sansahansan Wrote:
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> Also, I've
> noted that what original storytellers told and
> what was recorded can vary from recording to
> recording, further obscuring the original

Speaking as someone who's also a member of the Healing Storytelling Alliance, I can say this is true. Unless you memorize it word-for-word, the basic concept is "pick three things to remember and lie about everything else between those points." You also "twist" the tale for your audience -- if you're telling a Coyote story to a bunch of mischievous children, you harp on the morality and make analogues to their behavior. If you are telling it as entertainment for adults, you emphasize the funny bits.

> The
> usual signs, in my opinion, of this are different
> stories from within the same body providing
> counters or flatly contradicting other stories.
> Finding the original sources for each becomes
> increasingly difficult...

There has been some slight efforts to use cladistics to solve this conundrum.

> The Navajo example fails, as was cited in my list,
> as they do have a solar deity, or at least a
> deified figure closely interrelated.

Now, that changes your original problem statement. A "deified figure closely interrelated" isn't the same as a "solar deity."

> Contradictions are
> indicated amongst the body of folklore/myths we
> have from the Navajo (much like other bodies of
> myth and legend), which goes back to my belief
> that these are hodged together from older sources

Well, yes, given that they've been in the Americas for over 5,000 years... and as far as we know NO human was ever "story-less."

> -- but nonetheless, solar related deific figures
> are present even for the Navajo.

Yes, a number of cultures have the sun as a fire that is tended by someone. But the aspect and focus there is very different... the fire doesn't have magical properties (it's just fire) and the tending person is often someone who is very wise or very important. But they are not necessarily deities.


> Are my references post-European influence? Will
> double check. Or perhaps the Navajo nation was a
> conglomeration of tribes that we refer to as one,
> when it is in fact multiple - like Iroquois or
> Sioux/Lakota?

Navajo and Hopi have very complex cultures, and although they are not very welcoming to outsiders, it was more a case of an original group that split into many groups. The Hopi have a very well-known "we came to the Americas" story which indicates that they traveled, for ceremonial reasons, counter-clockwise in a large circle; a reference that does match with the areas where they or traces of their culture was found.

> Well, I'm still looking I'm just trying to proof
> the postulate by failed negation - not the best
> tactic, agreed, but it's an intriguing field to me
> and this path yields the most sidetrips into
> research.

I think you need to restate your research question and define parameters (good ghods... I'm beginning to sound like my dissertation advisors!) What do you mean by "deity"? Is it the same thing an anthropologist would mean? What is a "deific figure?" How do you separate religion from shamanism (the two are different to anthropologists?)


> As to many tales on both sides of the issue - yes,
> there are always experts disagreeing with one
> another Does that mean my quest is futile? For
> every counterpoint I can identify, a
> counter-counter point can be found?

Yes. We're talking about people and stories. Sometime look up the Cinderella tale and all its variants (not only European but South American and so forth.) Good storytellers always are on the hunt for new stories.

> Indeed. Looking back at the first point of yours
> I addressed, I realized I failed to consider
> something. All knowledge we have of native
> american legends are tainted by European
> contact... w/o that contact, we would have no
> written source. So perhaps the 'sun-deity' in
> Navajo was a by-product of stories being retold by
> non-natives?

In a case like the Navajos, we look at cultural artifacts including rock art and kachinas. This is how we know that Tlaloc is one of the oldest deities/spirits in North America. Of course, you then have to learn rock art (one of my avocations) and how to tell the old from the fake new.

> See prior post where Pete was kind enough to
> relink the article:
> To be fair, it's not yet been published,
> peer-reviewed, and accepted.

Oy! VERY bad archaeology and anthropology, frankly. The "it looks like a python so they worshipped it because of their beliefs 70,000 years ago"... dear heavens. Rocks change a lot in 70,000 years, and the people who are there now are not necessarily linear descendants of the ones there 70,000 years ago.

And you can't really date rocks. 70,000 years is outside the range of carbon 14, so dating would be done by other methods.

At this point it looks like very bad science, though I'll reserve final judgment until after a peer reviewed publication shows up.


-- Byrd
Moderator, Hall of Ma'at