Impossible. Was he present when you opened the box?
DOCTOR:
Yes. Most enlightening.
PANNA:
What's he babbling about?
No male can open the Box of Jhana without being driven out of his mind.
It is well known.
Unless.... Is he an idiot?
KARUNA:
•Are• you an idiot?
DOCTOR:
Well, I suppose I must be.
I have been called one many -
PANNA:
Keep silent, idiot.
DOCTOR:
Yes.
(Panna leads them into her cave.)
JOSEPH CAMPBELL:
This is why clowns are good.
BILL MOYERS:
Clowns?
JOSEPH CAMPBELL:
Clown religions, because they show that the image is not a fact, but it’s a reflex of some kind.
BILL MOYERS:
So does this help explain the trickster gods that show up at times?
JOSEPH CAMPBELL:
They’re very much that, yes.
Foolishness for Christ (Greek: διά Χριστόν σαλότητα, Church Slavonic: оуродъ, юродъ) refers to behavior such as giving up all one’s worldly possessions upon joining a monastic order, or deliberately flouting society’s conventions to serve a religious purpose—particularly of Christianity. Such individuals have historically been known as both “holy fools” and “blessed fools”. The term “fool” connotes what is perceived as feeblemindedness, and “blessed” or “holy” refers to innocence in the eyes of God.
The term fools for Christ derives from the writings of Saint Paul. Desert Fathers and other saints acted the part of Holy Fools, as have the yurodivy (or iurodstvo) of Eastern Orthodox asceticism. Fools for Christ often employ shocking and unconventional behavior to challenge accepted norms, deliver prophecies, or to mask their piety.
Parallels for this type of behavior exist in non-Christian traditions as well. The Avadhuta (Sanskrit), for example, the Islamic tradition of Qalandariyya and Malamatiyya Sufism and other crazy-wise mystics display similar traits. Nasreddin, of the Sufis, is also an example.
According to Christian ideas, “foolishness” included consistent rejection of worldly cares and imitating Christ, who endured mockery and humiliation from the crowd. The spiritual meaning of “foolishness” from the early ages of Christianity was close to unacceptance of common social rules of hypocrisy, brutality and thirst for power and gains.
By the words of Anthony the Great: “Here comes the time, when people will behave like madmen, and if they see anybody who does not behave like that, they will rebel against him and say:
‘You are mad’, — because he is not like them.”
Paul the Apostle
Part of the Biblical basis for it can be seen in the words of the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 4:10, which famously says:
“We are fools for Christ’s sake, but ye are wise in Christ; we are weak, but ye are strong; ye are honourable, but we are despised.”
(KJV).
And also:
“For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. As it is written:
“He catches the wise in their craftiness.”
(1 Corinthians 3:19)
”For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (1 Corinthians 1:18)
”For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.” (1 Corinthians 1:21)
The Holy Fool or yuródivyy (юродивый) is the Russian version of foolishness for Christ, a peculiar form of Eastern Orthodox asceticism. The yurodivy is a Holy Fool, one who acts intentionally foolish in the eyes of men. The term implies behaviour “which is caused neither by mistake nor by feeble-mindedness, but is deliberate, irritating, even provocative.”8
In his book Holy Fools in Byzantium and Beyond, Ivanov described “holy fool” as a term for a person who “feigns insanity, pretends to be silly, or who provokes shock or outrage by his deliberate unruliness.” He explained that such conduct qualifies as holy foolery only if the audience believes that the individual is sane, moral, and pious. The Eastern Orthodox Church holds that holy fools voluntarily take up the guise of insanity in order to conceal their perfection from the world, and thus avoid praise.
Some characteristics that were commonly seen in holy fools were going around half-naked, being homeless, speaking in riddles, being believed to be clairvoyant and a prophet, and occasionally being disruptive and challenging to the point of seeming immoral (though always to make a point).
Ivanov argued that, unlike in the past, modern yurodivy are generally aware that they look pathetic in others’ eyes. They strive to pre-empt this contempt through exaggerated self-humiliation, and following such displays they let it be known both that their behaviors were staged and that their purpose was to disguise their superiority over their audience.
Fools for Christ are often given the title of Blessed (блаженный), which does not necessarily mean that the individual is less than a saint, but rather points to the blessings from God that they are believed to have acquired.
The Eastern Orthodox Church records Isidora Barankis of Egypt (d. 369) among the first Holy Fools. However, the term was not popularized until the coming of Symeon of Emesa, who is considered to be a patron saint of holy fools.29 In Greek, the term for Holy Fool is salos.
The practice was recognised in the hagiography of fifth-century Byzantium, and it was extensively adopted in Muscovite Russia, probably in the 14th century. The madness of the Holy Fool was ambiguous, and could be real or simulated. He (or she) was believed to have been divinely inspired, and was therefore able to say truths which others could not, normally in the form of indirect allusions or parables. He had a particular status in regard to the Tsars, as a figure not subject to earthly control or judgement.
The first reported fool-for-Christ in Russia was St. Procopius (Prokopiy), who came from the lands of the Holy Roman Empire to Novgorod, then moved to Ustyug, pretending to be a fool and leading an ascetic way of life (slept naked on church-porches, prayed throughout the whole night, received food only from poor people). He was abused and beaten, but finally won respect and became venerated after his death.10
The Russian Orthodox Church numbers 36 yurodivye among its saints, starting from Procopius of Ustyug, and most prominently Basil Fool for Christ, who gives his name to Saint Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow. One of the best-known modern examples in the Russian Church is perhaps St Xenia of Saint Petersburg.
One of the more recent works in theology is Fools for Christ15 by Jaroslav Pelikan. Through six essays dealing with various “fools,” Pelikan explores the motif of fool-for-Christ in relationship to the problem of understanding the numinous:
The Holy is too great and too terrible when encountered directly for men of normal sanity to be able to contemplate it comfortably. Only those who cannot care for the consequences run the risk of the direct confrontation of the Holy.
“I have been guided by the standard John Winthrop set before his shipmates on the flagship Arabella (sic) three hundred and thirty-one years ago, as they, too, faced the task of building a new government on a perilous frontier. “We must always consider”, he said, “that we shall be as a city upon a hill—the eyes of all people are upon us”.
Today the eyes of all people are truly upon us—and our governments, in every branch, at every level, national, state and local, must be as a city upon a hill—constructed and inhabited by men aware of their great trust and their great responsibilities.
For we are setting out upon a voyage in 1961 no less hazardous than that undertaken by the Arabella (sic) in 1630.
We are committing ourselves to tasks of statecraft no less awesome than that of governing the Massachusetts Bay Colony, beset as it was then by terror without and disorder within.
History will not judge our endeavors—and a government cannot be selected—merely on the basis of color or creed or even party affiliation.
Neither will competence and loyalty and stature, while essential to the utmost, suffice in times such as these.
For of those to whom much is given, much is required ...”
The Western End has held a palace since Merovingian times, and its eastern end since the same period has been consecrated to religion, especially after the 10th-century construction of a cathedral preceding today’s Notre-Dame.
city (n.)
c. 1200, from Old French cite "town, city" (10c., Modern French cité), from earlier citet, from Latin civitatem (nominative civitas; in Late Latin sometimes citatem) originally "citizenship, condition or rights of a citizen, membership in the community," later "community of citizens, state, commonwealth" (used, for instance of the Gaulish tribes), from civis "townsman," from PIE root *kei- (1) "to lie," also forming words for "bed, couch," and with a secondary sense of "beloved, dear."
Now "a large and important town," but originally in early Middle English a walled town, a capital or cathedral town. Distinction from town is early 14c. OED calls it "Not a native designation, but app[arently] at first a somewhat grandiose title, used instead of the OE. burh"(see borough).
Between Latin and English the sense was transferred from the inhabitants to the place. The Latin word for "city" was urbs, but a resident was civis. Civitas seems to have replaced urbs as Rome (the ultimate urbs) lost its prestige. Loss of Latin -v- is regular in French in some situations (compare alleger from alleviare; neige from nivea; jeune from juvenis. A different sound evolution from the Latin word yielded Italian citta, Catalan ciutat, Spanish ciudad, Portuguese cidade.
London is The City from 1550s. As an adjective, "pertaining to a city, urban," from c. 1300. City hall "chief municipal offices" is first recorded 1670s; to fight city hall is 1913, American English. City slicker "a smart and plausible rogue, of a kind usu. found in cities" [OED] is first recorded 1916 (see slick (adj.)). City limits is from 1825.
The newspaper city-editor, who superintends the collection and publication of local news, is from 1834, American English; hence city desk attested from 1878. Inner city first attested 1968.
*kei- (1)
Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to lie," also forming words for"bed, couch," and with a secondary sense of "beloved, dear."
It forms all or part of: ceilidh; cemetery; city; civic; civil; civilian; civilization; civilize; hide(n.2) measure of land; incivility; incunabula; Siva.
It is the hypothetical source of/evidence for its existence is provided by: Sanskrit Sivah "propitious, gracious;" Greek keisthai "to lie, lie asleep;" Latin cunae "a cradle;" Old Church Slavonic semija "family, domestic servants;" Lithuanian šeima "domestic servants," Lettish sieva "wife;" Old English hiwan "members of a household."
incunabula (n.)
1824, a Latin word meaning "swaddling clothes," also, figuratively, "childhood, beginnings, birthplace, place where a thing had its earliest development, the beginning of anything;" especially "early printed book using movable-type technology," From Gutenberg's beginning c. 1439 to the close of the year 1500. Latin incunabula "a cradle; a birthplace," figuratively "rudiments or beginnings," is from in "in" (from PIE root *en "in") + cunabula, diminutive of cunae "cradle," from PIE *koi-na-, suffixed form of root *kei- (1) "to lie," also forming words for "bed, couch."
Interest in collecting them began c. 1640 with the celebration of (as it was supposed) the 200th anniversary of printing. Perhaps this use of the word traces to the title of the first catalog of such books, Incunabula typographiae (Amsterdam, 1688). The word in this sense has come into general use throughout Europe. The number of books put on the market throughout Europe during that period has been estimated at 20 million. Prof. Alfred W. Pollard ["Encyclopaedia Britannica," 1941] wrote that "up to the end of the 17th century," Caxton's original printings "could still be bought for a few shillings."
Meet Barbara Gordon!
The New Commissoner for Gotherm City!
She was top of her class at Harvard for Police.
She cleaned up the streets of Gotham's nearby Sister City Bludhaven with STATISTICS and COMPASSION!
Sydney Barrett-Bird :
What is it?
Oliver Bird :
It-it's called The Ostrich.
Oh, wait, that's not right.
It's The Big Bird, isn't it?
No, 'The City'.
It's called 'The City'.
Also known as The Real World.
Sydney Barrett-Bird :
What makes it Real?
Oliver Bird :
I'll explain when you're older.
Sydney Barrett-Bird :
No, now.
Oliver Bird :
That's not the way it works, Little Bird.
I'm The Daddy,
and you're The Baby,
and
I'll tell you about The Real World
when you're older.
Now, come on.
Mommy's making stuffed animal pie.
Mmm.
We don't want to be late.
Sydney Barrett-Bird :
Do you remember That Wall We Built?
Oliver Bird :
The rock wall?
Of course.
Sydney Barrett-Bird :
Why did we do that?
It didn't do anything.
Oliver Bird :
It was A Wall.
It did Wall Things.
Sydney Barrett-Bird :
You know what I mean.
Oliver Bird :
Your mother and I taught you to work hard
So you'd know how to work hard.
We taught you to ask questions
So you'd know how to answer questions.
Plus, I like a nice rock wall.
Christianity was introduced to the Franks by their contact with Gallo-Romanic culture and later further spread by monks. The most famous of these missionaries is St. Columbanus (d 615), an Irish monk.
Merovingian kings and queens used the newly forming ecclesiastical power structure to their advantage. Monasteries and episcopal seats were shrewdly awarded to elites who supported the dynasty. Extensive parcels of land were donated to monasteries to exempt those lands from royal taxation and to preserve them within the family.
The family maintained dominance over the monastery by appointing family members as abbots.
Extra sons and daughters who could not be married off were sent to monasteries so that they would not threaten the inheritance of older Merovingian children. This pragmatic use of monasteries ensured close ties between elites and monastic properties.
Numerous Merovingians who served as bishops and abbots, or who generously funded abbeys and monasteries, were rewarded with sainthood. The outstanding handful of Frankish saints who were not of the Merovingian kinship nor the family alliances that provided Merovingian counts and dukes, deserve a closer inspection for that fact alone: like Gregory of Tours, they were almost without exception from the Gallo-Roman aristocracy in regions south and west of Merovingian control. The most characteristic form of Merovingian literature is represented by the Lives of The Saints.
Merovingian hagiography did not set out to reconstruct a biography in the Roman or the modern sense, but to attract and hold popular devotion by the formulas of elaborate literary exercises, through which the Frankish Church channeled popular piety within orthodox channels, defined the nature of sanctity and retained some control over the posthumous cults that developed spontaneously at burial sites, where the life-force of the saint lingered, to do good for the votary.
The vitae et miracula, for impressive miracles were an essential element of Merovingian hagiography, were read aloud on saints’ feast days. Many Merovingian saints, and the majority of female saints, were local ones, venerated only within strictly circumscribed regions; their cults were revived in the High Middle Ages, when the population of women in religious orders increased enormously. Judith Oliver noted five Merovingian female saints in the diocese of Liège who appeared in a long list of saints in a late 13th-century psalter-hours. The vitae of six late Merovingian saints that illustrate the political history of the era have been translated and edited by Paul Fouracre and Richard A. Gerberding, and presented with Liber Historiae Francorum, to provide some historical context.
Old English tun "enclosure, garden, field, yard; farm, manor; homestead, dwellinghouse, mansion;" later "group of houses, village, farm," from Proto-Germanic *tunaz, *tunan "fortified place" (source also of Old Saxon, Old Norse, Old Frisian tun "fence, hedge," Middle Dutch tuun "fence," Dutch tuin "garden," Old High German zun, German Zaun "fence, hedge"), an early borrowing from Celtic *dunon "hill, hill-fort" (source also of Old Irish dun, Welsh din "fortress, fortified place, camp," dinas "city," Gaulish-Latin -dunum in place names), from PIE *dhu-no- "enclosed, fortified place, hill-fort," from root *dheue- "to close, finish, come full circle" (see down (n.2)).
Meaning "inhabited place larger than a village" (mid-12c.) arose after the Norman conquest from the use of this word to correspond to French ville. The modern word is partially a generic term, applicable to cities of great size as well as places intermediate between a city and a village; such use is unusual, the only parallel is perhaps Latin oppidium, which occasionally was applied even to Rome or Athens (each of which was more properly an urbs).
First record of town hall is from late 15c. Town ball, version of baseball, is recorded from 1852. Town car (1907) originally was a motor car with an enclosed passenger compartment and open driver's seat. On the town "living the high life" is from 1712. Go to town "do (something) energetically" is first recorded 1933. Man about town "one constantly seen at public and private functions" is attested from 1734.
Kaffee:
Colonel Jessup!
Did you order the Code Red?!
Judge Randolph:
You don't have to answer that question!
Jessup:
I'll answer the question.
You want answers?
Kaffee:
I think I'm entitled to it!
Jessup:
You want answers?!
Kaffee:
I want the truth!!
Jessup:
You can't handle the truth!
Son, we live in a world that has walls,
and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns.
Who's gonna do it? You?
You, Lieutenant Weinberg?
I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom.
You weep for Santiago and you curse the Marines.
You have that luxury.
You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that Santiago's death, while tragic, probably saved lives.
And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives!
You don't want the truth, because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall.
You need me on that wall. We use words like "honor", "code", "loyalty".
We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something.
You use them as a punchline.
I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it!
I would rather you just said "thank you", and went on your way.
Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon, and stand a post.
Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you are entitled to!
late 14c., "inhabited place larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town," from Old French vilage "houses and other buildings in a group" (usually smaller than a town), from Latin villaticum "farmstead" (with outbuildings), noun use of neuter singular of villaticus "having to do with a farmstead or villa," from villa "country house" (from PIE root *weik- (1) "clan"). As an adjective from 1580s.
Village idiot is recorded from 1825.
Related: Villager (1560s).
*weik- (1)
Proto-Indo-European root meaning "clan, social unit above the household."
It forms all or part of: antoecian; bailiwick; Brunswick; diocese; ecology; economy; ecumenical; metic; nasty; parish; parochial; vicinage; vicinity; viking; villa; village; villain; villanelle; -ville; villein; Warwickshire; wick (n.2) "dairy farm."
[FAROUK CHUCKLES SOFTLY.]
This word, "Villain"
Do you know where it comes from?
C'est francais.
It means, originally,
"One Who Lives in a Village."
A peasant.
Do I seem like a peasant to you...?
You know what I mean.
No.
This is important.
Language.
The meaning of things.
You called me a Villain.
Me, the king.
[SPEAKING PERSIAN.]
For decades I rule over my country.
I'm a good king.
Strong but just.
My people, they prosper.
And then your father a white man, which is –
You tell me, important...?
He comes.
Does he speak our language?
Does he know our customs?
And he decides what?
That my people should have better.
That he knows better.
Who is he to make such choices?
LEGION :
[SETS GLASS DOWN.]
You fed off me when I was a baby.
And I'm supposed to feel, what, sorry for you?
FAROUK:
Is it such a terrible thing?
To feel sorrow for your enemy? What is he, except a brother with another name?
LEGION :
We're not brothers.
[POPS.]
[WATER BURBLING.]
FAROUK:
You are still young.
You think justice is a glass jar.
You fill it with your hurt, your hate.
Don't you think I have my own jar? I'm a refugee.
Do you know the meaning of that word? Refugee.
Driven from my home, in exile.
Prisoner in another man's body.
LEGION :
Nobody put you in my head.
Or Oliver's.
You made a choice.
FAROUK :
[CHUCKLES.]
: Of course.
If the choice is between death or life I choose life.
LEGION :
Listen, I'll call you when I have the monk somewhere safe.
He takes us to your body, and then you are gone.
Gone.
No one ever hears your name again.
FAROUK :
Interesting, don't you think?
You're doing this for a woman you love who lives in a future you're going to destroy if you help me.
LEGION :
What do you mean?
FAROUK :
The timeline.
She lives in a future you are trying to change, and when you do, she will cease to exist.
So really you are helping her to commit suicide.
Oh, and be careful with the monk.
He is very [SPEAKS GERMAN.]
Contagious.
See, this, uh [TEETH CHATTERING.] madness.
They think it's me, that I'm infecting people.
But it's him.
He's Toxic.
He is like Typhoid Mary.
But where he goes, I follow.
So your friends think that I am the Mary.
Not so smart, your friends.
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 cliff. Well, this story is of a Blackfoot tribe long, long ago, and they couldn’t get the buffalo to go over the cliff. The buffalo would approach the cliff and then tum aside. So it looked as though they weren’t going to have any meat for that winter.
Well, the daughter of one of the houses, getting up early in the morning to draw the water for the family and so forth, looks up and there right above the cliff were the buffalo. And she said, “Oh, if you’d only come over, I’d marry one of you.” And to her surprise, they all began coming over. That was surprise number one. Surprise number two was when one of the old buffalos, the shaman of the herd, comes and says, “All right, girlie, off we go.” “Oh, no,” she says. “Oh, yes,” he says, “you made your promise. We’ve kept our side of the bargain, look at all my relatives here dead. Off we go.”
Well, the family gets up in the morning and they look around, and where’s Minnehaha, you know. The father, and you know how Indians are, he looked around and he said, “She’s run off with a buffalo.” He could see by the footsteps. So he says, “Well. I’m going to get her back.” So he puts on his walking moccasins, bow and arrow and so forth, and goes out over the plains. He’s gone quite a distance when he feels he’d better sit down and rest, and he comes to a place that’s called a buffalo wallow, where the buffalo like to come and roll around, get the lice off, and roll around in the mud.
So he sits down there and is thinking what he should do now, when along comes a magpie. Now, that’s a beautiful, flashing bird, and it’s one of those clever birds that has shamanic qualities.
BILL MOYERS:
Magical qualities.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL:
Magical. And the man says to him, “Oh, beautiful bird, my daughter ran away with a buffalo. Have you seen, will you hunt around and see if you can find her out on the plain somewhere?” And the magpie says, “Well, there’s a lovely girl with the buffalos right now, over there just a bit away.” “Well,” said the man, “would you go tell her that her daddy’s here, her father’s here at the buffalo wallow?” Magpie flies over and the girl is there among the buffalo; they’re all asleep. I don’t know what she’s doing, knitting or something of the kind. And the magpie comes over close to her and he says, “Your father’s over at the wallow waiting for you.” “Oh,” she says, “this is very terrible, this is dangerous, I mean, these buffalo, they’ll kill us. You tell him to wait, I’ll be over, I’ll try to work this out.”
So her buffalo husband’s behind her and he wakes up and takes off a horn, he says, “Go to the wallow and get me drink.” So she takes the horn and goes over and there’s her father. And he grabs her by the arm and he says, “Come.” She says, No, no, no, this is real dangerous. The whole herd there, they’ll be right after us. I have to work this thing out, now let me just go back.” So she gets the water and goes back and he, “Fe, Fi, Fo, Fum, I smell the blood of an Indian.” You know, that sort of thing. And she says, “No, nothing of the kind.” And he says, “Yes, indeed.” So he gives a buffalo bellow and they all get up and they all do a slow buffalo dance with their tails raised, and they go over and they trample that poor man to death, so that he disappears entirely, he’s just all broken up to pieces, all gone.
The girl’s crying, and her buffalo husband says, “So you’re crying.” “This is my daddy.” He said, “Yeah, but what about us? There are children, our wives, our parents, and you crying about your daddy.” Well, apparently he was a kind of sympathetic compassionate buffalo, and he said, “Well, I’ll tell you, if you can bring your daddy back to life again, I’ll let you go.” So she turns to the magpie and says, “See, peck around a little bit and see if you can find a bit of Daddy.” And the magpie does so, and he comes up finally with a vertebra, just one little bone.
And the little girl says, “That’s plenty. Now, we’ll put this down on the ground,” and she puts her blanket over it, and she sings a revivifying song, a magical song with great power. And presently, yes, there’s a man under the blanket. She looks, Daddy all right, but he’s not breathing yet. A few more stanzas of whatever the song was, and he stands up, and the buffalo are amazed. And they say, “Why don’t you do this for us? We’ll teach you now our buffalo dance, and when you will have killed our families, you do this dance and sing this song, and we’ll all be back to life again.”
That’s the basic idea, that through the ritual, that dimension is struck which transcends temporality and out of which life comes and back into which it goes.
BILL MOYERS:
And it goes back to this whole idea of death, burial and resurrection, not only for human beings, but for…
JOSEPH CAMPBELL:
But for the animals, too.
BILL MOYERS:
So the story of the buffalo’s wife was told to confirm the reverence.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: That’s right.
BILL MOYERS: What happened when the white man came and slaughtered this animal of reverence?
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: That was a sacramental violation. I mean, in the eighties, when the buffalo hunt was undertaken, you know, with Kit Carson…
BILL MOYERS: The 1880s, a hundred years ago.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: — and Buffalo Bill and so forth. When I was a boy, whenever we went for sleigh rides we had a buffalo robe. Buffalo, buffalo, buffalo robes all over the place. This was the sacred animal to the Indians. These hunters go out with repeating rifles, and then shoot down the whole herd and leave it there. Take the skin to sell and the body’s left to rot. This is a sacrilege, and it really is a sacrilege.
BILL MOYERS: It turned the buffalo from a “thou-”
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: To an “it.”
BILL MOYERS: The Indians addressed the buffalo as “thou.”
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: As a “thou”.
BILL MOYERS: As an object of reverence.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL:
The Indians addressed life as a “thou,” I mean, trees and stones, everything else. You can address anything as a “thou”, and you can feel the change in your psychology as you do it. The ego that sees a “thou” is not the same ego that sees an “it.” Your whole psychology changes when you address things as an “it.” And when you go to war with a people, the problem of the newspapers is to turn those people into its, so that they’re not “thous.”
BILL MOYERS:
That was an incredible moment in the evolution of American society, when the buffalo were slaughtered.
That was the final exclamation point behind the destruction of the Indian civilization, because you were destroying…
JOSEPH CAMPBELL:
Can you imagine what the experience must have been for a people within 10 years to lose their environment, to lose their food supply, to lose the object of the… the central object of their ritual life?
