Myth of Culture

Linh Duong

Power of Myth

Dr. Dezso Benedek

CMLT/ANTH 3190

Class Section: 2pm – 3:15pm

5 December 2016

Christmas is around the corner, everyone is jolly and excited, but the number one concern in kids’ minds is whether Santa is going to bring them a gift this year. Santa is just one of the many myths that parents tell their kids everywhere around the world. As a matter of fact, the myth has gone so far that Santa has become the Christmas icon. Although Christmas is supposed to be the day in which Jesus is born, many kids do not even know who Jesus is, but if you show them a picture of Santa, you can bet that they will answer that they have been good this year. This is just one of the few examples of how powerful a myth can be, especially to the people that they are passed to. Stories and myths have been passed down from generation to generation to keep a culture going. Many cultures are built around myths and story telling. In the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a myth is defined as “a traditional story of ostensibly historical events that serves to unfold part of the world view of a people or explain a practice, belief, or natural phenomenon”. This proves that myths have the power to shape an entire culture and the people’s beliefs and practices. It shapes the way that people live their lives which impacts life as a whole. There are different myths for different people all around the world, and those myths have the power to exalt inspiration and change to the people who shares and listens to them, and whether it is believed or not, there is a power that myths have to make unforeseen changes to the world. I believe that there is such a thing as the “power of myth”, and I believe that this power goes beyond one can see instantly, just like the myth of Santa Clause.

        To begin, we learned in this unit about the Yami people. According to Intercontinental cry organization, “The Yami, also known as the Tao people, are the indigenous inhabitants of Irala (Orchard Island) south of Taiwan” (Interontinentalcry.org). Through these people, I have learned the power that myths hold. From Mrs. Kuang, “The Yami creation myth does not explain the creation of the universe, but it does contain some information about the creation of mankind” (Kuang 1). Myths often hold stories of creations and reasons for life. They answer the deepest underlying questions that people have, and they give people an answer to their life problems and reasons to why things happen. The Yami will take these myths of creations to explain why they exist on Earth, and these myth defines their purpose for life. It defines the people that they will become, the culture they hold, and it gives them a value in which to live. The Yami people will build their life around these myths because it will guide them with the meaning of life. Without stories of creation, and without stories of why things are the way they are, people would become lost. They would feel purposeless, and they would not understand why life exist. Life would only exist just for humans to live and die. There would be no meaning or no purpose to stay alive, and humans would become confused with themselves. They would not have stories of their ancestors and how things may have been, and we would not learn about how people have lived and anything to relate to. The Yamis’ myths guided them with the story of the creation of mankind, and it provided them with an answer of how they came to exist on Earth. It is important to know why humans exist, how we were created and how we came to be, and Yamis’ myths had the power to do that for them.