These great columns are often referred to as “story-telling poles” (Malin 104) because the multiple figures depict or illustrate a narrative. These narratives might recount recent historical events involving members of a particular family or timeless legends involving mythological characters. The Raven pole belonging to a Tlingit tribe in Wrangell, Alaska, for example, depicts a story found among various tribes that explains the origins of the sun and moon. In addition to its aetiological components, the story includes many elements similar to those in narratives from various Western traditions — the theft of fire, the trickster who benefits mankind, and even the virgin birth — and more mundane themes like the danger of spoiling grandchildren.

Long ago, the world was covered with darkness. (This story appears with minor variations in many tribes; the summary here includes details from the Tlingit tradition.) Raven grew tired of stumbling around and went in search of light. As he came near the house of an old chief, he overheard the chief talking with his daughter. Raven learned that the chief kept all the light of the world locked away in a box; predictably, he promptly devised a plan to steal that box. He transformed himself into a hemlock needle and landed in the river; the chief’s daughter became pregnant after unknowingly drinking him and in time gave birth to a son — Raven in human form. The chief loved his new grandson greatly. Raven soon began begging for the box as a toy. When his grandfather refused, Raven began crying and screaming and throwing tantrums and pleading for the box. After many days of this, the chief reluctantly gave him the box. Raven immediately changed back to his bird form, carried the box through the smokehole of the house, and placed the light (in the forms of the sun, the moon, and the stars) in the sky.

The Raven pole shown in the three photographs above contains this story. It was carved in 1896 for Chief Shakes of a Tlingit tribe, and it stood for eighty-two years before collapsing in a windstorm. After that, a replica was built for a nearby park (Stewart 104). A detailed drawing of each figure on the pole is shown below.

The top figure in the pole is the old chief from the story, sitting atop the box containing the light. The combination of human and bird-like features indicates he is a being with supernatural powers. (In the Tlingit version of the story, the chief could take either human or raven form; the straight beak identifies the birdlike form as a raven.) The second figure is his grandson Raven who stole the box; the halo around his face references the sun, which connects him with the sun he placed in the sky. The daughter of the chief is either the human figure in front of Raven or the third raven below him. (The identity of the fourth figure is much less certain but is most likely a mythological character connected in some way to this raven family.)

Among all the tribes of the Pacific Northwest, the figures depicted on the carved columns follow highly formalized stylistic rules. These rules make the characters on the poles easy to identify. Birds have beaks of an identifiable shape: while carvers have much freedom in depicting these creatures, the raven must have a straight beak and the eagle must have a curved beak. Wolves and bears look similar but can be distinguished by the shape of their teeth and the length of their snouts. Beavers always sit upright, have two large front teeth, and hold a stick in their paws. Other symbols can be added to figures to communicate further details: multiple dorsal fins indicate that a whale is supernatural, and figures with features from two forms (for example, one set of human ears and one of birdlike ears) have the power to transform between those forms.

Though these great columns are undoubtedly related to narratives, the exact nature of that relationship is difficult to define. It provides an interesting dilemma for narratological studies. Though the columns are often referred to as “story-telling poles,” the poles do not really tell a story. Someone unfamiliar with the myth of Raven stealing the light, for example, would not learn it by studying the Raven pole in Wrangell. The figures are not arranged in any chronological order like panels in a comic book would be, nor does the pole as a whole depict one particular scene from the story like a painting world. Instead, the combination of characters together seems to suggest a particular narrative — more like a montage-style book cover or a movie poster would (see examples). The narratives related to a column were most likely recited at the ceremony in which it was raised, and even those well-versed in the myths of the culture might not be able to identify with certainty the story depicted without knowing the history of that ceremony.

We do not know how long the Native Americans in this region have made such carved columns. The tribes had developed no system of writing and thus kept no records, and the columns themselves (like all wooden objects) decompose and deteriorate. The earliest evidence comes from descriptions made by European and Russian explorers and traders in the eighteenth century. The stylistic rules for the figures appear to have been already established by that time. However, the columns themselves were much smaller and simpler than the familiar columns of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Most of the columns stood inside the houses, decorative but also essential components of the houses’ structure. Only a small number of poles stood outside the houses, rarely more than one or two in any given village; these were erected as memorial poles to honor past leaders. The columns at that time do not appear to have been connected in any way to the mythological narratives of the tribe.

Contact with Europeans and Russians created conditions that radically changed the art of column carving. The introduction of iron tools and the increase in overall wealth caused by the fur trade increased the efficiency of the carvers, the detail and quality of their carvings, and the demand for their columns. With these changes, the so-called “golden age” of column carving began — roughly one hundred years from the end of the eighteenth century to the end of the nineteenth century. The columns began to display a much larger number of figures, which made them more apt for containing narratives. The Haida on Queen Charlotte Island first began carving these larger and more elaborate narrative poles; the practice then spread in varying degrees up and down the coast.

When commissioning a new pole, custom forbade the hiring of a carver from one’s own clan or tribal group. Preferably, the carver would come from another tribe altogether. Completing one of the larger columns of the nineteenth century could take as long as two years, during which time the carver and his immediate family would often live in the patron’s own house. The patron spent a great deal of time communicating to the carver the histories, the legends, and the myths belonging to his family. These carvers, with their many travels and exposure to stories from other clans and tribes, were perhaps the most culturally-aware members of their society. They would also compose songs, perform dances, and speak during important ceremonies. More than just carpenters or craftsmen, they had a rich understanding of the significant narratives of their culture and could then portray those narratives in their magnificent carvings in cedar.

References / Works Consulted

• Malin, Edward. Totem Poles of the Pacific Northwest Coast. 1994. Portland, Oregon: Timber Press, 1986.
• Reid, Bill, and Robert Bringhurst. The Raven Steals the Light. University of Washington Press, 2003.
• Garfield, Viola E., and Linn A. Forrest. Wolf and the Raven : Totem Poles of Southeastern Alaska. University of Washington Press, 1961.
• “The Strange Stories the Totem Pole Tells.” New York Times. 26 September 1909. (Full article available online.)
• Stewart, Hilary. Looking at Totem Poles. University of Washington Press, 1993.
• Keithahn, Edward L. Monuments In Cedar. 1945. (Full text available online.)

Images

The four images of the Raven pole in Wrangell, Alaska, come from a variety of sources.

1. The first photograph comes from the 1909 New York Times article, which is available online. View article at NYTimes.com (PDF)
2. The second photograph, taken by Edward L. Keithahn, comes from his 1945 Monuments In Cedar (page 90). All of Keithahn’s photographs from the books are available online with the full text. View page at Alaskool.org | View image file (JPG)
3. The third photograph was taken by Flickr user “brewbrooks” during his August 2007 vacation to Alaska. He has graciously made these photographs available under a Creative Commons license. View photo at Flickr
4. The line drawing of the pole comes from Hillary Stewart’s 1993 Looking at Totem Poles. View sketch at Google Books

Many children leave behind this type of adventurous work of imagination for the world of romance and relationships to be found in Barbie dolls (or Bratz dolls, these days) or the epic battles enacted by G.I. Joes (still the top listed action figures in a Google search). Then, when they are told that playing with toys is an act, not of imagination, but of childishness, they leave these things behind. Those who are lucky enough discover they can tell the same kinds of stories sitting around a table with some dice, or using a video-game controller and console, their customizable hero appearing on screen, moving as they specify. The world of role-playing games, both the table-top and computer or console versions, is a continuation of the need for acts of imagination, for storytelling, which, according to writers from Joss Whedon to J. R. R. Tolkien,  is a  “basic human need” (Whedon) or even a spiritual exercise (Tolkien 79). Interactive storytelling, which comes so naturally to children, could be considered an expression of the mythic impulse — the movement of a modern human toward a more sacred or mythic understanding of the universe.

This is not to say, of course, that playing HALO is akin to a divine experience (though some truly devout gamers would surely disagree with me). An article from the International Game Developers Association certainly claims that computer games solve the problem of storytelling being a static medium:

Computer games promise the potential to move beyond this strictly linear form by offering stories that interact with the player, allowing them to participate in the decisions or actions that shape the narrative. (Source)

But while there is some argument that computer games have greater potential to immerse the player in a storytelling environment, this type of storytelling is limited by its programming. There are certainly more options in the story than offered by a movie, but given the number of visual and auditory elements provided for the player, the game might have only the same level of imaginative interactivity as a novel: in a novel the story doesn’t change, but the details of how scenes are imagined might. In an interactive computer game, the player brings a certain set of instructions — inside the boundaries of the program — for how the story is told. In a novel, though the story doesn’t change, the reader brings the setting, the smells, the colors, and the sounds of voices, creating all of the visual and audio in their heads.

Table-top role playing games, on the other hand, require little more than rule books and dice before they say, “Go. Be the hero.” From the instant you choose to interact, to take part in the story, you and your peers around the table are creating a shared reality that you gleefully inhabit for the next several hours. Many of the elements of Joseph Campbell’s “hero’s journey” pattern find their way into the tale from the start. Characters often fit Jungian archetypes, have had unusual births, or have already left home and begun their journey into a mythical realm. The themes of fantasy are all wrapped up in mythology and the language of the fantastic, and it’s easy to intentionally embrace those elements.

I’ve just begun a game that takes the mythic connection of group storytelling and mythic elements quite literally. The setting is mythic Greece, during the era just before the Trojan War. Mythic time moves differently than more linear storytelling, which makes it hard to pin down which heroes are active when, as their stories tend to intersect the chronology of other tales. The players in the tale are all children of the gods, and they have already received their first quest from the Oracle at Delphi. They have encountered pirates and nereids, have competed in contests of strength, and have poured libations on herms to ensure that their journeys will go well. Over the course of the tale we create together, they will meet many of the well-known heroes and participate in or derail some of the traditional stories. They’ve told me they’d like to take over Egypt. It could happen.

But while I’ve played in games where I’ve sought out the Holy Grail in Edwardian England and run games where people of the bloodline of the Tuatha de Danaan of Irish mythology teamed up with urban-fantasy-styled demon slayers to stop an invasion of the human world, not all games have to have a mythic element to maintain that feeling of enacting creation. The real magic (to use the term loosely) in a table-top role playing game is that the story incarnates: the tale being created takes place in the people sitting around a table, sharing the telling while they share pizza and Doritos. I won’t go so far as to say that the ritual of storytelling echoes religious rituals or coming of age ceremonies where the participants are said to become the mythic personages they represent. But in a modern world where there aren’t too many coming of age ceremonies left, where stories are often told to us by boxes that carry all of the sounds and images with them, where we so rarely have the chance to be a part of a larger story than the one we act out in our everyday lives, sometimes connecting to that mythic spirit of storytelling is as simple as sitting down with some dice, some paper, and some friends, and seeing where the story takes you.

References

• Whedon, Joss. “More Joss Strike Talk.” Whedonesque. 7 Nov 2007. Online article.
• Flieger, Verlyn and Douglas A. Anderson. Tolkien On Fairy-stories. HarperCollins: 2008.
• International Game Developers Association. “Foundations of Interactive Storytelling.” 13 Nov 2001. Online article.

A typical fable usually has a two-part plot sequence: the confrontation, and the outcome. Unlike modern comic book art, where a plot sequence can be shown in a series of panels, in these illustrations the artist uses only one panel to depict the plot. In that one panel, the artist may depict the confrontation, or the outcome, or both, as you can see in the examples below. In each case, however, the reader must still apply additional information in order to get a mental picture of the whole story. That additional information might come from the text, or it might come from the storytelling tradition itself, since many of these fables were well established in European folklore and well known in the oral tradition long before being printed in books.

In the famous story of the wolf and the lamb, for example, the wolf accuses the lamb of muddying the water, while the lamb protests that he is innocent; this is the confrontation. The wolf eats the lamb anyway; this is the outcome. The artist has chosen to render the confrontation scene, including the important detail that the lamb is drinking downstream from the wolf. Any reader who knows the fable already can supply the outcome based on what they see here.

From Steinhowel’s Aesop, 1479. View larger image »

For an illustration which shows the outcome instead, consider the frog and the mouse. The frog offered to help the mouse cross the stream, and the mouse tied itself to the frog so that it would not drown. The treacherous frog then plunges under the water, trying to drown the mouse; this is the confrontation. In the outcome, a passing kite swoops down and carries away both the mouse and the frog. For readers who know the story, the confrontation is can be easily deduced from the dramatic denouement.

From Steinhowel’s Aesop, 1479. View larger image »

Sometimes the artist shows a series of events occupying the same space even if they unfold separately in time. Consider, for example, the story of the old lion: he is attacked first by a boar, then by a bull, and finally by a donkey, which is the most humiliating of all. The illustration shows all three attacks as if they were simultaneous, but readers who know the story realize that the attacks happen in a sequence, culminating with the despicable donkey.

From Steinhowel’s Aesop, 1479. View larger image »

Meanwhile, to understand the meaning of the fire coming out of the boar’s mouth, you need a knowledge of the  Latin text of the story, which explains that the boar had dentes fulminei, “teeth that flash like lightning.” With this detail, the Latin text exerted a specific, direct influence on the illustration; later on, we will see an example of an image which instead challenges the text.

But first, let’s look at another example of multiple scenes in a single panel, the story of the lion and the mouse. A lion caught a mouse, and the mouse begged for mercy, promising he would do the lion a favor in the future. The lion scoffed, but let the mouse go. This is the mouse in the lower right, pinned under the lion’s paws. Later, the lion was caught in a snare and the mouse then chewed through the ropes, setting the lion free. This is the mouse in the upper right, chewing through the rope wrapped around the lion’s neck. Without the text of the story, you might think there are two mice, but there is really only one. In addition, you might think the lion is caught in a snare when he traps the mouse, but not so: you are seeing two different moments of time, superimposed.

From Steinhowel’s Aesop, 1479. View larger image »

You can even find sequences of three scenes combined into a single panel, as in the story of Zeus and the frogs. As the story begins, the frogs ask Zeus to give them a king, so he hurls a log down into the water; you can see Zeus hurling the log on the left. At first the frogs are impressed by the big splash made by the log, but they grow bored with their king, and hop on the log to show their contempt. You can see the frogs hopping on the log in the lower right. They then ask Zeus to send them another king, so he does: you can see the bird (a stork? a crane? a heron?) in the upper right, as he eats his subjects one by one.

From Steinhowel’s Aesop, 1479. View larger image »

But where did this bird come from? The text accompanying the image says it was a water snake, not a water bird, who devoured the foolish frogs. All the classical and medieval Latin texts are clear on this: Zeus sent a snake to devour the frogs. Did the artist know a different version of the story? Or did he simply prefer the bird for artistic reasons of his own? Whatever its origin, the bird in the illustration to Steinhowel’s Aesop in 1479 became firmly established in the tradition of Aesop illustrations, as you can see here in Hieronymus Osius’s verse fables published in 1574. The illustration features a bird, even though the Latin text still maintains that it was a snake which ate the frogs.

From Osius’s Phryx Aesopus, 1574. View larger image »

Over time, the bird not only inhabited the illustrations of the fables, but also started to appear in the texts as well, both in Latin and in the other European languages. Let’s leap forward in time several hundred years, to the lovely Baby’s Own Aesop of 1887, illustrated by Walter Crane; by this time, the water snake was long forgotten and Walter Crane did not even realize that “King Stork” was a late medieval interloper in the history of this fable. The image, the text and even the title of the fable now all refer clearly to a stork, with no trace of the snake to be found.

From Walter Crane’s Baby’s Own Aesop, 1887. View larger image »

As folklore, Aesop’s fables are always shifting and changing in their various retellings, and the images used to illustrate the fables, just as much as the words, are part of that creative tradition. The images are not simply extras added on to the story. Instead, these images can contribute their own distinctive elements to that endless mix-and-match process by which new versions of the fables are created — a process which has kept the Aesop’s fable tradition going strong for three thousands years, and counting.

Works Discussed

• Steinhowel, Heinrich. Aesopus: Vita et Fabulae. 1479. (Illustrations available online at Aesopica.net.)
• Osius, Hieronymus. Phryx Aesopus Habitu Poetico. 1574. (Available online at Aesopica.net.)
• Linton, W.J. The Baby’s Own Aesop. 1887. Illustrations by Walter Crane. (Available online at Aesopica.net.)

Folklorists and narratologists have observed and insisted that the same story might exist in different versions. Mythology and folklore epitomize this fact: many stories from the distant past have been recorded and retold at different times by different authors. Though the versions may differ in length, emphasis, and many other details, they tell one story. C.S. Lewis, for example, the twentieth-century literary scholar, observed this in the story of Balder from Norse mythology:

We all agree that the story of Balder is a great myth, a thing of inexhaustible value. But of whose version — whose words — are we thinking when we say this? For my own part, the answer is that I am not thinking of anyone’s words […] [but of] a particular pattern of events. (Lewis xxix-xxx)

While the patterns of events in mythology have historically been transmitted in multiple texts, this is nothing peculiar to myth: any narrative can be told and retold in different versions. Also, there is no reason that a “version” must be a written text. For centuries, narratives have been communicated in plays that use spoken words and live performances; in the last hundred years, new narrative art forms have emerged like comic books that use still images with written words and movies that use moving images with spoken words and music. In America today, movies and television shows have surpassed books as the dominant narrative art form.

Movies, comic books, and plays are typically considered narrative art because they undeniably tell stories, but the connection of some other art forms to narratives is less clear. Take as an example the small portion of a stained-glass window shown below, dated around 1180 CE, from the Canterbury Cathedral. It clearly references a narrative (that of Lot’s wife turning into a pillar of salt from Genesis 19:17-26), but it also clearly does not tell the narrative: anyone wholly unfamiliar with the story would not, upon seeing this window, learn the pattern of events that it depicts.

Narratologists have puzzled over the exact relationship between a particular narrative and its depiction in non-narrative art forms. (Two articles in this issue explore along these lines the fifteenth-century woodcut illustrations of Heinrich Steinhowel and the nineteenth-century totem poles of the Pacific Northwest). But to look at the role that works of both narrative and non-narrative art might play in our experience with a myth, I turn again to C.S. Lewis:

What really delights and nourishes me [in the case of the Balder myth] is a particular pattern of events […] [that gives] (at the first meeting) as much delight and (on prolonged acquaintance) as much wisdom and strength as the works of the greatest poets. (Lewis xxx, xxxii)

Narrative forms of art such as books and movies are essential for that “first meeting” with a myth that brings delight. Though Lewis had in mind only narrative art in this context, I would add that non-narrative art forms can bring about this “prolonged acquaintance”: for someone who has already had that first meeting with the story of Lot’s wife, this window can recall the myth to mind and prolong that acquaintance that brings wisdom and strength.

Two of my personal favorite art forms related to myth are non-narrative: Greek pottery and movie soundtracks. First, the Greek water-pitcher shown below, dated to the early sixth century BCE and displayed in the Louvre in Paris, depicts a scene from The Iliad using the black-figure pottery technique. When Achilles decided to return to the fighting in order to avenge the death of Patroclus, his mother Thetis commissioned the divine smith Hephaestus to fashion a shield and other weapons. In the scene on the water-pitcher, Thetis delivers these divine objects to her son (Iliad XIX.1-36). Many of the Greek vases, including this one, have the names of the characters painted in the gaps to help the observer identify the scene.

Second, the audio clip below comes from the Star Wars soundtrack. (Click the arrow on the slider below to play the one-minute clip; Flash required.) The movie as a whole tells a story, but the musical score alone does not. Even so, I have found that listening to the soundtrack can effectively recall the myth to mind and prolong my acquaintance with it. In this climatic scene, Luke Skywalker pilots his aircraft on a nearly-impossible mission against the massive battle station known as the Death Star. Darth Vader and other pilots from the enemy fleet chase Luke as he nears the target. The audio clip accompanies the final minute before Luke successfully launches the missiles that destroy the battle station. (I recommend a recent post at AMC’s blog that discusses musical scores in science-fiction movies.)

Go get Adobe Flash Player!

On this site, we will primarily explore myths contained in works of written words: ancient mythological and religious texts, fantasy and science-fiction literature, and the like. But since it is important to remember that myths can be contained in more than just written words, we are devoting the next two issues to a series titled “Myth Beyond Words” with articles exploring myths in various other forms.

References

• Lewis, C.S. “Preface.” George MacDonald: An Anthology. 1947. New York: HarperOne, 2001. xxiii-xxxix. (A slightly-modified version of this preface can also be found as an introduction to Erdman’s editions of George MacDonald’s Phantastes and Lilith.) Full text of this preface available online at HarperCollins.

Images

• Lot’s Wife from Canterbury Cathedral, courtesy of Sacred Destinations. Circa 1180 CE. (The window containing this scene, the so-called “Second Typological Window,” can be found in the north choir aisle. The cathedral originally contained six windows windows illustrating events in the Old Testament thought to foreshadow events in the New Testament; the limited number of panels that have survived from the twelfth century have now been combined into two windows.)
• “Thetis Brings Weapons To Achilles” photographed by Marie-Lan Nguyen, courtesy of Wikipedia. Circa 575–550 BCE.

Music

• Williams, John. “The Battle of Yavin.” Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope. Sony: 1977. This individual track can be purchased online as an MP3 download.
• Much thanks to Jeroen Wijering for making available his JW FLV Media Player that plays MP3 files on a web page using Flash.