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The Mythic Origins of Ritual and Holiday in America
| Article
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19565 |
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Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
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| Issue
Date : |
11 / 1991 |
5,971 Words |
| Author
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Cory Wade
Cory Wade teaches medieval literature and poetry writing at
Santa Clara University. The Red Candle Press in England has
recently published a collection of her poetry entitled July in
Georgia and Other Poems. |
Paraphrasing a rather famous proverb, the late mythologist Joseph Campbell observed that "there is more reality in an image than in a word." The belief that one picture is worth a thousand words may account in part for the continuing appearance of certain ritualistic symbols that, in the technological twentieth century, often seem incongruous with a culture increasingly distanced from nature. Yet particular images, some charged with millennia of meaning, remain potent long after the culture has officially outgrown them or ostensibly become too sophisticated for them.
What, for example, do a carved pumpkin, a dried ear of Indian corn, and a yule log have in common--and why do these elements of early rite still find their way into American homes in the 1990s? Besides the obvious association with autumn holidays, these three forms of vegetation are symbols of ancient belief systems. Each symbol played a significant role in a ritualistic drama designed to put participants in touch with their spiritual ancestry. Although today we no longer have at our immediate disposal the entire worldview behind those symbols, the images alone still awaken in us a deep and powerful awareness of our identity--as a community of believers and workers, as heirs to a common spiritual evolution.
Current celebrations of Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas do not exist in a social or religious vacuum but grow from a centuries-old observance of the haligdaeg, the Anglo-Saxon root of the word holiday. Originally, a holy day was an occasion for commemorating the sacred. While holiday rituals and their origins have often been overshadowed by commercial or material concerns, America has recently been experiencing a resurgence of interest in myth and ritual. Stimulated in part by the work of the eminent Joseph Campbell, this growing interest suggests that Americans value holiday celebrations not only for purposes of festivity but because rituals is a link to our spiritual heritage.
An examination of some of the prominent holidays celebrated in America today will reveal the extent to which our modern celebrations grow out of symbolic, mythic rituals.
Origins of Holidays
In most places around the world, the most significant holidays were first connected to the seasonal, varied cycles of nature. Of chief importance among the latter were the sun's movement across the sky and the moon's phases. Other events of nature, both anticipated and unforeseen, benign and
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