A Structural Analysis of a Mandan Myth

Abstract

This is an exercise in the application of Levi-Strauss’ techniques for the structural analysis of a myth. The technique puts form or structure before content-saying that cultural forms are reducible to Mind. The operations of the Mind conform to a dialectical process, pitting one form with its contrary, and arriving at a synthesis or mediation of terms. The elements of the myth will be strung out in two dimensions as the score of an orchestra -- a sequential order of notes is matched up with the harmony. Interpreting the score is like deciphering a code, which only becomes significant through the proper identification of the permutation of symbols.

Three myths concerned with the Shell Robe Bundle from the Mandan were analyzed. Starting with one myth, opposing categories were constructed from a four-column sequence of elements. Permutations and homologous relations that obtained were then examined when all myths were compared. The structure of the myth rested on the oppositions winter and summer, and moved in cycles of opposition to that of life and death. Each opposing pair was mediated by the succeeding cycle as Winter and Summer are mediated by North and South.     

“The Skunk and the Smallpox:” Mythology and Historical Reality

Abstract

Rare is the myth which provides an understanding of the historic circumstances which brought about its creation, but a narrative collected among the Wyandot Indians of Oklahoma does lend itself to historical analysis. The myth is both etiological and medicinal in its relation of the cause and cure for smallpox. Unique features of the myth’s content relative to cause and cure can be logically and historically related to the Wyandot situation in the second decade of the 19thcentury-in’ close proximity to the white settlement at Sandusky, Ohio. Sandusky Wyandots not only observed white treatment of smallpox, but heard tales told of white exploits in the Great Northwest Trading Company. It is contended here that the Wyandots selected as the etiology of smallpox the explanation offered by whites as a result of experiences of traders on the Columbia river; and that they selected as a cure for smallpox a form based on observation of white treatment at Sandusky. The myth, therefore, had its origin about 1815, when the Wyandot were at Sandusky, Ohio.     

Joe Blackbear’S Story of the Origin Of the Peyote Religion*

Abstract

A folk explanation of certain aspects of peyote ritual and paraphanalia is offered in terms of an origin myth.

There is a story from long ago about the origin of peyote. It goes back to the time the Indians were fighting each other. On the other side of New Mexico, a group of Indians were camped and they were attacked by other bands. The mountains therewereveryhigh. The tribe that was attacked got scattered, There was just one woman and her boy left.     

Trees,Woodland and Woodmanship in Early Mediaeval Ireland

Summary

The evidence for woodmanship in mediaeval Ireland is discussed. Palynological evidence dispels the continuing myth that there were vast mediaeval woods. Nonetheless, place name and documentary sources indicate discrete areas of woodland. At these places underwood was probably managed, livestock sheltered and fattened, berries and nuts gathered and timber felled. A range of historical texts and archaeological excavations support these claims. Woodland was an important aspect of the agricultural landscape and economy.     

Indian Potato (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Ipomoea pandurata</Emphasis>, Convolvulaceae)—A Record of Confusion<Superscript>1</Superscript>

Indian Potato ( Ipomoea pandurata , Convolvulaceae)—A Record of Confusion. Once European explorers began sending back plants from distant lands, confusion developed regarding their identities. Among these was Ipomoea pandurata, which native peoples in the eastern United States considered to be a purgative. Unfortunately, edible plants like potatoes were confused with I. pandurata, and by the early 1900s Americans and Europeans began writing that indigenous peoples also ate its roots. The literature for the late 1900s into the 2000s mostly reports that I. pandurata is edible. Although no documented use for food by pre-European cultures in the Americas has been found, the myth persists that the roots were eaten on a regular basis.     

Mood and the Menstrual Cycle: A Review of Prospective Data Studies

BackgroundThe human menstrual cycle (MC) has historically been the focus of myth and misinformation, leading to ideas that constrain women's activities.ObjectivesWe wished to examine one pervasive idea, that the MC is a cause of negative mood, by studying the scientific literature as a whole. We briefly reviewed the history of the idea of premenstrual syndrome and undertook a systematic review of quality studies.MethodsWe searched PubMed, PsycINFO, and article bibliographies for published studies using non-help–seeking samples with daily mood data collected prospectively for a minimum of 1 complete MC. We critiqued their methodologies and tabulated the key findings.ResultsOf 47 English language studies identified, 18 (38.3%) found no association of mood with any MC phase; 18 found an association of negative mood in the premenstrual phase combined with another MC phase; and only 7 (14.9%) found an association of negative mood and the premenstrual phase. Finally, the remaining 4 studies (8.5%) showed an association between negative mood and a non-premenstrual phase. Considering the only 41 adequately powered studies, the same phase links were reported by 36.6%, 41.5%, and 13.5% of studies, respectively. Their diversity of methods (sampling, instruments, and cycle phase definitions) precluded a meta-analysis.ConclusionsTaken together, these studies failed to provide clear evidence in support of the existence of a specific premenstrual negative mood syndrome in the general population. This puzzlingly widespread belief needs challenging, as it perpetuates negative concepts linking female reproduction with negative emotionality.     

Transforming history and myth: On the mutuality and separation of shared narratives in Eastern Tibet

Questioning the distinction between ‘cold’ and ‘hot’ societies, and an implied separation between myth and history, anthropologists have increasingly urged for an understanding of both myth and history as equally valid modes of shared social consciousness. This article takes up this point of view by referring to a written history of Lhagang, a town in Eastern Tibet; a history that appears to have the transformative content and oral circulation of myth. Using Lévi‐Strauss’ structural analysis of myth and Santos‐Granero's concept of topograms to demonstrate the mythemes that derive from the written history and circulate among Lhagang Tibetans, the article argues that, within the political and cultural context of Lhagang, myth and history shift in and out of indigenous categories even while being categorically distinct.     

Symbolic violence and sexualities in the myth making of Mexican national identity

Symbolic violence has the capability to transform aspects of gender, race, ethnicity and sexuality and it is portrayed in a vast iconography, from myth, historic documents, prints and drawings. In this article I focus on two constructions of national identity that are entwined with gender and sexual roles: first, the mestizo myth, or the narrative of the common ethnic origins of the Mexican nation, and, second, the popular consumption of this national myth in the form of pictures and drawings depicting mestizo couples, the progenitors of idealized Mexican families conforming an integrative nation. To illustrate my argument I have used newspaper articles written by nineteenth-century women and picture cards of calendars and almanacs (mid-twentieth century) which give account of roles of sexuality and gender in shaping the nationalist mythology of common origin.     

The ‘success’ image of Asian Americans: Its validity,and its practical and theoretical implications 1

Abstract

The success stereotype of Asian Americans is examined in terms of three major research questions. (1) What factors account for the vicissitudes of the dominant group's perception of Asian Americans since 1850? (2) To what extent is the current success image of Asian Americans true? (3) How would such a model minority image affect Asian Americans, the other minorities, and majority Americans? The first question is addressed by historical data, and the second and third questions are answered by analyses of census data supplemented by other empirical data on Asian Americans. Factors accounting for the changes of the dominant group's image of Asian Americans are found to be primarily situational, and our analyses in the light of the principle of earnings equity indicate that the success image is largely a myth due to labour market disadvantages and other related social problems. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed in the conclusion.     

David Graeber's Wunderkammer,Debt: The First 5 000 Years

Graeber’s Debt: The First 5 000 Years has generated extensive commentary in the popular press and has captured the imagination of both activists at the barricades and investment fund managers in the City of London. Everyone is captivated by his critique of the myth of primitive barter. Yet it is a puzzle that a core element of his argument—the myth of primordial debt—has been largely overlooked. This review seeks to redress this oversight and in the process to suggest that Graeber’s emphasis on violence and enslavement, while compelling, is limited by his quest for origins. Feminist anthropology taught us to set aside the question, ‘when did “it” begin’ and instead open up to other questions, beyond the limits and biases the quest for origins presupposes. One wishes Graeber had entered the wonder cabinet he constructed in this book, rather than use it to ground a teleology.     

Theoretical perspectives on cinema in Africa: Culture,identity and Diaspora

The study of African cinema is often assumed to be the study of black film. This paper examines this notion with respect to definitions of Africa, questions of identity, and different historical discourses of resistance. Western psychocentric approaches to film criticism are criticized. The issue of authorship is revisited with the question: Can a white director make a film reflecting the “black” experience? This question is explored with reference to debates about Spike Lee's Malcolm X and South African director Oliver Schmitz's Mapantsula. In the process, J examine how meanings are articulated and rearticulated in specific contexts by both those who define them and audiences which interpret them. The articulations of “race wars” in the USA and South Africa respectively are discussed, as is the relationship between race and class in the anti‐apartheid struggle. The disarticulation of Black Consciousness in South Africa from its popularizer, Steve Biko, by film activists in the Mass Democratic Movement during the 1980s, provides a background for the emergence of “non‐racial” cinema. Reception is suggested as a more subtle means of film categorisation. Mapantsula, for example, though made by a mainly white crew, is understood by black audiences to be a film accurately reflecting the experience of the black oppressed in South Africa. Though reception is a dynamic response, shifting and responding to historical trajectories and new discourses, with interpretations fragmenting between different classes and class fractions at different times, such a strategy for area and cultural classification of films avoids the pitfalls of categories based on ideology, myth, race and language.     

Religious discrimination in Scotland: A rebuttal of Bruce et al.'s claim that sectarianism is a myth

A recent article on sectarianism in Scotland in Ethnic and Racial Studies by Bruce et al. sought to undermine the conclusions of a previous paper of ours, also published in this journal. Bruce et al. contend that sectarianism is a myth, while we have provided new qualitative evidence for personal experience of anti-Catholic discrimination in employment, which clearly contradicts their thesis. To contextualize these papers, we have summarized some of the key points of the evidence, and of the increasing concern about sectarianism in Scotland. In an effort to ridicule this concern, Bruce has attacked us as he has previously attacked a number of others. He and his co-authors accuse us of relying on respondents’ fallible judgements about the actual and appropriate proportions of Catholics in workplaces; then they try to interpret some of our respondents’ statements and their own quantitative evidence as supporting their myth hypothesis. We document here the process of misrepresentation by which they have sought to support their allegations, and we re-affirm the actual argument which led to our conclusions. We suggest a more obvious alternative interpretation of their own quantitative data, while raising misgivings about their use of 2001 census data. Questions about sectarian discrimination in Glasgow in the period 1950–2000 can no longer be baulked.     

Race,history and freedom in the Caribbean

A article in Ethinic and Racial Studies by Walls and Williams makes inferences about religious discrimination in employment from interview data. We question the validity of treating lay people as experts and present large-scale data from two recent surveys and the 2001 Census which suggest that sectarianism is more a social myth than a social reality.     

Acanthamoeba is an evolutionary ancestor of macrophages: A myth or reality?

Given the remarkable similarities in cellular structure (morphological and ultra-structural features), molecular motility, biochemical physiology, ability to capture prey by phagocytosis and interactions with microbial pathogens, here we pose the question whether Acanthamoeba and macrophages are evolutionary related. This is discussed in the light of evolution and functional aspects such as the astonishing resemblance of many bacteria to infect and multiply inside human macrophages and amoebae in analogous ways. Further debate and studies will determine if Acanthamoeba is an evolutionary ancestor of macrophages. Is this a myth or reality?     

Studies on the Later Stage of the Biosynthesis of Pleuromutilin

Mutilin (4) and deoxy analogues 2 and 3 are biosynthetic precursors of pleuromutilin (1) in the later stage of biosynthesis. Precursors 2 and 3 are required for studies on the oxygenation steps in biosynthesis, and were synthesized from readily available 1 via 4 by deoxygenation of the hydroxy groups. Feeding experiments with the ²H-labeled precursors confirmed their microbial conversion into 1.     

Synthesis and Biological Activity of Some Unsaturated 6-Azauracil Acyclonucleosides

A useful route is described for obtaining Z and E unsaturated alkylating agents 3 and 4. Coupling 6-azauracils 5 and 6 with unsaturated alkylating agent followed by the deprotection with H⁺ resin gave acyclonucleosides 11–14 in good overall yields. Unsaturated acyclonucleosides phosphonates 19 and 20 were prepared using potassium carbonate as base and 4-bromobut-2-enyl diethyl phosphonate 16 as the alkylating agent. The introduction of a propargyl group at the N-3 position of acyclonucleosides 7, 8, 17, 18, 19, and 20 was achieved using potassium carbonate in DMF.     

Theoretical mechanistic study of the reaction of the methylidyne radical with methylacetylene

A detailed doublet potential energy surface for the reaction of CH with CH₃CCH is investigated at the B3LYP/6-311G(d,p) and G3B3 (single-point) levels. Various possible reaction pathways are probed. It is shown that the reaction is initiated by the addition of CH to the terminal C atom of CH₃CCH, forming CH₃CCHCH 1 (1a,1b). Starting from 1 (1a,1b), the most feasible pathway is the ring closure of 1a to CH₃–cCCHCH 2 followed by dissociation to P ₃ (CH₃–cCCCH+H), or a 2,3 H shift in 1a to form CH₃CHCCH 3 followed by C–H bond cleavage to form P ₅ (CH₂CHCCH+H), or a 1,2 H-shift in 1 (1a, 1b) to form CH₃CCCH₂ 4 followed by C–H bond fission to form P ₆ (CH₂CCCH₂+H). Much less competitively, 1 (1a,1b) can undergo 3,4 H shift to form CH₂CHCHCH 5. Subsequently, 5 can undergo either C–H bond cleavage to form P ₅ (CH₂CHCCH+H) or C–C bond cleavage to generate P ₇ (C₂H₂+C₂H₃). Our calculated results may represent the first mechanistic study of the CH + CH₃CCH reaction, and may thus lead to a deeper understanding of the title reaction.     

Phosphoralaninate Pronucleotides of Pyrimidine Methylenecyclopropane Analogues of Nucleosides: Synthesis and Antiviral Activity

The Z- and E-thymine and cytosine pronucleotides 3d, 4d, 3e, and 4e of methylenecyclopropane nucleosides analogues were synthesized, evaluated for their antiviral activity against human cytomegalovirus (HCMV), herpes simplex virus 1 and 2 (HSV-1 and HSV-2), varicella zoster virus (VZV), Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HSV-1), and hepatitis B virus (HBV) and their potency was compared with the parent compounds 1d, 2d, 1e, and 2e. Prodrugs 3d and 4d were obtained by phosphorylation of parent analogues 1d or 2d with reagent 8. A similar phosphorylation of N⁴-benzoylcytosine methylenecyclopropanes 9a and 9b gave intermediates 11a and 11b. Deprotection with hydrazine in pyridine–acetic acid gave pronucleotides 3e and 4e. The Z-cytosine analogue 3e was active against HCMV and EBV. The cytosine E-isomer 4e was moderately effective against EBV.     

Synthesis of the Fluoromethyl Derivatives of Carbocyclic Oxetanocin A

Abstract

Treatment of the 2,3-di-O-benzoate 1 with sodium boronhydride mainly afforded the 3-O-benzoate 2 accompanied with isomers 3a,b and fully deprotected product 4. Compound 2 was converted to 5, from which 8 was obtained. The 1-cyclobutanols 8 and 5 were successfully condensed with 6-chloropurine by Mitsunobu reaction to give 9 and 11, respectively. After partial deprotection, the cyclobutyl nucleosides 10 and 15 were subjected to fluorination using DAST to afford the fluoromethyl analogs 12 and 16 from which target compounds 14 and 17 were obtained in good yields, respectively.

     

Lévi-Strauss on the Oedipus Myth: A Reconsideration

The first half of the article presents a critique of Lévi-Strauss' well-known analysis of the Oedipus myth. A consideration of Greek beliefs suggests that Lévi-Strauss is incorrect in tying certain events in that myth to the "overvaluation of blood relations" and in asserting that the myth is concerned with the "affirmation/denial of man's autochthonous origins." The second half of the article presents a different structural analysis of the entire Theban Saga, of which the Oedipus myth is but a part. It concludes (1) that Lévi-Strauss is correct in identifying a series of events in the myth which indicate the devaluation of blood relations, but that these events specifically refer to the devaluation of patrilineal kin ties and that the range of events indicating the devaluation of patrilineal ties is broader than his analysis would suggest, and (2) there is another series of repeated events (unmentioned by Lévi-Strauss) which indicates the affirmation of patrilineal kin ties. The final hypothesis— that the opposition between the devaluation/affirmation of patrilineal kin ties underlies the Theban Saga— "makes sense" in terms of Greek history, as the period in which the Olympian myths look their present form is also the period in which the Greeks moved from a society organized along patrilineal kin ties to one organized around allegiance to the polis. [structuralism, Oedipus myth, myth and social structure, Lévi-Strauss, anthropological theory]