By Fr Edward Kanyike MCCJ
From the Greek word, mythos (narrative, story), a myth is a symbolic narrative that relates actual events, especially associated with religious belief. Over the years, myth has come to mean: untrue story but the study of mythology in world cultures has revealed that myths are true stories told symbolically. They are different from legends and tales whose main aim is to give moral lessons or to exalt virtues exhibited by historical or imaginary figures.
As a story, a myth imparts knowledge of the work of God and his associates in creation and of man and his group in the cosmos. It tells of the mythical time, which is where every daily event, human or natural, finds explanation. It is the great time, the time called: ‘long ago’’. Every action realised in time carries an impulse towards the great time, which pulls towards the maternal house every being that carries its imprint. A myth is a voice, which calls to the great time. The rites, sacrifices, commemorations and feasts are apertures through which the great time enters into human life, in order to transform it.
Personal time is absorbed in the great time that founds and justifies the passing of the day. The African sees himself as the result of events that took place in the great time. His story is therefore a sacred story. The African is not only obliged to know the story of his clan, he/she has to re-actualise it every day. Time is not irreversible, it is re-lived, re-actualised, re-read and re-interpreted. Life is a constant return to the origins. The return to the origins is very important; it is the return to the time when everything happened for the first time. During initiations, the children do not learn what their fathers or grandparents did; they learn what their ancestors did. It would be enough to imitate the parents, but the personal connection with the great time is very important for each individual.
It is therefore, not enough to participate in the life of the parents; one must participate, in a personal and ritual manner, in the life of the ancestors, by repeating what they did. The rite of repetition of the original creative act means that the mythical man has a syncretistic conception of time: the past can be re-created in the present, not in the sense of an historical re-enactment, but in a much deeper sense of the permanence of reality. The radical power involved in creation is available and can at any time be shared.
Mythical man is not at the origin of anything by his own forces but he has the responsibility in ensuring that the origin maintains its beneficial influence at all times. In particular, whatever has to do with life and death, with crops and rain, with fertility and reproduction owes its efficacy to the ritual repetition of the original production of the plants, animals or man, whose fertility has to be ensured. Their production is more than a natural phenomenon: it is a symbol and realisation of the original creation as narrated in myths.
Every African tribe has its main myth in which the most important elements of history and culture are presented. Take for example the story of Kintu and Nnambi: in it, you find the most important elements in the culture of the Baganda and other related peoples: beginnings, religion, marriage and family ties, procreation, man and nature, farming and the domestication of animals and chickens, obedience/ disobedience, death, suffering and resilience, politics, wisdom etc.
A detail of this myth can help us to understand how cultural practices are related to the mythical data: Nnambi presents Kintu to her father and family; Nnambi’s family makes it difficult for Kintu to take her; Kintu undergoes many trials, which he overcomes with the help of Nambi and nature; Kintu ends up taking Nnambi. This very scene is played every time a Muganda girl introduces her suitor to the family in a ceremony called ‘kwanjula’. This is what we have called ‘a return to the origins’. Every new family should start in the same way as the very first family of Kintu and Nnambi started, if it is to assume the blessings of the original family.
It is difficult to understand the present without knowing the past, and that past is usually found in myths. The time of carrying out cultural practices without knowing what they mean and where they come from is over. If some cultural practices have been diluted and reduced to their economic aspect, it is because we have forgotten our mythology.
