Anthropophagy 101

From: bjm10_at_cornell.edu
Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 16:55:34 -0400 (EDT)


On Thu, 24 Jun 1999, The Glorantha Digest wrote:

> Which lead me to ask what anyone thinks of using the ideas of
> Levi-Strauss in particular, and anthropology/mythography other than Joseph
> Campbell in general, in Glorantha? Are the rules and function of myth the
> same in Glorantha? Does Glorantha work as if a particular theory is truer
> than others?

Actually, I've never used the Campbellian model for running Glorantha, basing my interpretation on more modern anthropological ideas than the Golden Bough (Campbell really was only retreading the Golden Bough). That is, I presume that the presence or absence of an underlying "universal truth" is actually *irrelevant* to how the world works. What matters is whether or not a given culture *believes* that some underlying "universal truth" exists or not and how this shapes their activities.

> interesting is that to create Gloranthan myths and cultures, we are
> essentially (and perhaps uniquely in the extent to which we do it) driving
> the anthropology/mythography process in reverse.

I don't quite do that. I tend to reject the infallable overlay concept and treat even allegedly "official" material as merely being a collection of ethnographic observation and ethnological conclusions, the former subject to errors of interpretation, the latter subject to subjectivity, the ethnologist's preconceptions, and all the other foibles of ethnology. Of course, since my wife has a degree in anthropology, I have somebody to bounce this stuff off.


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