I think mythology, if presented as such, has a perfectly legitimate place
in our world.  It provides considerable insight to the local culture.  We
have ghosts all over the place because a local librarian told ghost stories
to five generations of 3rd graders throughout the county.  She then put
them down in book form.  It is in its eighth printing and sells all over
the country.

Local people now find (create) them whenever a good occasion arises.


------
Robert Handy
Brazoria County Historical Museum
100 East Cedar
Angleton, Texas  77515
(409) 864-1208
museum_bob
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http://www.bchm.org

----------
From:   Doug Lantry[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
Sent:   Thursday, August 27, 1998 9:58 AM
To:     [log in to unmask]
Subject:        Re: civility...writing history

Tom Vaughan makes an interesting point about including oral tradition,
often regarded as myth, in interpretation. Here's a concrete example:

At the Ohio Statehouse, generations of Ohioans have seen, touched, sat in,
had their pictures taken with "The Lincoln Chair." Its attractive
mythology holds that Lincoln sat in this chair whilst addressing the
General Assembly, and the chair is now used by the Speaker of the House of
Representatives--it's a suitably grand chair, about 7 feet tall.

But it's not true! The chair was built in 1878, we found out recently. But
rather than pitch the whole story as an error, we use it (carefully) to
talk about the desire to connect with famous national figures. Connecting
Lincoln with our Statehouse somehow imparts extra gravity to the place,
and, as we know, people really like "a piece of the true cross." So--the
oral tradition of generations in this case *is* myth, but is useful in
talking about culture and history and memory.

I know this anecdote isn't squarely on what Vaughan was addressing, but
it's at least a tangent.

-Doug

........................................
Doug Lantry
The Ohio Historical Society
Statehouse Education and Visitors Center
Columbus, Ohio
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On Thu, 27 Aug 1998, Tom Vaughan wrote:

> In the last decade or so, SW US archeologists have begun to rediscover
> the
> oral traditions of the people whose ancestors they have studied for a
> century,
> oral tradtions previously dismissed as myths and fairy tales. Amazing
> how
> those 'myths' complement and inform the archeological record!
>