clan, who originally had the highest rank. As a third came the Pig, representative
of the Malasi clan, which now holds the highest rank. Last came the Lukwasisiga totem,
represented in some versions by the Crocodile, in others by the Snake, in others by the
Opossum, and sometimes completely ignored. The Dog and Pig ran round, and the Dog,
seeing the fruit of the noku plant, nosed it, then ate it. Said the Pig : « Thou eatest dirt ; thou
art a low-bred, a commoner : the chief shall be I ».
And ever since, the highest subclan of the Malasi clan have been the real chiefs.3
50
Several narratives inscribed in sacred scriptures struck me as similar to these orally transmitted
myths. In all cases, the myths describe how strongly asymmetric relations among different
categories of people originated, providing ancestral precedent and divine sanction for them. First
is a Vedic hymn that describes the four categories (varṇas) constitutive of Indic society as having
originated from different organs and vertical strata on the body of the first sacrificial victim :
When the gods divided Purus ̣a (« Man »), how many pieces did they prepare ?
What was his mouth ? What are his arms, thighs, and feet called ?
The priest (brahmaṇa) was his mouth, the warrior-king (rājanya) was made from his arms ;
His thighs were the commoner (vaiśya) and the servant (śudra) was born from his feet.4
2
3
4
E.E. EVANS -PRITCHARD, The Nuer : A Description of the Modes of Livelihood and Political Institutions of a Nilotic People,
Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1940, p. 125, repeated near verbatim in ID., Nuer Religion, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1956,
p. 11. A variant of the same myth appears in J.P. CRAZZOLARA , Zur Gesellschaft und Religion der Nueer, Vienna,
Missionsdruckerei St. Gabriel, 1953, pp. 68-69, complete with citation of the Nuer terminology for particularly
significant phrases. The variant is almost identical with that of Evans-Pritchard, save for the fact that God meant to
give both the cow and the calf to Nuer, who could then choose which one to keep and which one to give Dinka. Yet
another version with more significant differences was recorded by V.H. FERGUSSON, « The Nuong Nuer », Sudan Notes
and Records 6 (1921), pp. 148-50. On the circumstances of Evans-Pritchard’s fieldwork among the Nuer, see DOUGLAS
JOHNSON, « Evans-Pritchard, the Nuer, and the Sudan Political Service », African Affairs 81 (1982), pp. 231-46.
BRONISLAW M ALINOWSKI, « Myth in Primitive Psychology », his Frazer Lecture of 1925, reprinted in Magic, Science, and
Religion, Garden City, NJ, Anchor Books, 1954, p. 112. This is apparently Malinowski’s paraphrase, not a translation
of a Trobriand text. I am not aware of other variants having been recorded, but one would assume the basic narrative
was modified in more and less significant ways in multiple retellings.
Ṛg Veda 10,90,11-12 (my translation).
Reflections on the Genre of Myth
Second is the biblical account of Noah’s sons, which chartered the relations between Semites
(i.e., descendants of Shem) and their neighbors to the north (Japhites) and south (Hamites) :
Noah was the first tiller of the soil. He planted a vineyard and he drank of the wine and
became drunk and he lay uncovered in his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the
nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside. Then Shem and Japheth took a
garment, laid it upon both their shoulders, and walked backwards and covered the nakedness
of their father. Their faces were turned away and they did not see their father’s nakedness.
When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him, he
said : « Cursed be Canaan, a slave of slaves shall he be to his brothers ».
He also said : « Blessed by the Lord my God be Shem and let Canaan be his slave. God
enlarge Japheth and let him dwell in the tents of Shem and let Canaan be his slave ».5
What I perceived in these myths was the way they normalized, legitimated, and thus helped
reproduce asymmetric social structures and practices that are rigidly hierarchic (as in the
Trobriand case), oppressive (as with Hindu caste), exploitative (slavery, as chartered in the
Genesis account), and predatory (as with Nuer raiding). Accordingly, I came to think it better to
approach myth from a critical perspective, in place of the reverence, wonder, and appreciation
most of my teachers and colleagues cultivated, toward which end I advanced a deliberately
provocative definition of myth as « ideology in narrative form »6.
III
Anticipating that my suggestion would challenge (and possibly offend) most scholars in religious
studies, while appealing to those in the social sciences, I found only part of that to be so.
Numerous conversations with my friend and colleague Marshall Sahlins (1930-2021) led me to
understand that the theme of « false consciousness » associated with most models of ideology
runs contrary to anthropology’s ideal goal of understanding cultures on their own terms without
any hint of condescension. As Marshall regularly insisted when the topic of myth came up : « It’s
not what they believe, it’s what they know ».
In the book he finished just before taking leave of this world, Sahlins spelled out the line
of analysis and argument embedded in this trenchant phrase. Drawing on his encyclopedic
command of ethnographic literature, he observed that the vast majority of the world’s peoples
know full well that their survival and well-being depend on forces beyond the human, an
understanding he found not just true, but touchingly modest and deeply insightful. To get a
fuller sense of his position, let me cite two passages from the book’s opening chapter :
Until they are transformed by the colonial transmissions of the axial ideologies, Christianity
notably, peoples (that is, most of humanity) are surrounded by a host of spiritual beings –
gods, ancestors, the indwelling souls of plants and animals, and others. These lesser and
greater gods effectively create human culture : they are immanent in human existence, and
for better or worse determined human fate, even unto life and death. (…) They interact
with human persons to form one big society of cosmic dimensions – of which humans
5
Genesis 9,20-27 (Revised Standard translation).
6
BRUCE LINCOLN, Theorizing Myth, pp. 147-49.
51
Bruce Lincoln
are a small and dependent part. This dependent position in a universe of more powerful
metahuman beings has been the condition of humanity for the greater part of its history
and the majority of its societies. All the world before and around the axial civilizations was a
zone of immanence. Here the myriad metahuman powers were not only present in people’s
experience, they were the decisive agents of human weal and woe – the sources of their
success, or lack thereof, in all variety of endeavors from agriculture and hunting, to sexual
reproduction and political ambition.7
And again :
It probably goes without saying, but I had better say it anyway : what is at issue is how
the immanentist societies are actually organized and function in their own cultural terms,
their own concepts of what there is, and not as matters « really are » in our native scheme
of things. It will become all too evident that our own transcendentalist notions, insofar
as they have been embedded in common ethnographic vocabularies, have disfigured the
immanentist cultures they purport to describe. (…) What passes for an « economics » or
a « politics » embedded in an enchanted universe is radically different from the concepts
and stratagems that people are free to pursue when the gods are far away and not directly
involved. In immanentist orders, the ritual invocation of spirit-beings and their powers is the
customary prerequisite of all varieties of cultural practice. Compounded with the human
techniques of livelihood, reproduction, social order, and political authority as the necessary
condition of their efficacy, the cosmic host of beings and forces comprise an all-around
substrate of human action.8
52
If we take the Nuer myth cited above as a test case, it treats human dependency on metahuman
powers much as Sahlins described, representing « God » (Evans-Pritchard’s transcendentalist
deformation of Kwoth a nhial, foremost of the many Nuer spirits) as having created culture,
7
8
9
M ARSHALL SAHLINS, The New Science of the Enchanted Universe : An Anthropology of Most of Humanity, Princeton, NJ,
Princeton University Press, 2022, p. 2.
Ibid., p. 3.
Few examples provide stronger support for Sahlins’s point about transcendentalizing misrepresentations of immanentist
cosmologies in classic ethnographic literature. Evans-Pritchard consistently portrayed Kwoth a nhial as « God » (with the
upper case initial and in the singular), while suggesting that the other « spirits » (kuth, the plural of kwoth) with whom the
Nuer maintain relations « may be regarded as hypostases, representations, or refractions of God » (E.E. EVANS -PRITCHARD,
Nuer Religion, p. 200). In this, he was hardly alone, similar views having been expressed by anthropologists (Charles
G. Seligman, Evans-Pritchard’s teacher, who arranged for his fieldwork in the Sudan), missionaries (Ray Huffmann,
who was among the staff of the American Mission at Nasir to whom Evans-Pritchard dedicated The Nuer), and those
who were both (Father Pasquale Crazzolara, a missionary steeped in Wilhelm Schmidt’s theories of Urmonotheismus,
whose work Evans-Pritchard repeatedly cited, while noting that their views differed « less with regard to fact than
in emphasis and interpretation »). Cf. E.E. EVANS -PRITCHARD, Nuer Religion, pp. VI - VII, 1-20, and passim ; R AY HUFFMANN,
Nuer Customs and Folk-Lore, London, International Institute of African Languages and Cultures, 1931, pp. 56-57 ; C.G.
SELIGMAN, B.Z. SELIGMAN, Pagan Tribes of the Nilotic Sudan, London, Routledge, 1932, p. 206 ; J.P. CRAZZOLARA , Zur
Gesellschaft und Religion der Nueer, pp. 61-64 and passim ; and E.E. EVANS -PRITCHARD, review of J.P. CRAZZOLARA , Zur
Gesellschaft und Religion der Nueer, in Anthropos 50 (1955), pp. 476-77. On the way Evans-Pritchard’s own religious
commitments interacted with his work on the Nuer, see MARY DOUGLAS, Edward Evans-Pritchard, New York, Viking
Press, 1980, pp. 91-105 ; BEREL DOV LERNER, « Magic, Religion and Secularity among the Azande and Nuer », in GRAHAM
HARVEY ed., Indigenous Religions : A Companion, London, Cassell, 2000, pp. 113-24, esp. pp. 121-23 ; and TIMOTHY
L ARSEN, The Slain God : Anthropologists and the Christian Faith, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2014, pp. 103-11. In
E.E EVANS -PRITCHARD, « Reflections and Reminiscences on Fieldwork », Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford
4 (1973), p. 8, Evans-Pritchard belatedly cautioned against the anthropological recirculation of missionary translations,
without commenting on his own treatment of Kwoth a nhial. The passage makes for interesting reading.
Reflections on the Genre of Myth
determined fate, and served as the decisive agent of weal and woe9. Most immediately,
the narrative proceeds from this powerful spirit’s intention to bestow cattle – the basis of
subsistence, measure of wealth and prestige, source of pride and delight in the Nilotic Sudan
– on the eponymous ancestors of two neighboring peoples. Consistent with Sahlins, I would
see these aspects of the myth as voicing a foundational truth the Nuer know and do not just
believe : that is, that humans are ultimately dependent on the benevolence of metahuman
forces for their very survival.
The myth goes beyond simple acknowledgment of dependency, however, when it draws
two distinctions – one of animals, the other of humans – into tendentious correlation. First, the
contrast of young calf and old cow distinguishes between animals of greater and lesser value,
since the calf will produce more milk and bear more young over the remaining course of its life.
Second, the contrast of Nuer and Dinka depicts the former as favored by the deity, who meant
the more valuable bovine to be Nuer’s. No reason is given for that preferential choice, with the
result that some – Dinka, for instance – can see it as arbitrary and unjust, while others are free
to infer that Kwoth a nhial found Nuer more appealing and more deserving.
Proceeding from this initial asymmetry, the myth shows the two characters reacting in
ways that establish their distinctive characters, moralities, and modes of action. Unwilling to
accept a subordinate position and lesser share, Dinka deployed guile – that is, a tricksterish
intellectual creativity – to outwit Nuer and the metahuman alike, severely complicating his
relations with both in the process. And when Kwoth a nhial instructed Nuer « to avenge the
injury by raiding Dinka’s cattle to the end of time », Nuer deployed a capacity for physical
violence to offset Dinka’s cunning. The concluding words attributed to the deity are particularly
significant, for with the phrase « to the end of time », the myth turns archetypal figures into
prototypes for ethnic groups of the future and construes these primordial events as abiding
precedents that will structure the lives of all who subsequently call themselves « Nuer » and
« Dinka »10. For their part, the Dinka make no mention of guile or deception when recounting
It is, or should be obvious that since the natives do not understand English the missionary in his propaganda has no
option but to look in the native language for words which might serve for such concepts as « God », « soul », « sin »,
and so forth. He is not translating native words into his own tongue but trying to translate European words, which
he possibly does not understand, into words in a native tongue, which he may understand even less. The result of
this exercise can be confusing, even chaotic. (…) I am not going to pursue this matter further now beyond saying
that in the end we are involved in total entanglement, for having chosen in a native language a word to stand for
« God » in their own, the missionaries endow the native word with the sense and qualities the word « God » has for
them. I suppose they could hardly have done otherwise.
10
Although the myth has the deity authorize behavior expected to be eternal, raiding behavior was subject to historic
fluctuations. As DOUGLAS JOHNSON, « Tribal Boundaries and Border Wars : Nuer-Dinka Relations in the Sobat and Zaraf
Valleys, c. 1860-1976 », Journal of African History 23 (1982), pp. 183-203 ; and ID., « Political Ecology in the Upper
Nile : The Twentieth Century Expansion of the Pastoral Common Economy », Journal of African History 3 (1989),
pp. 463-86 demonstrated, Evans-Pritchard was present during a period when flooding, rinderpest, and policies of
the colonial government put stress on the local subsistence economy and relations of mutual support, exacerbating
Nuer and Dinka conflicts over cattle. Cattle theft and cattle raiding persist among Nuer, Dinka, and other peoples
of East Africa, but the availability of automatic rifles and other military gear has changed things considerably from
the situation Evans-Pritchard observed in the 1930s. Regarding the contemporary situation, see HANNAH WILD, JOK
M ADUT JOK , RONAK PATEL, « The Militarization of Cattle Raiding in South Sudan : How a Traditional Practice Became
a Tool for Political Violence », Journal of International Humanitarian Action 3 (2018), pp. 1-12 ; NGOR DANIEL PANCHOL,
SOLOMON MUHINDI, « Analysis of Insecurity Dynamics of Socio-economic Development in Twic East County », Journal of
African Interdisciplinary Studies 3 (2019), pp. 61-68 ; and DIANA FELIX DA C OSTA , N AOMI PENDLE, JÉROME TUBIANA , « “What
is happening now is not raiding, it’s war” : The Growing Politicization and Militarization of Cattle-Raiding among the
Western Nuer and Murle during South Sudan’s Civil Wars », in JEAN -NICOLAS BACH ed., Routledge Handbook of the
Horn of Africa, London, Routledge, 2022, pp. 224-38. For similar developments among the Pokot, with attention to
the abiding importance of myth, see DANIEL NGANGA , « Culture as the Cause of Conflict : A Case Study in West Pokot
District, Kenya », In Factis Pax 1 (2012), pp. 51-69.
53
Bruce Lincoln
how Nhialic, their counterpart to Kwoth a nhial, gave them the best of all cattle, consistent with
their status as the best of all people11.
In strictly practical terms, Nuer know that raids on Dinka cattle are likely to succeed, since
– as Sahlins himself demonstrated in an early essay – the organizing principles and structural
logic of their kinship system let them mobilize warriors for battle more quickly, efficiently, and in
greater numbers than their neighbors, giving them a distinct military advantage12. But Nuer also
know that simple greed for cattle is not a legitimate motive for taking them by force.
As I see it, the myth turns most decisively ideological at the point where the desire for
accumulation would otherwise be checked by moral strictures. It resolves that problem in
threefold fashion, defining a) Dinka possession of cattle as illegitimate ; b) Nuer raiding as
the divinely sanctioned recovery of stolen property ; and c) Nuer greed as a desire to restore
the proper order of the cosmos, consistent with the foundational intentions of metahuman
powers. This operation, skillfully effected through the narrative, involves an eminently selfserving misrepresentation of reality, which invests asymmetric relations, prejudicial attitudes,
and predatory violence with a pseudo-explanation that normalizes, naturalizes, and legitimates
otherwise unacceptable actions, thereby securing their perpetuation.
IV
54
Marshall Sahlins was not only one of the most intelligent scholars I’ve ever known, he was surely
the most tenacious. In response to the arguments I’ve just offered, I can hear him insisting
that the moral categories and judgments I’ve introduced – self-serving misrepresentations,
prejudicial attitudes, predatory violence, unacceptable actions, etc. – are exogenous to the
Nuer situation. Systems of ethics, he would insist, are culturally constructed, ours as much as
theirs, and the same holds true for epistemologies. One cannot arrogantly presume to possess
universal truth that gives us a reliable grasp of the « reality » that others mystify. If one is to
understand the Nuer myth, one needs to take account of Nuer ethics, beginning with some
observations by Evans-Pritchard :
This brings me to an extremely important Nuer concept, an understanding of which is
very necessary to a correct appreciation of their religious thought and practice. This is
the concept of cuong. This word can mean « upright » in the sense of standing, as, for
example, in reference to the supports of byres. It is also used figuratively for « firmly
established », as in the phrase be gole cuong, « may his hearth stand », which has the
sense of stet fortuna domus. It is most commonly employed, however, with the meaning
of « in the right » in both a forensic and a moral sense. The discussion in what we would
call legal cases is for the purpose of determining who has the cuong, the right in the case,
or who has the most right ; and in any argument about conduct the issue is always whether
a person has conformed to the accepted norms of social life, for if he has, then he has
11
12
FRANCIS M. DENG, Africans of Two Worlds : The Dinka in Afro-Arab Sudan, New Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 1978,
pp. 70-72 ; ID., « The Cow and the Thing Called “What” : Dinka Cultural Perspectives on Wealth and Poverty », Journal
of International Affairs 52 (1998), pp. 101-29.
M ARSHALL D. SAHLINS, « The Segmentary Lineage : An Instrument of Predatory Expansion », American Anthropologist
63 (1961), pp. 322-45. See also M AURICE GLICKMAN, « The Nuer and the Dinka : A Further Note », Man 7 (1972), pp. 58694 ; and R AYMOND K ELLY, The Nuer Conquest : The Structure and Development of an Expansionist System, Ann Arbor,
University of Michigan Press, 1985.
Reflections on the Genre of Myth
cuong, he has right on his side. We are concerned with the concept here both because it
relates directly to man’s behaviour towards God and other spiritual beings and the ghosts
and because it relates to God in a more indirect way, in that he is regarded as the founder
and guardian of morality.13
The Nuer concept of duer (plural dueri) is also relevant :
The Nuer have the idea that if a man keeps in the right – does not break divinely sanctioned
interdictions, does not wrong others, and fulfills his obligations to spiritual beings and to the
ghosts and to his kith and kin – he will avoid, not all misfortunes, for some misfortunes come
to one and all alike, but those extra and special misfortunes which come from dueri, faults,
and are to be regarded as castigations. (…) Not only a sin (a breach of certain interdictions)
but also any wrong conduct to persons is spoken of as duer, a fault. Any failure to conform
to the accepted norms of behaviour toward a member of one’s family, kin, age-set, a guest,
and so forth is a fault which may bring about evil consequences through either an expressed
curse or a silent curse contained in anger and resentment, though the misfortunes which
follow are regarded by Nuer as coming ultimately from God, who supports the cause of
the man who has the cuong, the right in the matter, and punishes the person who is at
fault (dwir), for it is God alone who makes a curse operative. Nuer are quite explicit on this
point. What, then, Nuer ideas on the matter amount to is, in our way of putting it, that if a
man wishes to be in the right with God he must be in the right with men, that is, he must
subordinate his interests as an individual to the moral order of society.14
Connecting these principles to the myth, we are led to the following conclusions. First, the myth
recounts how Kwoth a nhial authorized the first Nuer to raid Dinka herds in response to a primordial
fault (duer) with which Dinka defied and offended the deity. Second, those who continue to
engage in such raids understand they have cuong, since a) they are following instructions from
the metahuman who is « the founder and guardian of morality », and b) what they do is consistent
with « the accepted norms of (Nuer) behaviour » and « the moral order of (Nuer) society ». Third,
were this not so, their raids would themselves have been dueri, faults from which grievous
divinely ordained consequences would follow. The absence of such consequences confirms that
the raiders had cuong. If we follow Sahlins, such confirmation lets Nuer know that their deeds
and their motives are moral, consistent with the norms of Nuer culture.
Discussing such things with Marshall was a privilege and pleasure, as well as a challenge.
In the course of our exchanges, he persuaded me to broaden, but not abandon my view of
myth as ideology. Ultimately, I came to accept that his own, rather different view of myth as
knowledge was a partial, perspectival truth, consistent with his culturally – and disciplinarily –
constructed sense of knowledge and morality, the same being true for my own view of myth
as ideology. Where he would insist, for instance, that the Nuer know that the events recorded
in myth establish their divinely sanctioned right (cuong) to raid the Dinka, I remain less inclined
to endorse their truth-claims so forcefully. Rather, I prefer to maintain more critical distance,
observing that Nuer successfully persuade themselves of their right to raid, using this myth to
legitimate their raids while construing their success in raiding as the myth’s confirmation. As I
13
E.E. EVANS -PRITCHARD, Nuer Religion, p. 16 (slightly modified).
14
Ibid., pp. 17-18.
55
Bruce Lincoln
see things, it is this circular chicken-and-egg interaction between narrative and lived experience
that produces the truth-effect – and not « truth » – of myth.15
The difference between our perspectives can be described in multiple fashions : emic
as opposed to etic, for instance, or that of a discipline that makes culture its object of study
(condescension toward which is the cardinal sin of colonial ethnography), as opposed to one
concerned with religion (and a trend within that discipline committed to critical scrutiny, rather
than reverence at second hand). Also relevant is Antonio Gramsci’s discussions of what he
termed « common sense », that is, the assumptions that shape a group’s understanding of
reality so thoroughly that they are simply taken for granted, however distorting they might be and
however much they benefit some and disadvantage others. Depending on one’s perspective,
common sense of that sort can be understood as both « knowledge » and « ideology »16.
V
56
Although there are significant differences between a view of myth as cultural knowledge and as
ideology in narrative form, there are some equally significant points they share. Both understand
that stories of this sort are told and retold because there is need and a hunger for them. They
address questions of foundational importance, are broadly disseminated, regarded with reverence,
and accepted as authoritative. Through repetition, they are gradually refined : their story line gets
strengthened, their characters are clarified and enhanced, subtexts and nuances are introduced,
developed, and replaced by others better suited to changing circumstances. In the process,
these stories become collective products, shaped and polished through countless exchanges
between narrators and audiences, all of whom are acutely interested in – and occasionally critical
of – the way familiar, highly consequential themes and events are handled in any variant of the
story. Over time, this ongoing interaction invests the narratives with the authority of tradition.
The two understandings also agree that myths shape the consciousness of their audience,
cultivating certain values, habits, assumptions, dispositions, structures, institutions and a
conviction – or perhaps more simply a taken-for-granted assumption – that these are right, natural,
and proper, timeless in their origin and eternal in their duration. In this way, myths are a crucial
instrument for the production and reproduction of what could be called knowledge, belief, ideology,
habitus, and/or culture, depending on one’s disciplinary and theoretical commitments. Following
this line of interpretation, one might entertain yet a third perspective on myth as something akin to
discourse in the Foucauldian sense, that is, language that produces the things of which it speaks.
If we return to the Nuer myth, one might suggest that telling that story actually produces
those endeavors which come to be defined and understood as “cattle raids,” not because it
alone prompts Nuer aggression against Dinka cattle, but because it reframes their act of taking
15
16
Pace the classic position of R AFFAELE PETTAZZONI, « Verità del mito », Studi e materiali di storia delle religioni 21 (1947-48),
pp. 104-16, here p. 108 :
Clearly, myth is not pure fiction, not fable but history : a « true story » and not « false ». True for its content, an
account of events that really happened at the beginning of the great time of origins (…) temporally distant events
from which our present life had its foundation in principle. The present structure of society takes its point of departure from them, as does all that depends on it. The divine or superhuman characters who figure in myth, their
extraordinary undertakings and adventures and this whole miraculous world constitute a transcendent reality that
one may not call into doubt, because it is the absolute precondition of present reality.
NB : My translation of the passage differs somewhat from that of H.J. Rose in the volume he edited : R AFFAELE PETTAZ ZONI, Essays on the History of Religions, translated by H.J. ROSE, Leiden, Brill, 1954, p. 15.
Most fully, see further K ATE CREHAN, Gramsci’s Common Sense : Inequality and its Narratives, Chapel Hill, NC, Duke
University Press, 2016.
Reflections on the Genre of Myth
– which might otherwise be considered theft, a fault (duer) that brings misfortune and shame –
under the category of raiding, which the myth introduces and construes as a divinely sanctioned
and therefore rightful (cuong) act that yields both wealth and glory. Alternatively, one can say
this myth produces the legitimacy of Nuer raiding by assuring its audience that metahuman
powers have sanctioned this practice in ways consistent with their prior understanding of the
difference between cuong and duer.
Most broadly, one can suggest that the story addresses people who unselfconsciously
consider themselves to be Nuer (based on circumstances of their birth and acculturation) and
helps shape their consciousness of what that identity means and entails. To the extent that
these people identify with « Nuer » of the myth, they recognize themselves as not just militarily,
but morally superior to « Dinka », their shrewder, more unscrupulous neighbors. In significant
measure, their collective identity and self-understanding derives from this story of primordial
events, which assures them they are more honorable, bold, and righteous than their neighbors,
having been chosen and favored by the metahuman powers who entrusted them with cattle
and authorized their use of force to recover all that is rightfully theirs. In so doing, the myth
defines what it is to be « Nuer » in pointed contrast to « Dinka », while inducing successive
generations to construct themselves consistent with that ideal17.
VI
All three models – myth as knowledge, ideology, and discourse – have things to recommend
them and I have come to see these as complementary, not rival, theories, all of which help us
understand aspects of a complex phenomenon. In closing, I want to make a few more points
and briefly discuss two further examples.
The points I have in mind are the following. First, the content of a myth is never absolutely
fixed and there is no authoritative version against which all others are measured18. Rather, each
time a myth is retold, subtle variations are introduced that reflect the situation and interests of the
narrator (possibly also a patron of the narrator or an institution s/he represents), while engaging
those of the audience. Second, no group is utterly homogeneous and perfectly integrated.
Differences within a group will lead narrators to rework details of the group’s core myths in
ways that reflect their situation and perspective, while advancing the interests of the audiences
they engage19. Third, few groups have only one narrative they invest with mythic status. Where
multiple stories have such status, different fractions of the group can gravitate toward those
17
On the extent to which Nuer identity is discursively constructed and culturally reinforced by structured contrast to the
equally constructed « Dinka », with particular reference to the possession of cattle, see, inter alia, PETER NEWCOMER,
« The Nuer are Dinka : An Essay on Origins and Environmental Determinism », Man 7 (1972), pp. 5-11 ; DAVID POCOCK ,
« Nuer Religion – a Supplementary View », Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford 5 (1974), pp. 69-79, esp.
pp. 71-73 ; A IDAN SOUTHALL, « Nuer and Dinka Are People : Ecology, Ethnicity and Logical Possibility », Man 11 (1976),
pp. 463-91 ; JOHN BURTON, « Ethnicity on the Hoof : On the Economics of Nuer Identity », Ethnology 20 (1981), pp. 15782 ; and SHARON HUTCHINSON, « Nuer Ethnicity Militarized », Anthropology Today 16 (2000), pp. 6-13, esp. pp. 8-10.
18
Those variants that come to be textualized achieve greater stability and perhaps greater diffusion than others, while
canonization augments their advantage, but even when powerful institutions invest a given variant with canonic
status, that cannot check the continued appearance and circulation of alternate versions.
19
For instance, variants that differ in their details from the version of the Nuer myth recorded by Evans-Pritchard were
published by J.P. CRAZZOLARA , Zur Gesellschaft und Religion der Nueer, pp. 68-69, V.H. FERGUSSON, « The Nuong
Nuer » ; and H.C. JACKSON, « The Nuer of the Upper Nile Province », Sudan Notes and Records 6 (1923), pp. 70-73. I
considered the last of the variants in Discourse and the Construction of Society : Comparative Studies of Myth, Ritual,
and Classification, New York, Oxford University Press, 1989, pp. 29-32.
57
Bruce Lincoln
that best represent their position and interests. Fourth, as repetition makes mythic narratives
extremely familiar, they can be cited or referenced in shorthand fashion, simple allusions
being sufficient to bring their content to mind. Fifth, not all myths involve metahuman actors,
although ancestors, heroes, and other paradigmatic figures can be thematized with such awe
and reverence as to approach the metahuman. Sixth, myths are a significant cultural resource
common to all populations. Any theory that treats myth as something « they » have and « we »
lack is profoundly misguided. One of the chief benefits of studying other people’s myths is that
it helps one recognize and critically engage those of one’s own.
To illustrate these points, let me briefly cite an example that emerged while I was preparing
this paper. On September 1, 2022, Joseph R. Biden, 46th President of the United States, traveled
to Philadelphia for the most important speech of his term in office. The site was carefully
chosen for reasons he explained in his opening remarks :
My fellow Americans, I speak to you tonight from sacred ground in America : Independence
Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
This is where America made its Declaration of Independence to the world more than two
centuries ago with an idea, unique among nations, that in America, we’re all created equal.
This is where the United States Constitution was written and debated.
This is where we set in motion the most extraordinary experiment of self-government
the world has ever known with three simple words : « We, the People ».
These two documents and the ideas they embody – equality and democracy – are the
rock upon which this nation is built.20
58
Standing on the « sacred ground » where the « United States of America » came into being via
a document signed there on July 4, 1776 (the Declaration of Independence) and one drafted
at the same site in 1787 (the Constitution), Mr. Biden described these foundational texts as
having established not only the nation’s governing institutions, but its abiding ideals, essential
character, and collective self-understanding.
I have come to this place where it all began to speak as plainly as I can to the nation about
the threats we face, about the power we have in our own hands to meet these threats, and
about the incredible future that lies in front of us if only we choose it.
We must never forget : We, the people, are the true heirs of the American experiment
that began more than two centuries ago.
We, the people, have burning inside each of us the flame of liberty that was lit here at
Independence Hall.21
Having set the scene with these references to a – and not « the » – story of the nation’s creation,
Mr. Biden launched into a polemic worthy of Cicero’s Philippics, depicting his political adversaries
as having abandoned the values on which the nation was founded, with the result that they now
pose a serious threat to its institutions, traditions, peace, and well-being.
20
21
All passages are quoted as they were posted on the presidential website : « Remarks by President Biden on the Continued
Battle for the Soul of the Nation », [https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2022/09/01/
remarks-by-president-bidenon-the-continued-battle-for-the-soul-of-the-nation/]. The passage cited constitutes §§1-5
of the address.
Ibid., §§7-9.
Reflections on the Genre of Myth
Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very
foundations of our republic. (…) MAGA Republicans do not respect the Constitution. They
do not believe in the rule of law. They do not recognize the will of the people.
They refuse to accept the results of a free election. (…) They promote authoritarian
leaders, and they fan the flames of political violence that are a threat to our personal rights,
to the pursuit of justice, to the rule of law, to the very soul of this country.22
Mr. Biden went on to dwell on the theme of political violence, which he repeatedly described
his opponents as advocating, encouraging, and condoning23. In contrast, he categorically
condemned such violence as « fatal to democracy », a danger « we cannot allow to prevail »,
but which all good Americans must reject « with all the moral clarity and conviction this nation
can muster »24. In these passages, he rhetorically recast Weber’s point that the state claims
and enjoys a monopoly on the legitimate use of force in a way that appealed to specifically
American traditions, values, and history. Beneath the surface of his rhetoric, however, lay a
glaring contradiction : how does one insist that political violence is never acceptable in a country
that traces its origins to a bloody revolution waged against a state whose power the rebels
previously viewed as legitimate, but came to see – and denounce – as tyrannical25 ?
In his choice of place for the address and in the opening passages quoted above, Mr.
Biden assigned the role of his nation’s founders and paradigmatic heroes to Thomas Jefferson,
James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, and those who collaborated on the documents put forth
at Philadelphia’s Independence Hall. There are, however, other ancestral figures who play
the role of founding heroes in alternate versions of the nation’s creation story – variants that
figure prominently in the thought, speech, and self-understanding of those whom Mr. Biden
excoriated, that is, those who « look at the mob that stormed the United States Capitol on
January 6th (…) not as insurrectionists who placed a dagger to the throat of our democracy, but
they look at them as patriots »26.
As Mr. Biden implicitly recognized, many of those he denounced draw on a mythology in
which the « Founding Father » role goes to rabble-rousers like Samuel Adams, Tom Paine, and
Patrick Henry, the Sons of Liberty who organized the Boston Tea Party (December 16, 1773),
military leaders like George Washington, and more broadly to the Minutemen, colonial militias,
Continental Army, and all who took arms against the British Crown at the battles of Lexington and
Concord (April 19, 1775), Bunker Hill (June 17, 1775), and throughout the American Revolution
(1775-82), well before the Constitution was signed. For all that Mr. Biden insisted « We can’t
22
23
24
25
26
Ibid., §§14, 21-22, and 24.
Ibid. : « They fan the flames of political violence that are a threat to our personal rights, to the pursuit of justice, to the
rule of law, to the very soul of this country » (§24) ; « We hear (…) more and more talk about violence as an acceptable
political tool in this country » (§50) ; « There are public figures (…) predicting and all but calling for mass violence and
rioting in the streets » (§53).
Ibid. : « This is a nation that rejects violence as a political tool » (§41) ; « History tells us that (…) a willingness to engage
in political violence is fatal to democracy » (§44) ; « Today, there are dangers around us we cannot allow to prevail (…)
[Political violence] can never be an acceptable tool » (§50) ; « There is no place for political violence in America. Period.
None. Ever » (§51) ; « We can’t allow violence to be normalized in this country. (…) We each have to reject political
violence with all the moral clarity and conviction this nation can muster » (§56).
Mr. Biden – or his speechwriters – sought to avoid this contradiction by avoiding any mention of « revolution » or
« rebels » in his discussion of the country’s founding, while speaking of the political violence he condemned as
« insurrection » (§§25, 55, 80).
Ibid, §25.
59
Bruce Lincoln
be pro-insurrectionist and pro-American. They’re incompatible »27, this alternate mythology
thematizes insurrectionary political violence as righteous, heroic, and veritable midwife to the
nation’s birth. What is more, the earlier of the two documents cited by Mr. Biden begins by
articulating the circumstances under which such violence is both legitimate and necessary :
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are
endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life,
Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are
instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the
Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its
foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall
seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that
Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes ; and
accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while
evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are
accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same
Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their
duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.28
60
Here, let us briefly note that the argument solemnly advanced here closely resembles that of
the Nuer myth, as diagrammed in Fig. 1.
Fig. 1 Actions described in the Nuer Cattle-raiding myth
and the American Declaration of Independence :
1
2
Narrator’s People
Nuer/American Colonists
3
Enemy People
Dinka / British
1) metahuman power intends to bestow precious gifts
(a young calf / inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness) on the narrator’s people ;
2) another group who have previously had good relations
with the narrator’s people and are similar to them in
many ways take unprincipled actions that keep the gift
from reaching its intended destination ;
3) the narrator’s people are thus justified (and in the Nuer
case, divinely authorized) in transforming their relations
with the other people and recovering what is properly
theirs, using violence if necessary. It is in this moment
and by this process that the colonists become citizens
of the newly established United States.
In online discussions building up to the January 6, 2021 assault on the U.S. Capitol and in
banners proudly flown during that event, the « MAGA Republicans » supporting Donald Trump
regularly spoke of themselves as « patriots » and associated their actions to the mythology they
27
28
Ibid., §55.
United States of America, Declaration of Independence, in Congress, July 4, 1776, paragraph 2 (emphasis added). In
its final paragraph, having detailed the failures and offenses of the British Crown, the Declaration concluded « That
these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States ; that they are Absolved from all
Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is and
ought to be totally dissolved ; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War ». With these
words, the document defined the political violence yet to be waged as state (and thus fully legitimate) violence, no
longer that of insurrectionists and rebels (which, however, they retrospectively treat as fully justified).
Reflections on the Genre of Myth
referenced in shorthand fashion as « 1776 » (Figs. 2-6)29. In their eyes, violence against tyrants
in defense of liberty and one’s « God-given rights » is justified, even mandated. The creation
myth they preferred let them identify themselves with bold, principled, high-minded and fiercely
independent rebels, while associating Mr. Biden, liberals, and Democrats with the oppressive
reign of George III. Against this, Mr. Biden preferred to identify himself with those who established
the laws and institutions all proper Americans are obliged to respect and obey. Those who refuse
to do so, he argued, were neither patriots or heroes, but victims of a pernicious ideology.
Fig. 2 Invitation to
occupy the Capitol and
take back our country
on January 6 posted
by #WeAreTheStorm,
#1776Rebel, and #Occupy
Capitols, bearing a « 1776 »
icon where Donald
Trump’s hair is conflated
with the torch of liberty.
61
Fig. 3 Twitter posting
early on the morning
of January 6 by
Representative Lauren
Boebert (Republican,
Colorado) proclaiming
« Today is 1776 ».
29
Inter alia, cf. CLARE C ORBOULD, MICHAEL MCDONNELL, « Why Some Trump Supporters Believe There’s Another American
Revolution Coming », Scroll (January 15, 2021), [https://scroll.in/article/984152/why-some-trump-supportersbelieve-theres-another-american-revolution-coming] ; C OLIN WOLF, « “It sure feels like 1776” : Tampa Bay Native
Spoke at D.C. “Stop the Steal” Rally Night before Deadly Capitol Insurrection. “If You Want to See what Patriots
Do when They Get in an Uprising, then Vote to Certify the Fraud Tomorrow” », Creative Loafing (January 18, 2021),
[https://www.cltampa.com/news/it-sure-feels-like-1776-tampa-bay-native-spoke-at-dc-stop-the-steal-rally-nightbefore-deadly-capitol-insurrection-12188182] ; FRANITA TOLSON, « Why the Mob Thought Attacking the Capitol Was
their “1776 Moment” », Los Angeles Times (January 21, 2021), [https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-01-21/
insurrection-capitol-attack-patriotism-1776] ; JEFFREY C. ISAAC, « The MAGA Crowd May Venerate 1776 but they
Idolize a Would-be Monarch », The Bulwark (August 17, 2022), [https://www.thebulwark.com/the-maga-crowd-mayvenerate-1776-but-they-idolize-a-would-be-monarch/] ; ED K ILGORE, « Marjorie Taylor Greene and the Right’s Creeping
Embrace of Revolution », New York Intelligencer (October 26, 2021), [https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/10/
marjorie-taylor-greene-and-the-rights-embrace-of-revolution.html] ; JAMES GILMORE ET AL., « “It’s 1776 Baby !’ :
Broadcasting Revolutionary Performance during the U.S. Capitol Riots », 22nd Annual Conference of the Association
of Internet Researchers (2021), [https://doi.org/10.5210/spir.v2021i0.12173] ; and the nine-page document titled
« 1776 Returns », in which leaders of the Proud Boys spelled out their plans for « patriots », to take over the Supreme
Court, Congressional offices, and other Capitol buildings on January 6 to « show politicians that We the People are
in charge ». A copy of the document is available at [https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/courtdocument-proud-boys-case-laid-plan-occupy-capitol-buildings-jan-rcna33755].
Fig. 4 Insurgents marching
to the Capitol on January 6
dressed as Revolutionary
War soldiers.
62
Fig. 5 Insurgents storming
the Capitol on January 6
under the 1775 Gadsden
Flag (« Don’t Tread on Me »)
carried by American troops
in the Revolutionary War.
Fig. 6 Insurgents on
January 6 wearing
« Three Percenter » flag,
associating themselves
with the (purported) three
percent of American
colonists who made the
Revolution.
Reflections on the Genre of Myth
Table 1 (below) maps the ways Mr. Biden and the self-styled « patriots » drew on different
versions of American creation myth to construct a binary opposition in which they both
portrayed themselves as heroes staunchly committed to the core values established by the
nation’s Founding Fathers, while their adversaries were quite the opposite.
Table 1 Two American creation myths and their contemporary associations, as referenced by President Joseph Biden
and those who construe themselves as « patriots » in opposition to him.
President Biden’s speech of
September 1, 2022
Communications among
Capitol assailants of
January 6, 2021
The Creator bestows inalienable
right to life, liberty, and pursuit of
happiness on all humanity
The Creator bestows inalienable
right to life, liberty, and pursuit of
happiness on all humanity
Precipitating offense
British king obstructs colonists’
ability to enjoy the deity’s gifts
British king obstructs colonists’
ability to enjoy the deity’s gifts
Response to offense
Founding documents for a new
nation, drafted in Philadelphia, 1776
and 1787
Battles fought in Massachusetts and
elsewhere, 1775-82
James Madison, Thomas Jefferson,
and signatories of those documents
Samuel Adams, Paul Revere, George
Washington, citizen militias, and
soldiers in the Continental Army
George III, British, tyranny
George III, British, tyranny
Respect for laws and institutions
of democratic governance as
established in those founding
documents
Love of freedom and willingness to
fight for it ; hatred of tyranny
President Biden, elected officials,
and law-abiding American citizens
(ex-)President Trump, American
patriots and militias
Donald Trump and MAGA
Republicans
Mr. Biden, Democrats, liberals,
cowardly RINOs (Republicans in
Name Only)
Disregard for laws ; unwillingness to
accept election results ; recourse to
political violence
Disregard for individual freedoms
(e.g. gun rights, mask mandates) ;
purported election theft ; consequent
illegitimacy and tyranny
Prologue in heaven :
metahuman intent
Ancestral heroes
Ancestral adversaries
Core values established
by myth
Current heroes associated
with those of myth
Current adversaries
associated with those
of myth
What marks adversaries as
immoral and threatening
We have already seen how the argument advanced in the Declaration of Independence mirrors
that of the Nuer cattle raiding myth. Table 2 takes that analysis further, outlining the features
that myth shares with the creation accounts favored by President Biden and the « patriots » of
January 6. In all three examples – to which a great many others could easily be added – narrators
recall a select moment from the primordial past that assures them they have right on their side
and are fundamentally better – more moral, principled, and faithful, more determined, courageous,
and heroic, more free, more pure, more favored by such metahuman powers as be – than those
against whom they find themselves locked in ongoing struggle. Whether myths of this sort provide
their narrators and audience with cultural knowledge, ideology, or discourse, that is, whether
myth reflects and helps reproduce local realities, mystifies and legitimates otherwise indefensible
aspects of reality, or constructs the consciousness through which « reality » is perceived and
experienced remains an open question. At present my answer would have to be : all of the above.
63
Bruce Lincoln
Table 2 Three creation myths (two American, one Nuer) and their contemporary associations.
President Biden’s
speech of
September 1, 2022
Communications
among Capitol
assailants of
January 6, 2021
The Creator bestows
inalienable right to life,
liberty, and pursuit of
happiness on all humanity
The Creator bestows
inalienable right to life,
liberty, and pursuit of
happiness on all humanity
Kwoth a nhial creates cattle
and intends to distribute
them inequitably
Precipitating
offense
British king obstructs
colonists’ ability to enjoy
the deity’s gifts
British king obstructs
colonists’ ability to enjoy
the deity’s gifts
Dinka tricks deity into giving
him the calf intended for
Nuer
Response to
offense
Founding documents for
a new nation, drafted in
Philadelphia, 1776 and 1787
Battles fought in
Massachusetts and
elsewhere, 1775-82
Kwoth a nhial authorizes
Nuer to raid Dinka cattle
James Madison, Thomas
Jefferson, and signatories
of those documents
Samuel Adams,
Paul Revere, George
Washington, citizen
militias, and soldiers in the
Continental Army
« Nuer »
Ancestral
adversaries
George III, British, tyranny
George III, British, tyranny
« Dinka »
Core values
established by
myth
Respect for laws and
institutions of democratic
governance as established
in founding documents
Love of freedom and
willingness to fight for it ;
hatred of tyranny
Acceptance of Kwoth
a nhial’s gifts and
instructions ; respect for the
deity’s intent
Current heroes
associated with
those of myth
President Biden, elected
officials, and law-abiding
American citizens
(ex-)President Trump,
American patriots and
militias
Martial, righteous, heroic
descendants of Nuer
Current
adversaries
associated with
those of myth
Donald Trump and MAGA
Republicans
Mr. Biden, Democrats,
liberals, cowardly RINOs
(Republicans in Name Only)
Cunning, thievish
descendants of Dinka
What marks
adversaries as
immoral and
threatening
Disregard for laws ;
unwillingness to accept
election results ; recourse
to political violence
Disregard for individual
freedoms (e.g. gun rights,
mask mandates) ; purported
election theft ; consequent
illegitimacy and tyranny
Continued recourse to guile
and theft
Prologue
in heaven :
metahuman intent
Ancestral heroes
64
Bruce Lincoln
University of Chicago
blincoln@uchicago.edu
Nuer myth recorded
by Evans-Pritchard