ANTH 360 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Oral Literature, Enculturation, Decision-Making
Document Summary
Story telling is an ongoing form of enculturation. Function of storytelling taken from tolkien, also the need for creativity as meaning seeking animals. Culture is almost needed to finish us via our participation in systems of meaning one way in which we do this is through oral literature. Some say we do this for recreation which we do, but the need for that and desire for that is important. Symbols via manipulation fulfill the social task of making what we have to do desirable. Often see this in initiation rituals bringing us from a socially defined child to a socially defined adult. Turner also thought symbol manipulation, such as oral literature, is a form of cosmic play (interacting with powerful elements like deities via stories). Can see this in even tolkien but also many other western works. Much na mythology says that the creator thought and sang and spoke the world into existence, the power of words.
