Living Memory and the Travelling Mountain Narrative of Taranaki

<p>The Travelling Mountain Narrative is the origin myth of Taranaki maunga and the foundation on which Taranaki tribal tradition and identity is constructed. The story pattern of the Travelling Mountain Narrative relates the journey of Taranaki maunga and Te Toka a Rauhoto to Te Tai Hauāuru. This thesis establishes that the origin myth was sourced in the historical migration account of the ancestor Rua Taranaki and mythologised over multiple generations. Te Toka a Rauhoto is the tangible connection between the past and the present and is represented by the sacred stone located at Puniho Pā. Informed by mātauranga Māori paradigms, a literature and qualitative mixed method research framework collated a wide variety of information about the Travelling Mountain Narrative and the tūpuna of the Kāhui Maunga, the early inhabitants of the Taranaki region. Exploring the way myth and history intersects with the lived reality of a contemporary tribal community this thesis contributes to the critical analysis of these tribal traditions. This thesis also highlights how participating and contributing to the pā, hapū and the iwi throughout the duration of PhD research also offered insider insights into the modern retention of ancient knowledge.</p>

Living Memory and the Travelling Mountain Narrative of Taranaki

<p>The Travelling Mountain Narrative is the origin myth of Taranaki maunga and the foundation on which Taranaki tribal tradition and identity is constructed. The story pattern of the Travelling Mountain Narrative relates the journey of Taranaki maunga and Te Toka a Rauhoto to Te Tai Hauāuru. This thesis establishes that the origin myth was sourced in the historical migration account of the ancestor Rua Taranaki and mythologised over multiple generations. Te Toka a Rauhoto is the tangible connection between the past and the present and is represented by the sacred stone located at Puniho Pā. Informed by mātauranga Māori paradigms, a literature and qualitative mixed method research framework collated a wide variety of information about the Travelling Mountain Narrative and the tūpuna of the Kāhui Maunga, the early inhabitants of the Taranaki region. Exploring the way myth and history intersects with the lived reality of a contemporary tribal community this thesis contributes to the critical analysis of these tribal traditions. This thesis also highlights how participating and contributing to the pā, hapū and the iwi throughout the duration of PhD research also offered insider insights into the modern retention of ancient knowledge.</p>

THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS IN THE NOVELS OF PAULO COELHO

The Brazilian author Paulo Coelho is a winner of Guinness Book of World Records and the world ambassador of psychological literature. The present paper intends to study the selected works of Paulo Coelho in the light of the reputed American mythologist and psychoanalyst Joseph Campbell’s theory on Emanations which is depicted in his seminal work The Hero With A Thousand Faces. Campbell’s thoughts revolving around mythology, metaphysics, and psychology, forming the structural principles of literature, do essentially evolve a story pattern. Campbell like Freud and Jung regards dreams highly significant, as dreams provide a thoughtstructure and express the unconscious. Campbell’s psychoanalytical theory largely bears on that of Jung. For Campbell myths and dreams have their origin in the unconscious wells of fantasy, though they may differ on some aspects. He considers the mythic heroes as archetypes representing the collective unconscious and, also as the versions of those archetypes both in spiritual and psychological terms. The paper intends to develop the mythical and psychological bearings in the novels of Coelho as it describes the adventure, quest, and transformation of the hero, supernatural power, occult rituals, destiny, and the interpretations of dreams in the Jungian terms, besides retaining their fictional element. Coelho’s novels The Pilgrimage, The Alchemist and The Zahir very well exemplify that how can a literary writer translate the myths which contain the eternal values afresh in terms of the existing realities through the use of the modern psychology.

The Flying King: the novelistic Alexander (Pseudo-Callisthenes 2.41) and the traditions of the Ancient Orient

The story of Alexander’s flight is preserved in early Byzantine versions of the Alexander Romance (codex L, recensions λ and γ) but is already mentioned by Rabbi Jonah of Tiberias (4th century AD) in the Jerusalem Talmud. The narrative must have been created between the late Hellenistic period and the early Imperial age. Although there are differences in details, the main storyline is common in all versions. Alexander fabricates a basket or large bag, which hangs from a yoke and is lifted into the air by birds of prey; Alexander guides the birds upwards by baiting them with a piece of meat fixed on a long spear. The same story-pattern is found in oriental tales about the Iranian king Kai Kāūs and the Babylonian Nimrod. Kai Kāūs’ adventure was included in the Zoroastrian Avesta and must have been current in the Iranian mythical tradition during the first millennium BCE. It is then transmitted by Medieval Islamic authors (Ṭabarī, Bal‘amī, Firdausī, Tha‘ālibī, Dīnawarī), who ultimately depend on Sasanian historical compilations, in which the early mythology of Iran had been collected. The story of Kai Kāūs’ ascension is earlier than Pseudo-Callisthenes’ narrative and contains a clear indication of morphological priority: in some versions the Persian king flies while seated on his throne, which reflects a very ancient and widespread image of royal iconography in Iran and Assyria. Probably Alexander’s aerial journey was derived from an old oriental tradition of tales about flying kings, to which the stories of Kai Kāūs and Nimrod also belonged. The throne had to be eliminated from Alexander’s story, because the episode was set during Alexander’s wanderings at the extremities of the world. The Macedonian king had therefore to fabricate his flying vehicle from readily available materials. Later, after the diffusion of Pseudo-Callisthenes’ romance in the Orient, the tale of Alexander’s ascension might have exercised secondary influence on some versions of the stories of Kai Kāūs and Nimrod, regarding specific details such as the use of the bait.

Traveling with Helen: The Itineraries of Paris and Menelaus as Narrative Doublets

The journey of Paris from Sparta to Troy and the journey of Menelaus from Troy to Sparta are narrative doublets that feature in the Epic Cycle. Both men follow a typical and historical pattern of mobility between Greece and the Levant before reaching their destination. These similarities constitute a proleptic doublet, where Paris’s journey is a less elaborate iteration of a story pattern that appears again in the nostos of Menelaus. In our known epics, the doublets appear near the beginning of the Cypria and at the very end of the Nostoi.

An Exploration of Elements of Folklore in Ntuli’s Translation of Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom

The telling of stories forms an integral part of human activities. It dominated pre-modern cultures and is still a human preoccupation today. All aspects of human life may be turned into a story, which may take one of many forms. Stories may be original creations in the language and culture in which they are told, or they may be derived—that is, they may be taken from another language and culture. Whatever the case, the people who are telling or retelling the story pattern the language they use in a manner that will arouse interest in their audience. It is against the backdrop of retelling stories that this article examines Ntuli’s use of elements of folklore in his translation of Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom. The elements to be explored in Ntuli’s translation include proverbs and idioms. Gottschall’s notion of The storytelling animal underpins the discussions in this article. Accordingly, the article demonstrates how the use of the elements of folklore helped the translator to adorn his work in order to assert his presence in the text and to relate the receptor to modes of behaviour relevant to their culture.

Herodotus and the Transformation of Ancient Near Eastern Motifs

A revealing and intriguing example of how Ancient Near Eastern story-patterns have been reshaped and reworked is Herodotus’ report about the enthronement of Darius as new King of the Persian Empire (Hdt. 3.84–9). In a fanciful and ironic way Herodotus explains the success of Darius in being chosen as the new King, with the assistance of his groom and an omen of a neighing horse. Herodotus also introduces a fictitious monument as a means of authentication allegedly celebrating Darius’ enthronement with the help of his smart groom. This monument reveals striking similarities with an Urartian royal relief which is described in detail in two inscriptions of the Assyrian king Sargon II (721–705 BC). Together with other Ancient Near Eastern elements referring to horse oracles and their specific setting as well as a parallel tradition testified by Ctesias of Cnidos an Ancient Near Eastern story-pattern comes to the fore that was, however, transferred by Herodotus into a completely new narrative.

1 “The Abduction of the Beautiful wife” as International Tale

This chapter discusses the folktales that attest the recurring story-pattern contained in the Helen myth. The comparison between the texts under discussion and the ancient Greek myth of Helen requires that they be described typologically. Hence the chapter first provides an overview of typology in folklore studies and the various concepts and approaches to be taken with the Abduction story. It then embarks on a more detailed analysis of “The Abduction of the Beautiful Wife,” breaking it down piece by piece and discussing recurring motifs, typologies, characters, variations across similar stories or stories which fall under the same type as the Abduction, and other such elements that repeat or break from the pattern.