These People Thanked The Animal

What do you think our souls 

owe to ancient myths?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Well, the ancient myths were designed to put the minds, the mental system, into accord with this body system, with this inheritance of the body.

BILL MOYERS: 

A harmony?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL:

 To harmonize. The mind can ramble off 

in strange ways, and want things 

that the body does not want. 

And the myths and rites were means 

to put the mind in accord with the body, 

and the way of life in accord with the way 

that nature dictates.

BILL MOYERS: 

So in a way these old stories live in us.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

They do indeed, and the stages of a human development are the same today as they were in the ancient times. 

And the problem of a child brought up in a world of discipline, of obedience, and of his dependency on others, 

has to be transcended when one comes to maturity so that you are living now 

not in dependency but with 

self-responsible authority. 

And the problem of the transition from childhood to maturity, and then from maturity and full capacity to losing those powers and acquiescing in the natural course of, you might say, the autumn-time of life and the passage away, myths are there to help us go with it, accept nature’s way and not hold to 

something else.

BILL MOYERS: 

The stories are sort of to Me 

like messages in a bottle 

from shores Someone Else 

has visited first.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Yes, and you’re visiting those shores now.

BILL MOYERS: And these myths tell me how others have made the passage, and how I can make the passage.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

And also what the beauties are of the way. I feel this now, moving into my own last years, you know, the myths help me to go with it.

BILL MOYERS: What kind of myth? Give me one that has actually helped you.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Well, the tradition in India, for instance, of actually changing your whole way of dress, even changing your name, as you pass from one stage to another. When I retired from teaching, I knew that I had to create a new life, a new way of life, and I changed my manner of thinking about my life just in terms of that notion, moving out of the sphere of achievement into the sphere of enjoyment and appreciation and relaxing into the wonder of it all.

BILL MOYERS: And then there is that final passage through the dark gate?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Well, that’s no problem at all. The problem in middle life, when the body has reached its climax of power and begins to lose it, is to identify yourself, not with the body, which is falling away, but with the consciousness of which it is a vehicle. And when you can do that, and this is something learned from my myths, What am I? Am I the bulb that carries the light, or am I the light of which the bulb is a vehicle? And this body is a vehicle of consciousness, and if you can identify with the consciousness, you can watch this thing go, like an old car there goes the fender, there goes this. But it’s expectable, you know, and then gradually the whole thing drops off and consciousness rejoins consciousness. I mean, that’s it’s no longer in this particular environment.

BILL MOYERS: And the myths, the stories have brought this consciousness to ours.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Well, I live with these myths and they tell me to do this all the time. And this is the problem which can be then metaphorically understood as identifying with the Christ in you, and the Christ in you doesn’t die. The Christ in you survives death and resurrects. Or it can be with Shiva. Shiva hung, I am Shiva. And this is the great meditation of the yogis in the Himalayas. And one doesn’t have even to have a metaphorical image like that, if one has a mind that’s willing to just relax and identify itself with that which moves it.

BILL MOYERS: You say that the image of death is the beginning of mythology. What do you mean? How is that?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Well, all I can say to that is that the earliest evidence we have of anything like mythological thinking is associated with grave burials.

BILL MOYERS: And they suggest what, that men, women, saw life and then they didn’t see it, and they wondered about it?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: It must have been, I mean, one has only to, you know, imagine what one’s own experience would be. The person was alive and warm before you and talking to you, is now lying there, getting cold, beginning to rot. Something was there that isn’t there, and where is it? Now, animals have this experience, certainly, of their companions dying and so forth, but mere’s no evidence that they’ve had any further thoughts about it. Also before the time of Neanderthal man it’s in his period that the first burials appeared of which we have evidence people were dying and they were just thrown away. But here this, a concern.

BILL MOYERS: Have you ever visited any of these burial sites?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: I’ve been to Le Moustier, that was one of the earliest burial caves that were found.

BILL MOYERS: And you find there what they buried with the dead?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Yes. These grave burials with grave gear, that is to say weapons and sacrifices round about, certainly suggest the idea of the continued life beyond the visible one. The first one that was discovered, the person was put down resting as though asleep, a young boy, with a beautiful hand ax beside him. Now, at the same time we have evidence of shrines devoted to animals that have been killed. The shrines specifically are in the Alps, very high caves, and they are of cave bear skulls. And there is one very interesting one with the long bones of the cave bear in the cave bear’s jaw.

BILL MOYERS: What does that say to you?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Burials. My friend has died and he survives. 

The animals that I’ve killed must also survive. I must make some kind of atonement relationship to them. The indication is of the notion of a plane of being that’s behind the visible plane, and which is somehow supportive of the visible one to which we have to relate. I would say that’s the basic theme of all mythology.

BILL MOYERS: That there is a world?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

That there is an invisible plane supporting the visible one. 

Now, whether it is thought of as a world or simply as energy, that differs from time and time and place to place.

BILL MOYERS: What we don’t know supports what we do know.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: That’s right. The basic hunting myth, I would say, is of a kind of covenant between the animal world and the human world, where the animal gives its life willingly. They are regarded generally as willing victims, with the understanding that their life, which transcends their physical entity, will be returned to the soil or to the mother through some ritual of restoration. And the principal rituals, for instance, and the principal divinities are associated with the main hunting animal, the animal who is the master animal, and sends the flocks to be killed, you know. To the Indians of the American plains, it was the buffalo. You go to the northwest coast, it’s the salmon. The great festivals have to do with the run of salmon coming in. When you go to South Africa, the eland, the big, magnificent antelope, is the principal animal to the Bushmen, for example.

BILL MOYERS: And the principal animal, the master animal

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Is the one that furnishes the food.

BILL MOYERS: So there grew up between human beings and animals, a bonding, as you say, which required one to be consumed by the other.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: That’s the way life is.

BILL MOYERS: 

Do you think this troubled early man, too

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Absolutely, that’s why you have the rites, 

because it did trouble him.

BILL MOYERS: What kind of rites?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Rituals of appeasement to the animals, of thanks to the animal. A very interesting aspect here is the identity of The Hunter with the animal.

BILL MOYERS: 

You mean, after the animal has been shot.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

After the animal has been killed, the hunter then has to fulfill certain rites in a kind of “participation mystique,” a mystic participation with the animals whose death he has brought about, and whose meat is to become his life. 

So the killing is not simply slaughter, at any rate, 

it’s a ritual act. It’s a recognition of your dependency and of the voluntary giving of this food to you by the animal who has given it. It’s a beautiful thing, and it turns life into a mythological experience.

BILL MOYERS: The hunt becomes what?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: It becomes a ritual. The hunt is a ritual.

BILL MOYERS: Expressing a hope of resurrection, that the animal was food and you needed the animal to return.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: And some kind of respect for the animal that was killed; that’s the thing that gets me all the time in this hunting ceremonial system.

BILL MOYERS: Respect for the animal.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: The respect for the animal and more than respect, I mean, that animal becomes a messenger of divine power, do you see.

BILL MOYERS: And you wind up as the hunter killing the messenger.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Killing the god.

BILL MOYERS: What does this do? 

Does it cause guilt, does it cause

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Guilt is what is wiped out by the myth. 

It is not a personal act; you are performing 

The Work of Nature, 

For example, in Japan, in Hokkaido in northern Japan among the Ainu people, whose principal mountain deity is the bear, when it is killed there is a ceremony of feeding the bear a feast of its own flesh, as though he were present, and he is present. He’s served his own meat for dinner, and there’s a conversation between the mountain god, the bear and the people. They say, “If you’ll give us the privilege of entertaining you again, we’ll give you the privilege of another bear sacrifice. ”

BILL MOYERS: If the cave bear were not appeased, the animals wouldn’t appear, and these primitive hunters would starve to death. So they began to perceive some kind of power on which they were dependent, greater than their own.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: And that’s the power of the Animal Master. 

Now, when we sit down to a meal, we thank God, you know, or our idea of God, for having given us this — 

These People Thanked The Animal.

BILL MOYERS: And is this the first evidence we have of an act of worshipó

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Yes.

BILL MOYERS: 

— of Power superior to man?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Yeah.

BILL MOYERS: And the animal was superior, because the animal provided food.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Well, now, in contrast to our relationship to animals, 

where we see animals as a lower form of life, 

and in the Bible we’re told, you know, 

we’re the masters and so forth, 

early hunting people don’t have that relationship to the animal. 

The animal is in many ways superior, 

He has powers that the human being doesn’t have.

BILL MOYERS: 

And then certain animals take on a persona, 

don’t they the buffalo, the raven, the eagle.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Oh, very strongly. 

Well, I was up on the northwest coast back in 1932, a wonderful trip, 

and the Indians along the way were still carving totem poles. 

The villages had new totem poles, still. And there we saw the ravens and we saw the eagles and we saw the animals that played roles in the myths. 

And they had the character, the quality, of these animals. It was a very intimate knowledge and friendly, neighborly, relationship to these creatures. And then they killed some of the. You see.

The animal had something to do with the shaping of the myths of those people, just as the buffalo for the Indians of the plains played an enormous role. 

They are the ones that bring the tobacco gift, 

the mystical pipe and all this kind of thing, 

it comes from A Buffalo. 

And when the animal becomes the giver of ritual and so forth, 

they do ask the animal for advice, 

and the animal becomes the model for how to live.

BILL MOYERS: You remember the story of the buffalo’s wife?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

That’s a basic legend of the Blackfoot Tribe, 

and is the origin legend of their buffalo dance rituals, 

by which they invoke the cooperation of the animals in this play of life.

When you realize the size of some of these tribal groups, 

to feed them required a good deal of meat. 

And one way of acquiring meat for the winter would be to drive a buffalo herd, to stampede it over a rock cl