Chaos!

[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by Atgxtg

They would be to the people of those times.

I simply disagree. Some creatures serve sociological functions even _within_ their mythology, but some don't, and those would _not_ be seen as representatives of the principals they do sociologically to those in an environment where they actually exist (barring, of course, their mythology actively being sociological in nature; if people view their gods as reflecting them rather than being seperate from them, you can have some of this).

[Atgxtg]

Originally Posted by Nightshade

I simply disagree. Some creatures serve sociological functions even _within_ their mythology, but some don't, and those would _not_ be seen as representatives of the principals they do sociologically to those in an environment where they actually exist (barring, of course, their mythology actively being sociological in nature; if people view their gods as reflecting them rather than being seperate from them, you can have some of this).

Could you give some examples of this, so I can get a better grasp of you line of reasoning? I'm wondering if we are talking about the same thing.

[Trifletraxor]

How come so many anthropologists play RPGs?

SGL.

[drohem]

Originally Posted by Nightshade

Irrelevant to my point however; what function something serves _in the mythology_ has no direct relationship to the reason it exists in an anthropological sense. Anthropological meanings are based on sociology and psychology; mythology meanings are based on divine politics and mythical history. The latter is derived from the former, but they _aren't_ the same things.

No, I disagree.

[Atgxtg]

Originally Posted by Trifletraxor

How come so many anthropologists play RPGs?

SGL.

Because there have been two Indiana Jones RPGs?

It's part of the GM's curse. When someone starts to run, especially if they run a lot of RPgs, and several different types of RPG, they start to pick up a mish-mash of knowledges required by those games.

Who else but a gamer can hold discussions on mythology, ballistics, use Einstein's theory of relativity to work out the energy output of a photon torpedo, and know the difference between Lorica Segementata and CHOBHAM?

[Simlasa]

It seems that nowadays we have creatures of folklore, that some people really believe exist... monsters... like bigfoot and aliens and chupacabras...
and we also have creatures that no one actually believes in and are pure symbol/entertainment... stuff like Speedy Alka Seltzer and Big Bird.

Were ancient cultures the same? Was a sphinx something the average Egyptian would expect to find cavorting along a river somewhere? ... or was it recognized as merely a meaningful symbol?
Would the powers of the day... the church, royalty, whoever might be inclined... dream up some beast that symbolized their status and would common people see the image of the thing and understand it was not meant to be 'real'?

Perhaps ancient peoples did not have our sharp border between what is real and what isn't... maybe symbols could take on a life of their own.

Still, it's always seemed a bit presumptuous to me to assume that just because some ancient man drew a picture of a creature that meant he really believed it existed...

[Aycorn]

Originally Posted by Simlasa

It seems that nowadays we have creatures of folklore, that some people really believe exist... monsters... like bigfoot and aliens and chupacabras...
and we also have creatures that no one actually believes in and are pure symbol/entertainment... stuff like Speedy Alka Seltzer and Big Bird.

Were ancient cultures the same? Was a sphinx something the average Egyptian would expect to find cavorting along a river somewhere? ... or was it recognized as merely a meaningful symbol?
Would the powers of the day... the church, royalty, whoever might be inclined... dream up some beast that symbolized their status and would common people see the image of the thing and understand it was not meant to be 'real'?

Perhaps ancient peoples did not have our sharp border between what is real and what isn't... maybe symbols could take on a life of their own.

Still, it's always seemed a bit presumptuous to me to assume that just because some ancient man drew a picture of a creature that meant he really believed it existed...

I'm sure ancient cultures WERE the same - absolutely. Some creatures were just symbols (as a friend of mine likes to say facetiously - "how do we know that wasn't the sign for the men's room?") - some were things that some people actually believed in and some didn't (like the chupacabra today). Just as I'm sure there were total atheists walking around saying "Aah Odin (or Ra, or whomever) is just buncha bunk!"

[Kloster]

Originally Posted by Atgxtg

...
Who else but a gamer can hold discussions on mythology, ballistics, use Einstein's theory of relativity to work out the energy output of a photon torpedo, and know the difference between Lorica Segementata and CHOBHAM?

Hey Atgxtg, some of us also went to school!!!

But globally, I think you're right.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

[TRose]

I think if you traced the origins of a hundred mythical creatures you would find each has a unique origin. Some as I mention befor was the ancients trying to explain what animals ancient fossils where. other where the result of some one describing an animal to some one else who then described it to another person and so on, each changing the story a little. Centaurs for example are said to be the result of some traveller describing the Central Asian Horse nomads to another person, who then passed on the tale to another and so on. A description of people who live on their horses ends up as a people who are half horse and half man.
Others could be the result of some old storytellers just trying to entertain his audience for the night. When the Mountain Men first told other people about the petrified forest here in the U.S they described how petrified squirrel and birds where still on the limbs of the trees. They of course knew better but loved pulling one on people back east.
Even when you have facts that state otherwise people like the story that is more dramatic ,entertaining or politically acceptable. Take the story of Goliath. Most pictures and description of him say he was around 9 foot tall, but the early Hebrew system of measurement was not very exact and could vary considerable. The 9 foot is using the high end of his height. If you use the low end Goliath height comes out to about 6 foot 10 inches .

[Atgxtg]

TRose,
Yeah. This sort of thing does get brought up alot when talking about creatures like dragons and vampires, that have legends in nearly all cultures.

Dragons are generally believed to have orginated from the bones of dinosaurs that men came across (dinosaur theory didn't come about to the 19th century!).

Vampires were the ansers to two problems. Why some people who were "dead" came back to life (okay, so they wern"t really dead) and why people died when you let too much red fluid (we call it blood) leak out.

Lengends of the Amazaons seem to have derived from "pygmies" encounted in Africa.

Just looking at ancient maps will reveal just how ofter (and how willing) people "filled in the blanks". A quick net search on almost any fantasy creature will reveal the supposed history/origin.

Sometimes, eve, the creature is real-as with the giant squid. Not that giant squids attack sailing ships.