A Dreamer's Notes: Myths and Pronouns

 

"When Kevin Costner wanted to learn an Indian dialect for his film Dances with Wolves, he didn't realize that there were different grammatical forms for men and women; he learned the language from a woman, and hence, apparently unknowingly, throughout the film referred to himself as 'she' and 'her'."

- Wendy Doniger, The Implied Spider: Politics &Theology in Myth 

This delightful anecdote reminded me of my first attempts to learn the Mohawk language on and off reservations. In Mohawk the primary nouns and pronouns are feminine. So Okwari is Bear but in English it is also she-bear. If you want to specify you are talking about a male bear you must add a prefix and say Rokwari.

Doniger's Kostner anecdote comes in a discussion of how women's voices have been suppressed in the literature of many cultures. Throughout Doniger displays the fruits of her omnivorous reading and proves herself a worthy successor to Mircea Eliade as professor of the history of religions at the University of Chicago.

Myths are her passion but she declines to give any fixed definition of the word "myth". You can catch her on the fly, however, saying things like this:

"A myth is a story that is sacred to and shared by a group of people who find their most important meanings in it."

And this:

"Myths from other people's cultures often provide us with useful metaphors that are more refreshing than our own."

I strongly endorse the last statement. It is one reason why I weave so many myths into my courses, refreshing old stories as they refresh us because to touch our lives a myth must come vitally alive in our imaginations and our experience of the world.

Art: "She-Bear of Old Engand" by James Uxcell, Used with permission.