“Myths to Die By?”
A Critical Examination of Girard’s Approach to Myth in View of the Diné (Navajo) Creation Story
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/rst.21267Keywords:
Girard, Lonergan, mythology, violence, Diné-NavajoAbstract
This article critically engages René Girard’s approach to myth by reference to the Diné (Navajo) creation story (Diné bahane’). According to Girard all myths conceal real events of violence that have been concealed during the centuries of their recounting. Closer analysis reveals that Girard’s approach is one-sidedly pejorative in his hermeneutics of myth. By contrast, the Diné hold their creation story to be a sacred account of their origins and as such it is foundational to their traditional way of life. Prima facie, while certain themes in their sacred story may seem to corroborate Girard’s hermeneutics of myth, a closer examination of the anomalies raises critical questions about Girard’s assumptions, especially with respect to aboriginal creation stories and reveals a further need to clarify the legitimate place for positive and pejorative approaches to myth.
References
Alison, James. 1996. Raising Abel: The Retrieval of the Eschatological Imagination. New York: Crossroad.
———. 1998. The Joy of Being Wrong: Original Sin through Easter Eyes. New York: Crossroad.
Aronilth, Wilson. 1992. Foundations of Navajo Culture. Tsaile, AZ: Diné Community College.
Campbell, Joseph. 1972. Myths to Live By. New York: Penguin Group.
Dadosky, John. 2010. “‘Naming the demon’: The “structure’ of evil in Lonergan and Girard.” Irish Theological Quarterly. 75(4): 355–372. https://doi.org/10.1177/0021140010377736
———. 2014. “Eliade and Girard on myth.” In Mircea Eliade: Myth, Religion, and History, edited by Nicolae Babuts, 64–77. Piscataway, NJ: Transaction Publications.
Doran, Robert. 2012. The Trinity in History, vol 1. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Farella, John. 1993. The Main Stalk: A Synthesis of Navajo Philosophy. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press.
Haile, Berard. 1981. Upward Moving and Emergence Way. American Tribal Religions 7. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Girard, René. 1979. Violence and the Sacred. Translated by Patrick Gregory. Baltimore, MA: John Hopkins University Press.
———. 1986. The Scapegoat. Translated by Yvonne Freccero. Baltimore, MA: John Hopkins University Press.
———. 1987a. Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the Word. Edited by Stephen Bann and Michael Metteer. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
———. 1987b. Job: Victim of His People. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
———. 1996. The Girard Reader. Edited by James Williams. New York, NY: Crossroad.
———. 2001. I See Satan Fall Like Lightening. Edited by James Williams. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books.
Girard, René. 2003. “A Venda myth analyzed.” In René Girard and Myth: An Introduction, by Richard J. Golson, 151–179. New York: Routledge.
Golson, Richard J. 2003. Girard and Myth. New York: Routledge
Lonergan, Bernard. 2004. Philosophical and Theological Papers 1965–1980, CWL 7. Edited by R. M. Doran and R.C. Croken. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. https://doi.org/10.3138/9781442678408
———. 1992. Insight: A Study of Human Understanding, Collected Works 3. Edited by R. M. Doran and F. E. Crowe. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Matthews, Washington. 1897. Navaho Legends Collected and Translated. New York: Stechert & Co.
Segal, Robert A. 2004. Myth: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780192803474.001.0001
Witherspoon, Gary. 1977. Language and Art in the Navajo Universe. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.9705
Witherspoon, Gary and Glen Peterson. 1995. Dynamic Symmetry and Holistic Asymmetry in Navajo and Western Art and Cosmology. American Indian Series 5. New York: Peter Lang.
Zolbrod, Paul G. 1984. Diné Bahane’: The Navajo Creation Story. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
