Teilhard de Chardin: A Human Phenomenon

by netage | Modern Aspect of Myth, Mediaspeak & Spirituality | 0 comments

Michael A Rizzotti

The years that followed the advent of the Internet brought a renewed interest in Teilhard de Chardins’ work. It stemmed from his vision of the “noosphere“, or the “mind layer” hovering the earth that he first described in 1922. When his work was first published, he was mostly regarded as a visionary but esoteric writer. His books were mostly read by the intellectual elite of the time, he had nevertheless become a popular icon. The advent of the Internet somehow confirms his vision of the outcome of a global “planetisation”.

The way and speed in which the Net has swept the planet has caught everybody by surprise. Today, the Net is taken for granted and an essential part of our lives. Yet, we don’t fully understand the repercussions on our culture and way of living.

In light of the author’s vision, and the advent of the Internet, we should be living at a “convergence“, or a rebound in terms of human energy, leading us a step closer toward the point Omega. As a consequence, the Net has made Teilhard’s thinking more relevant today then at any other time in the past. Yet, further studies and discussion are needed to fully understand his writings. They are necessary to dispel any misconceptions about his thinking. We will begin with some introductory notes, and more importantly, we will dwell on some fundamental concepts that are essential to fully understand his “scientific memoir” entitled “The Phenomenon of Man”.

Biographical notes

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was born on May 1st 1881 in the small town of Sarcenat in the Auvergne, a region of France mostly known for its city of Vichy. At the early age of ten he entered a Jesuit boarding school where he devoted himself to the fields of geology and mineralogy. He was so impressed by the intellectual discipline of his teachers that he decided to join the Jesuit order at eighteen. The next thirteen years would be spent between studying philosophy in Jersey, teaching in Cairo, studying theology in Sussex, all the while pursuing a deeper competence in geology and paleontology.

1912 turned out to be a landmark year for the young student. He was ordained priest and he read Henri Bergson’s (1859-1941) Evolution Creatrice. The book would be a critical influence on Teilhard’s thinking as it set his lifelong interest on the subject of evolution. It explains human existence in terms of a creative evolution. Bergson describes the mind as pure energy, a “vital force” or élan vital, which is responsible for all organic evolution. The author emphasized the importance of intuition over intellect and held to the idea of two opposing currents of inert matter in conflict with organic life as the “vital force” that strives toward free creative action. For his literary and intellectual work Bergson was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1927.

After spending several years abroad studying and teaching Teilhard returned to Paris to pursue his geological studies and started working for Marcellin Boule, the leading French pre-historian and archeologist at the Institute of Human Paleontology at the Museum of Natural History. It is there that he met his lifelong friend and colleague Abbe Breuil who shared his interest in evolution.

World War I put a halt to his studies. As a priest he took part as stretcher-bearer and received the Military Medal and the Legion of Honor. The misery of war further strengthened his religious convictions and confirmed his vocation. It also reinforced his professional goals and soon after the war he embarked on a geological career with special emphasis on paleontology.

After the war he was designated Professor of Geology at the Catholic Institute of Paris and in 1922 he took his Doctorate at the Sorbonne. In 1923 he left for Mongolia on a paleontology mission for one year on behalf of the Museum of Natural History. Although his lectures were popular among the students, when he returned to the Institute he found out that he was forbidden to teach. Some of his ideas on original sin and evolution were considered unorthodox by his religious superiors. In 1926 he returned to China as an adviser to the Geological Survey of China and undertook many expeditions, one of which unearthed the skull of the Peking man (Sinanthropus pekinensis).

The outbreak of World War II prevented him from returning to Paris to undertake an appointment as the Director of the Laboratory of Advanced Studies in Geology and Paleontology. The next six years of isolation spent in China were to become critical in developing and maturing his “dangerous thoughts” that were to be expounded in Le Phénomène Humain. Upon his return to France in 1946 he immersed himself completely in intellectual research and in 1947 suffered a serious heart attack.

After he recovered he went back to Paris to find out that he was forbidden to write about any philosophical subjects. A further setback came in 1948 when he was forbidden to put forth his candidacy as Professor at the College de France, the highest position he could aspire. But his biggest blow came in 1950 when the Church denied him the permission to publish Le Groupe Zoologique Humain (a different version of Le Phénomène Humain).

His presence in France had become increasingly difficult for him and in 1951 he finally accepted an invitation that was made to him a few years earlier by the Viking Foundation (later called the Wenner-Gren Foundation) and moved to New York. The Foundation sponsored two of his trips to South Africa to study first hand the discovery of Australopithecus. He also participated in the important work on paleontology and archeology on the hominid evolution. He spent the last four years of his life at a quiet and secure shelter of the foundation. He died on Easter Day April 10th 1955 in New York city.

The Priest and the Scientist

The Church never gave him the permission to publish any of his books during his lifetime as they were considered to be too controversial. Teilhard was chagrined by the refusal but accepted the decision stoically. Being a Jesuit, he had made an additional vow of obedience to the Pope in addition to the priestly vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. The main reasons for the Church’s refusal was the fear that his work would be misunderstood. The Church’s reluctance appeared to be justified when in 1952 a reprint from l’ Agence française de presse was published in a San Francisco newspaper that stated that “The God of Père Teilhard is a God immanent to the evolution of the world”. Teilhard protested vigorously at this faulty reductionism of his work that ignored the core idea of transcendence that is so essential to his thinking.

His works were finally published shortly after his death since the permission to publish only applies to living writers. In 1955, 500 copies of Le Phénomène Humain was published. Most of the book was written between 1938-40 and it was finally revised and completed in 1947-48. The English version was published in 1959 with a valuable introduction by his friend and peer Julian Huxley.

The book was translated in English into “The Phenomenon of Man”. One doesn’t have to be fluent in French to note the major distinction between the original title and the translation. We have no way of knowing what Teilhard would have thought of juxtaposing “human” with “man”. The author was well known for his sensitivity and it seems reasonable to think that he must have waded the distinction between the terms and would have opted, as he did in French, for the term “human” to appear in the title.

In his “warning” at the beginning of Le Phénomène Humain Teilhard states the scopes and limits of his book. As he explains, his “scientific memoir” is not about theology nor metaphysics, but should be seen as an “introduction” to the human phenomenon, the phenomenon of which “man” is at its center but with a particular concern about the “Whole” phenomenon that transcends “man”. The term “man” should be understood here as the process of being human. To describe the “Whole” Teilhard warns that he has undertaken two fundamental options. The first, is the primary importance given to the soul and thought to the fabric of the Universe. The second, is the biological value attributed to the Social Reality around us. The preeminent significance being the interrelation of the spiritual effect of the Human Being in Nature and the biological effect of organic nature in Humanity.

Teilhard was a priest and a scientist. More precisely a Jesuit and a paleontologist in addition to being a geologist. Two outlooks that permeate his book. As it happens one can clearly see the scientist outlining the course evolution in his writing. On the other hand, it is the priest that speaks about Christ being the beginning, the center and the final goal of all things. For him the key to evolution is the presence and action of God on the world, more precisely the presence and action of Christ. As he wrote to a friend in 1936, “my chief interest in life has been to bring about in some way a plainer disclosing of God in the world.” And it is the intellectual, i.e. the Jesuit, that tries to reconcile science and religion with concepts of “hominisation”, “cosmogenesis”, “planetisation”, “noogenesis” and “point Omega”.

Teilhard was a true Jesuit. The order founded by Saint Ignace of Loyola, a former soldier who after being wounded in battle became a priest and founded the order known as the Society of Jesus (S.J.) to help the Church contain the spread of the Reformation with its own Counter-Reformation. As stated earlier, the order has an additional vow of obedience to the Pope. The society is also known as the Soldiers of Christ, and is widely regarded as the Church’s intellectual elite, a claim readily disputed by the Dominicans.

It is the Soldier of Christ that speaks in his writings. The Catholic foot soldier who is trying to reconcile his love of Christ and his love of science. This point is tantamount and must be kept in mind to clearly understand Teilhard. One of the biggest error in interpreting his thought is to give more importance to the scientist than to the priest. Consequently it is the Christian, more precisely the Catholic, a “hyper-Catholic” as he liked to call himself, that speaks in his books. As such Christ is the “Alfa”, the center and the “Omega” of the whole human phenomenon, which he describes as “Le Milieu Divin”. The latter is the title of a book that was translated into “The Divine Milieu”. Again the English translation does not convey the essence of the original title. In French the word “milieu” means center, but it also means environment in which Christ is the center and the whole.

As we have mentioned Teilhard was a true Catholic. The word comes from the Greek katholicos (kata, by + holos, whole) which means “universal” and must be understood in that sense. The term must not be confused with the oxymoron of Roman Catholic that is mostly used in the U.S. Furthermore, Teilhard called himself a “hyper-Catholic” in the sense that he was a true believer in the Universality of the Church. Here again, the Church must be viewed not as the visible and physical body of the Church of Rome, but the invisible and living assembly of faithful who believe in the Universal principles embodied by Jesus-Christ. Although the Church of Rome is the guardian of tradition and doctrine and the administrative agency in charge of the visible body of the hierarchy, the Church of which Teilhard is concerned, is the mystical body of Christ; the Living Church.

The Mythical Quest for Independence

by netage | Modern Aspect of Myth, Mediaspeak & Spirituality | 0 comments

Michael A Rizzotti

When I switched my major from economics to theology at Loyola College in the fall of 1970, the province of Québec was in the midst of a political turmoil. During what is now known as the October Crisis, British Trade Commissioner James Cross and Québec Labor Minister Pierre Laporte were both kidnapped by the Front de Libération du Québec (F.L.Q.). James Cross was later released, but Pierre Laporte was found strangled in the trunk of an abandoned car on the eastern outskirts of Montréal. The Crisis triggered the adoption by the Liberal Government of Canada of the War Measures Act and the army was sent into the province.

The circumstances that led to this dramatic turn of events could be traced back to the British invasion of a small but growing French colony of Nouvelle-France in 1760. The Conquest –la Conquête- was to be the beginning of a people’s ongoing struggle for survival.

In order to maintain peace in the newly conquered colony, the English undertook a policy of laissez faire toward the Catholic Church. As the new spiritual leader, the Church promoted in the minds of the people a distinct vision of its own identity and destiny. Looking back, hardly any political party could have inspired such a collective will to overcome the unforeseeable obstacles of history.

From the time I first left Italy to immigrate to Montreal. I witnessed enormous changes in the people of Quebec in the sixties. The Catholic Church was omnipresent when we first arrived, and had been for at least three centuries. All aspects of French Canadian life was imprinted with the Church’s authority.

In the early nineteen-sixties, two major events were to change the Church’s hold over the people: Vatican II in Rome, and the emergence of the Quiet Revolution –La Révolution Tranquille– in Québec. In a matter of years, the Church’s power rapidly eroded. In less than a decade, the priests and nuns who dominated schools and hospitals were replaced by lay people. The Church was losing an increasing number of its believers. Those who lost their faith embraced the growing nationalist fervor. And as the québecois progressively abandoned the Church, they joined the ranks of the emerging political quest for independence.

It is this quest that is the subject of this chapter. We will try to explain how a desire for spiritual salvation was transformed into a movement for political liberation. As Claude Levi-Strauss observed, nothing in today’s society is more mythical than political ideology. He wrote:

But what gives the myth an operational value is that the specific pattern described is timeless; it explains the present and the past as well as the future. This can be made clear through a comparison between myth and what appears to have largely replaced it in modern societies, namely, politics.¹

It is this quest for independence that is the focus of a message of mythical proportions.

*

Ironically, myth and history appear today as conflicting in meaning as in function. They are both stories, yes, but each relates to different aspects of events that are recounted. Both are equally considered to be true stories by those who relate their content. Yet myth is primarily concerned with accounts of the origins taking place in a primordial time, a so called time beyond the realm of history. History, on the other hand, is a chronological compendium of historical data.

One can best differentiate myth from history as two distinct forms of language. Foremost, history is the realm of the historian and his work, whereas the narrative of myth reaches out to all men, women, and children regardless of class, position, and age. All are captivated by myth. Everybody is enchanted by the mythical stories that have been generated by different cultures.

Myth is concise, symbolic, meaningful, and efficient. Its stories relate to events and heroes beyond the ordinary human sphere. These stories are concerned with god(s), super-heroes, and their heroic deeds. What separates myth from history is its description of a special class of beings and their activities. They deal mostly with the powers that rule the world: wherein God or the gods are metaphors for the unfathomable powers -subliminal and inconspicuous hierarchies- that rule the world. For the most part, these stories have an enduring quality that reflects the intrinsic and significant aspects of a mentality derived from the different cultures they emerged from.

Myth relates how a new reality came into being, how a new world was created. It describes the actions of the super-heroes or the god(s) in their creative endeavor. Why are certain things forbidden? What legitimates a particular authority? Why do people suffer and die? To sum it up, myth decodes the meaningful events of the world. These events evolved in a time beyond history; ie, in illo tempore.² Thus, this ethereal dimension in time and space is the primary gap that separates myth from history. It is a fuzzy boundary between the sacred/supernatural that is set apart from the profane/ordinary world.

History is foremost an exhaustive and detailed account of all significant events that occurred in the past. With the scientific application of historiography, history has been stripped of any mythical content. However, this was not the case of the history books of several decades ago. One look at older history books reveals how they were filled with heroic embellishment which have nothing to do with historical facts. The interpretation of the events surrounding General Custer’s battle at Little Bighorn, for instance, has varied tremendously over time. Some of the earlier versions were, to say the least, mythical, and particularly unfavorable toward the aboriginal people.

The above comparison between myth and history is well illustrated in the example of the discovery of Nouvelle-France (New-France). According to Mircea Eliade, myth is essentially an account that describes the events that are at the origin of a new reality founded and created by civilizing heroes or gods in the beginning of time. The discovery of New-France, for example, has been inscribed in history as the legitimate origins of a new national reality. The new beginnings inaugurate the grounds of mythical significance. The ancestral heroes are the founders of a new national identity at the beginning of a new chapter of history. The founders’ identities are celebrated as heroic and are separated from the mass of historical events. In the U.S., for instance, Columbus day is a national holiday.³ The national event celebrates the hero as the prototype of a new cultural and national reality. The pioneer is not so much famed as a person but as a symbol of a new cultural identity. As history shows, because of Amerigo Vespucci, the New World became known as America on maps as early as 1507.

Christopher Columbus discovered America in 1492

Jacques Cartier discovered New-France in 1594

These national heroes were the first to inaugurate a new historical and national reality. They were elevated above ordinary human beings and other historical characters. As a result, society will commemorate these super-heroes by erecting monuments in their honor. These monuments consecrate the significant part they played in the foundation and creation of a new national entity and identity.⁴

There is an inherent contradiction in the concept of the discovery. How could the New World be discovered when it was already inhabited by native cultures? To validate the Christian discovery, these natives had to be dismissed as having no cultural and moral value of their own. Being labeled as heathen and pagan justified their need for civilization. Therefore, the discovery was strictly an European colonialist imposition upon the native cultures to justify the taking of the biggest piece of free real estate ever discovered. Today, such historical value given to the discovery is debatable, since it is more mythical than anything else. But it shows how the mythical process is a propaganda tool for the justification of any form of colonialism and imperialism.

*

The chronicle of the origin of a new reality has an important mythological significance in history, yet the struggle for the nation’s identity is also essential.⁵

sacred   vs  profane
the colonialists   vs  the natives
the Christians   vs  the pagans

The opposition establishes the sacredness of the colonial endeavor, especially in respect to the belief of the mission to civilize and to convert the savage heathen who represented an obstacle to the development of the new nation. We have typified elsewhere the Zuni as the heathen reality to be converted. As a profane reality, they were seen as an obstacle to the development of the New World.

Christian civilization  vs  the heathen
British civilization  vs  the pagan
French civilization  vs  the savage

New-France will evolve dramatically from the time of its foundation. Its historical discovery allowed the  consecration of its origin as a legitimate nation regardless of the fate of the aboriginal cultures who lived in their ancestral lands.

*

The discovery of New-France that fills the first pages of history books of that nation was to be undermined by a tragic turn of events. In 1760, the colony was conquered by the British army and abandoned by France. In the process, the conquerors set their own political rules while recognizing the authority of the Catholic Church so as to appease the population.

The defeat and the abrupt change in the political allegiance left a deep scar in the collective memory of the French people. The result was to imprint ambivalent feelings of being a nation of colonized-colonialists, and to mark a Lord-victim approach in regards to their history and their fate. The people were in political exile in their own land. The French, who were originally the Lords and colonialists in the New World, had become themselves the victims of colonialism imposed by the British. This turn of events will have enduring effects in the development of their destiny and history. It will set off the beginning of a peoples’ struggle for survival.

The British conquest of New-France also reinstated the old rivalry between England and France and exported to North America the ancestral antagonism between Reformed Church/Protestantism and Catholicism that had endured in Europe for several centuries.

The political struggle that emerged because of the conquest clearly outlined two distinct and rival cultural entities.

English   vs   French
Reformed/Protestants   vs   Catholics

Abandoned by France, the people congregated under the leadership of the Catholic Church. From then on the French mentality would be shaped into a Catholic mold. With her new found authority the Church became preoccupied with the redemption of its people. The hierarchy promoted the principles of obedience to the Church as the only visible sign of salvation: extra ecclesiam nulla salus; ie, there is no salvation outside the Church. The Church encouraged students to shun the evils of business and commerce and to embrace liberal professions such as law, medicine, and the priesthood. The clerics preached to the population the benefits of agriculture as a privileged way of salvation. They urged women to marry young and have numerous children.

Meanwhile, by the end of the XVIIIth century, signs of the Industrial Revolution were visible all over England. The Kingdom was in a rapid transition from an agrarian to an industrial society. The roots of the cultural and economic development of capitalism had Protestant ethical overtones. Individual responsibility, freedom, industry, and success were believed to be visible signs of salvation. Max Weber described the ethic in terms of a “secular asceticism”.⁶ This spirit of capitalism would soon spread to all the British colonies of North America.

Suddenly, Canada became a battleground for two rival cultures, two languages and two religions originating from two rival European colonial powers. On one hand, we have the French culture led by the Catholic Church whose authority lay in the hierarchy and in the assembly of believers as a visible sign of its invested power, described in terms of collective asceticism. This belief implied a faithful obedience to the principle of the Church as the only way toward salvation.

On the other hand, we have the English culture influenced by the Protestant ethic, described in terms of secular asceticism. The ethic favored individual initiative, industry (hard work), responsibility, and financial success as a sign of election.

Hence, two cultures and two visions of the world  inspired an antagonism that put the two collective entities against each other. Each was living in their world of sacred beliefs, opposing the other as a profane reality.

French Catholics  vs  English Reformed/Protestants
collective asceticism  vs  secular asceticism
other-worldly  vs  this-worldly

*

Not until the first half of the 18th century did the French-Canadian people begin to challenge the political rules set by the English and the Church.

During 1837-38, a movement emerged that began to question the authority of the Church and the political advantage of the English. A growing number of people from the French middle-class, as well as intellectuals, expressed their unhappiness with their share of political power. Louis-Joseph Papineau, the leader of the Parti Canadien, succeeded in rallying a majority of French people against the Catholic Church and the English. The nationalist outburst was brief. In 1838 the English crushed an armed insurrection and dispelled the leader and its followers.

As a result, the people were left in a political limbo. In time, the French-Canadians rallied back to the Church for guidance. The majority of the people who were tempted by the political solutions proposed by the nationalists returned to the Church’s promise of collective salvation. Redemption would not be won through political means, but through obedience to the Church and through faith.

By the end of the XIXth century, the rapid changes brought by industrialization and urbanization began to undermine the Church’s control over the faithful. Priests began to preach to people to have large families in order to overcome the English by number.⁷ The policy of la revenge des berceaux -the revenge of the cradle- worked. As the population grew rapidly, people left the farm for the city. The cities were unable to handle the increasing number of people moving in. And because of the high level of urban unemployment a great deal of the people emigrated to the U.S. In order to limit the exodus, the Catholic hierarchy pioneered the development of agricultural lands in the northern parts of Quebec. These policies were devised to keep the people away from the evils of industrial cities controlled by the English. But despite the courage and endurance of the inhabitants, the harsh climate and poor economical benefits failed to keep the people on their farms.

Urbanization was seen by the clerical elite as a threat to their authority. They had complete control over the farmer who lived in relative autonomy and isolation on his land. Not so for the people living in the cities who were being hired by the English industrialists and traders.

The rapid industrial development, which was out of the Church’s control, was perceived as threatening the integrity of their flock. The economic power of the English was seen as an incursion in their clerical jurisdiction. Especially in light of the overwhelming presence of the Anglo-Saxon culture of Canada and the U.S.

Even though the French-Canadians renewed their allegiance to the Church in the years following the rebellious outburst, their vision of salvation underwent some fundamental changes. Out of the defeat arose a new kind of collective mysticism, more patriotic in tone. A national messianism began to take shape.⁸

Between the end of the 19th and the early 20th century, a new form of collective mysticism with messianic overtones  emerged among the clerical elite. Mgr. Laflèche and later to a lesser extent, Canon Lionel Groulx, prophesied a messianic role for the French Catholic people of North America. They proclaimed that the French-Canadians were destined to be the chosen people of God. They exhorted the population to obedience to the Church in return for a glorious call to the promised land. Mgr. Laflèche compared the plight of the French-Canadian people to Israel. For him “American France…is nothing other than the New Israel of God since it is the heir of the Old France and therefore the heir to the promises made to the Church, and the promise made before that to Israel.”⁹

As we have seen already, colonialism has broad and sometimes ill effects on the culture it is imposed upon. Extensive ethnological studies show that when cultures are oppressed by a foreign power they instigate movements of messianic salvation, some with revolutionary goals.¹⁰ In some cases, the revolt takes the guise of a religious movement but ends in violent outbursts. The conquest and later the defeat of the Rebellion of 1837-38 inhibited the “normal” evolution of the national identity. The strong sense of religious conviction inspired by the Church led the people to shift their desire for national freedom into a mystic vision upheld as a national messianism.

As a result, the ideological boundaries that usually exist between what is believed to be strictly nationalistic and religious fade. National aspirations become intertwined with deep expressions of collective mysticism. The messianic movement described above reinforces the distinct calling of its people and polarizes even further the gap between the French and the English mold of cultural differences and divisions.

collective asceticism  vs  secular asceticism
French language  vs  English language
Catholics  vs  Reformed/Protestants
farmers  vs  merchants
labor  vs  industrialist

At this point, it is crucial to stress the importance of the dynamic of opposition in the development of a national identity. The antagonism separates and reinforces the cultural differences and identities on both sides of the dynamic. As we have explained already, the stronger the opposition, the greater the belief in being set apart and of sacred identity.

*

Although the Catholic Church imposed on its believers a stoic acceptance of the political reality of the British rule, it nevertheless fought any form of assimilation. While the Church was preaching a passive submission to the English rule, it maintained a strong sense of cultural identity. Since the Conquest of 1760, the Church had promoted among its faithful the urgency of its collective survival. Under its guidance the people were kept together by two things: la langue et la foi; eg, the French language and catholic faith. Both were instruments of social unity and a barrier against foreign intrusion. They became the two main vehicles for social integration. They were the two major components of contemporary nationalism.

*

Language and a desire for emancipation have been vital forces behind the renewal of nationalism that began in the nineteen sixties. As the nationalist movement began to spread, the Quebec society underwent rapid cultural changes. The Quebec people perceived themselves as other and apart from the rest of Canada. It is this perceived sense of distinctness that allowed the separatists to make political headway among le peuple québécois.

As the Spirit of renewal and openness swept Vatican II, Quebec society as a whole was undergoing its own la Révolution Tranquille -Quiet Revolution. In less than a decade, the power of the Church eroded. Meanwhile, political changes were spreading throughout society. The educational system, formally the stronghold of the Church, was rapidly becoming secularized. The medical system, under the control of the clerical hierarchy, was nationalized. Little by little, Quebec society became more secular. Secularization was undertaken so swiftly that it appeared as if the people wanted to be rid of the heavy moral burden the Church had imposed on them during the last two centuries.

Simultaneously, from the late fifties and throughout the sixties, television took center stage in a majority of  homes. People indiscriminately plugged into the power of its message. TV began to shatter the mold of the insular mind as it opened a window to the outside world. Inadvertently, this medium began to challenge the old religious and cultural models by the power of its images. Its mass appeal precipitated even further the secularization of society. The images presented on TV eventually supplanted the ethical models preached by the Church. The Chapel was no longer the center for the preaching of the Word.

Until the 1960s, business signs in Montreal were predominantly in English, reflecting the Anglo-Saxon economic control over the city. It revealed the disproportionate supremacy of the minority over the French majority. Things would rapidly change.

As the desire for emancipation grew, a new wave of radical nationalism arose. The new breed of nationalists demanded more control of their political and economical destinies. They felt, with reason, that their language and culture were threatened by the overwhelming Anglo-Saxon presence in North-America.

An alarming decrease in the French birthrate and a dramatic increase in the immigration of people who would rather learn English sparked fears of assimilation. Quebec, the only bastion of French language and culture in America, was threatened. In the late sixties and early seventies, radical movements like the F.L.Q. –Front de Liberation du Québec– undertook to promote social awareness about such threats. The radical movement advocated complete political control over the province’s destiny. Among their demands was the separation of Quebec from the rest of Canada. To show that they were serious, they planted bombs in the mail boxes, a symbol of the Federal Government, of the affluent English section of Montreal.

From the more radical Rassemblement pour l’indépendance nationale (R.I.N.), emerged a moderate indépendantiste party under the leadership of René Lévesque, a former Liberal provincial cabinet member.¹¹ The movement appealed to the masses as it revived memories of broken dreams and shattered hopes. The promise of independence rang out as a clear message of liberation. To implement these goals, the Parti Québécois (P.Q.) proposed the option of “sovereignty-association” with the rest of Canada.

Quebec  vs  Canada
Parti Québécois vs  Federal Parties of Canada
French  vs  English

The idea of independence rekindled memories of lost aspirations. It captured the hearts of the people who longed to transcend their past. It allowed them to hail their own future. As such, the movement inspired what the more radical nationalist detractors derisively called “the religion of René”.¹²

To promote the idea of independence, the P.Q. used metaphors like “paradise” and warned against “old demons” and “abortionists” that opposed their goal.¹³ People who were close to Rene Levesque were called the “evangelists”. One of his closest ministers was even described as “the disciple that Rene Levesque loved”. These quasi-messianic references consecrated even further the cause in which they believed. The leader himself became the embodiment of a sacred mission of quasi-religious proportion.¹⁴ The collective passion among its members became vivid and intense as the nationalists became spirited by its crusade. The quest for independence became more and more mythical in meaning and function as the movement grew more popular among a greater segment of the population.

*

The historical development of nationalism outlines the desire to be distinct. It prompted opposition to whoever challenged this assumption. The dynamic opposition to the other cultural entity reinforced the Quebecers’ sense of conviction in their own separate identity. What existed outside the periphery of the linguistic and religious boundaries –la langue et la foi– was considered a threat to the social makeup. As we have already explained, the stronger the antagonism to the outer cultural reality, the greater the inner identity. This opposition first began with the profane reality of the heathen, which was an obstacle to colonization, and eventually, it was transposed into the struggle against the English adversary.¹⁵

The French language became the main bond among the people. It also became a communication barrier against les anglais. Religion, on the other hand, further consolidated the conviction of being set apart and of having a distinct identity as Catholics. The mythical quest for independence became the noetic integrator of the Quebecers. These thematic symbols captured the core of the historical experience of the people. It originated from a legitimate desire to recreate a golden age, a Paradise Lost, if you will, that was denied to them by history. Independence became the rallying quest of that legitimate desire.

It is one of history’s paradox that as soon as the secularization took hold in Quebec, nationalistic concerns arose. What was unique about the people of Quebec prior to the nineteen sixties was the strength of their separate religious identity as well as their language. The province was the only bastion of French Catholicism in North America. The ensuing spiritual vacuum that came as a result of people leaving the Church propelled the faithful quest to be distinct in a secularized world. As a consequence, the collective mentality was politicized. Yet the advent of the political and cultural emancipation of French society also increased the danger of assimilation into the greater North American melting pot. As a remedy, a dose of nationalism was embodied by the quest for independence.

As we have tried to show above, the mythical aspect of history thrives in the minds of the people who are deeply affected by its significance. The quest for independence embodies the collective spirit of the people in search of their own integrity and identity.
_______________

1. Claude Levi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology, New York, Basic Books Inc., 1963, 209.
2. Mircea Eliade, Myth and Reality, New York, Harper & Row, 1963.
3. Although it was soon found out that Columbus did not find his way to India, the inhabitants he met on the continent are still referred to by the wrongful appellation of “Indians”.
4. My work on the inauguration of monuments shows that the fine line between historical figures and mythical heros disappears at the dedication; L’Interpretation Religieuse de l’Origine Mythique de la Nationalite, Montreal, UQAM, 1978. More on the subject in the next chapter.
5. The connection between nationalism and the principle of opposition was first proposed by Maurice Lemire, Les Grands Themes Nationalistes du Roman Historique Canadien-Francais, Québec, PUQ, 1970.
6. Of course, when Max Weber talks about capitalism it is in terms of the “spirit” of capitalism, which implies an ethical and spiritual dimension to it. Not to be confused with the capitalistic anomalies of greed, speculation, and corruption we have witnessed. Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, New York, Scribner, 1958.
7. From a mere sixty thousand French-Canadians in 1760, their number grew to six million in 2000.
8. Gabriel Dussault, L’Eglise A-t-Elle “Oublie” ses Promesses?, in, Relations, 386, 1973, 264-267.
9. G. Dussault, Ibid. 266.
10. See reference on messianism and bibliography, p.78.
11. Under the leadership of Liberal Prime Minister Jean Lesage.
12. See Peter Desbarats’, René, Toronto, Seal Books, 1977, 192.
13. Political Pamphlet, Quand Nous Serons Vraiment Chez-Nous.
14. Paul Tillich, Christianity and the Encounter of the World Religions, New York, Columbia University Press, 1963.
15. Ironically, at the time of this writing, Quebec with only a quarter of the country’s population turns out 40% of the business school graduates of Canada. In 1988, the province yielded half of the 50 fastest growing, publicly-held companies in the nation. It is a characteristic of antagonist acculturation for cultures to finally embrace whole heartidly the cultural principles that they opposed at the outset. See George Devereux on “antagonist acculturation” in, Ethnopsychanalyse Complementariste, Paris, Flamarion, 1972, 201-231.

Zuni Cosmology

by netage | Modern Aspect of Myth, Mediaspeak & Spirituality | 2 comments

Michael A Rizzotti

This short essay allows us to display the splendor of Zuni mythology. In many respects, the Zuni represent a beautiful example of the aboriginal cultures that thrived in North America. It allows us to disclose the Zuni’s conception of the world which was inaugurated long before the so-called civilized world made its imprint on the whole continent.

The metaphorical aspect of Zuni language is at the core of its cosmology. In their rituals and their everyday life the Zuni use numerous metaphors to depict how “everything” is related to the “same thing”. Language is a dynamic principle of the whole Zuni spirituality.

Finally, among the many native cultures of North America the Zuni still live by the word of a compelling cosmology. Their self-enclosed cosmos is a typical example of what Emile Durkheim calls sociocentrism.¹ The composition and arrangement of their collective order is typical of many other native cultures. But what is particular to Zuni mythology is some analogies it shares with the creation myths of Genesis. While the Bible describes the creation of the world in terms of time; namely, seven days, the Zuni relate the creation of the world in terms of space; namely, seven orientations. In Genesis the seventh day is sacred. For the Zuni the seventh space is also sacred. The etymology of the Hebrew word to swear, for instance, literally means to seventh oneself.² In Zuni mythology the seventh space is referred to as the sacred Center: it is described as the Middle Place, and the Middle Time. In Zuni Mythology the center is a metaphor of Earth Mother.

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Zuni is the name of a people. It is also the name of their small Pueblo ─village─ located on the Indian Reservation in the McKinley county of New Mexico.³ Zuni is situated thirty miles south of Gallup, and about the same distance west of the Continental Divide.

The Zuni Pueblo are noted for their skills in making silver and turquoise jewelry. They are also famous for the ceremonial dance of the Shalako.⁴

The Pueblo lies in a small valley of the Zuni River which takes its source from the Little Colorado. It is one of the oldest farming communities in the United States. They are the descendants of the people of the Seven Cities of Cibola. They were given that name by a Spanish expedition led by the Franciscan Friar Marcos de Niza in 1539. His embellished accounts of the Seven Cities of Gold lured another expedition led by Francisco Vasquez de Coronado the next year. The first expedition of the Spaniards apparently mistook the golden reflection of the mica, the material that the Pueblo used to cover their windows, for the precious metal.

The Spaniards didn’t find any gold, but nevertheless they tried to impose their rule until 1680. At that time a Pueblo revolt tentatively liberated them from the colonial rule. Since, they have earned a reputation for being a fiercely independent people, deeply religious, loyal to their traditions and proud to speak their language. This is one reason why the Zuni survived through the centuries despite the attempts made by the missionaries to convert them.⁵ Of the seven cities that the Spaniards discovered in the sixteenth century, only Zuni remains today. The village, as seen today, bears the marks of acculturation and modernization.

Zuni cosmology is closely akin to its environment. Their whole culture reflects the beauty of nature that is all around them. Like many other native people of the continent, the symbolic representations of their fauna and flora are omnipresent in all their art and rituals. What makes Zuni cosmology particularly noteworthy though, is their semantic description of space. The movement of the sun, the moon, and the stars, altogether with changes in the winter and summer solstices, have inspired a dynamic conception of the world.

The beauty of the surrounding landscape is overwhelmingly present in all of their artistic endeavors. Not surprisingly, Zuni cosmology reveals that the beautiful is dynamic.⁶ This dynamism is also revealed in their lore and in every other aspect of their collective life. Everything in their social arrangement reflects the aesthetic and kinetic aspect of nature. Zuni cultural life is in effect a metaphor of the dynamic in nature, and everything is symbolically arranged in its image. Their art, their elaborate rituals, their dances and their pantomimes, everything is a mimetic expression of their perception of the cosmos as one and the same thing.

Zuni society is based on a system of symbolic classifications described by Frank Hamilton Cushing as mytho-sociologic.⁷ Zuni mythology and cosmology are so closely intertwined with their social and religious order that they are in effect the same thing.

Social life was originally divided into regions according to a four-cornered world.⁸ The number and orientations of these spaces reflect the basic composition of their cosmological perception of the world. All the members of the Zuni Pueblo belong to one or the other of these respective regions. The divisions involved all of the Seven Cities of Cibola. These areas are systematically parted into clans, which are split into totems depicted as animals. These totems are then separated into parts or attributes of the animal. Each member of the Pueblo belongs to a clan, and each member of the clan assumes the name of the part or attribute of the totem. Through this intricate classification, which they believe is made according to the mirror image of nature, each Zuni participates in the cosmological and social life of the Pueblo.

Zuni society is matrilineal and matrilocal. The mother’s household is the basic social unit. The children have to marry outside their parents’ clans and when they marry they live in the household of the bride’s mother. This pattern was the traditional norm in the past.⁹

What impressed the Spaniards during their first expedition to the Seven Cities was the architecture of the villages: the multi-story dwellings were harmoniously built one on top of the other. The only access was an opening on the roof accessible through a ladder that leaned against the outside wall.

Although invisible to the visitor, these villages were divided into several orientations. These partitions have an important significance to the inhabitants since they position each member in relation to the whole community. Each quarter is placed according to a spatial direction. They reflect the four fundamental orientations of the sunrise and sunset of the summer and winter solstices: namely, the north-east to the north-west, and, the south-east to the south-west. In addition, two other orientations complete the foursome order of the world: the zenith -the above- and the nadir -the below. The whole cosmic reality is finally rounded out by the seventh point described as the Middle. The Center, for the Zuni, acts as a synthetic metaphor for all the orientations.

This classification is meant to reflect the dynamic movement of the planets in harmony with the Zuni’s whole cosmological perception of life. This kinetic movement of the planets inspired the concept of directionality. The four orientations represent the daily movement of the sun in concert with its seasonal change on its axis during the winter and summer solstices. In addition, the zenith and the nadir become a six-fold directionality, and, finally, with the seventh point at its center, the whole arrangement inspires a dynamic multi-dimensional quality of space.¹⁰

The beautiful and the dangerous

Zuni mythology does not escape the dichotomy between the sacred and the profane. These two principles are categorized as the beautiful and the dangerous.¹¹ Their interaction reflects an aesthetic and dynamic vision of nature, and numerous metaphors are used to portray the balance of nature:

the sacred  vs  the profane
the beautiful  vs  the dangerous
the dynamic  vs  the dull
the colorful  vs  the dark
the clear  vs  the indistinct
the multi  vs  the plain

The duality is also expressed in terms of time and space:

morning  vs  evening
summer  vs  winter
above  vs  below

Furthermore, according to Zuni beliefs, there are two types of beings:

the cooked   vs  the raw

The cooked ─or ripe─ are called the daylight beings because they live on cooked food and live under the special protection of the Sun Father. The second group of beings rely on the raw food as well as the cooked food prepared by the daylight people. The daylight people are also split into:

the valuable  vs  the poor

Women are valuable by virtue of their gender, whereas men have no value until they are initiated into the religious Kachina Society. To the Zuni, poor literally means without religion.¹²

The Water Skate

The number four is a key number in Zuni mythology. It is central to the origin and foundation of Zuni. According to their creation myths, the first people traveled through the darkness of the four underworlds before they reached the surface of our present world. At that time, they were blinded by the light of the sun. They spent four time periods ─four days or four years, depending on the version─ searching for the Center. The Center Place was finally found when the Water Skate, with the magical powers given to him by the Sun Father, stretched out its four legs, one on each of the four directions of the sunrise and sunset of both the summer and winter solstices. The place where he rested his heart and navel marked the Center Place. This point also identifies the heart and navel of Earth Mother.¹³ The Cente revealed by the Water Skate is the site on which the Zuni village is built.

The numerical sequence of number four becomes, with the extension of the zenith and the nadir, number six. The number six, with the addition of the Middle, finally adds up to the sacred number seven. The arrangement completes the spherical balance and dynamic directionality.

All six orientations are centered around the Middle place where Zuni is built. Yet under the center of the village itself is another center. In the fourth underground, in the house of the chief priest, below the altar, lies a heart-shaped rock, which is described as the heart of the world. Its arteries reach out toward the same four directions as did the Water Skate when he stretched his four legs to find the Center.

The significance of the center remains in effect equivocal. More specifically, polyonymous, since the Center has many different names. It is, simultaneously, the middle, the center, the heart, the navel of the Water Skate, and the center of Zuni and the world. The middle is all these things because, as the Zuni say, they are all the same thing.¹⁴ This way of thinking is quite characteristic of the Zuni. The words describe different things, yet they are all ─related to─ the same thing.

At the beginning of the world there were both the spatial center and the temporal center: the Middle Place and the Middle Time. They may appear as two different concepts, but to the Zuni they are the same thing. Accordingly, the Zuni name for the village is ‘itiwana, which means Center but also winter solstice. The first is the Center in space, while the second is the Center in time. Therefore, all the symbols that relate to their cosmological world are a succession, a repetition, and a substitution of metaphors into a whole dynamic asymmetry that reveals ─or relates─ that everything is the same thing.¹⁵

This polyonymous aspect of Zuni symbolism is best depicted by the dynamic relation between the beautiful and the dangerous. The beautiful is described as having a multi quality as opposed to the plain and indistinct aspect of the dangerous. The beautiful is multilayered, multicolored, multitextured, multisensory, and multilingual.

Although the tautology of Zuni language may appear redundant at first, a closer look reveals that the repetition suggests the idea of relatedness. It is not the expressions by themselves that are meaningful, but rather the connection between them in relation to the whole cosmological outlook.

Zuni ritual life is filled with this multi aspect of meaning. This aspect of their culture is equally applied in their profane arena. The Zuni Tribal Fair, for instance, which is considered a mundane activity, is organized in the same manner. The symbolic representations of sacred places, objects, sounds and colors, repeated incessantly during the dance, become a meaningful repetition that links each symbolic part together in one cosmic being, as the same thing. The symbols are parts that are related to the whole order of things.¹⁶

To the Zuni, the sun and the moon are living beings. As such, they play a significant role as they move across the sacred space. Some of their rituals and dances duplicate the planetary movement. Every single aspect of the environment is described as a living being. Both the outer and inner spaces are fused together into the sacred ritual. Celestial objects are not seen as external but as active participants in the ceremonial. The cosmos is perceived as one whole intertwined entity. Accordingly, the whole array of symbolic representations operates in connection with the principles of continuity and similarity based on the idea of unity and balance of all life. To the Zuni, the whole world is a dynamic being with a multi facet quality.

The Zuni’s conception of time shares the polyonymous principles also. The world was created in the beginning of time, and the beginning is re-enacted, re-created, and re-lived in the ritual. Past, present, and future coexist. There is no temporal separation between the time of creation and the here and now of the ritual. It accounts for the symbolic presentness of Zuni cosmological life represented in the ‘itiwana, the Center, the here and now of time and space. The creation of the world in the past is transcended into the present and in the future by following the ways of the ancestors.

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The Zuni Pueblo is a good illustration of the cosmos as a self-enclosed, self-sufficient social and cultural reality, comparable in many ways to the religious reality of Israel. In a similar fashion, the word Zuni stands for the people, the village, the language, the religion, the mythology and social interaction.

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1 “It has quite often been said that man began to conceive things by relating them to himself. The above allows us to see more precisely what this anthropocentrism, which might better be called socio-centrism, consists of. The center of the first schemes of nature is not the individual; it is society. It is this that is objectified, not man…It is by virtue of the same mental disposition that so many peoples have placed the center of the world, “the navel of the earth”, in their own political or religious capital, i.e. at the place which is the center of their moral life. Similarly, but in another order of ideas, the creative force of the universe and everything in it was first conceived as a mythical ancestor, the generator of the society.” From Emile Durkheim & Marcel Mauss, Primitive Classification, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1963, 86-87.

2 See Gen. 21:31. Originally, the Sabbath was apparently related to the Babylonian day of moon cult called shabattu. See Max Weber, Ancient Judaism, New York, The Free Press, 1952, 149.

3 In Febuary 1988 the population was 8299. Data from the Zuni Area Chamber of Commerce 1989.

4 Gregory C. Crampton, The Zunis of Cibola, Salt Lake City, University of Utah Press, 1977, 56.

5 “The Zuni faith, as revealed in this sketch of more than three hundred and fifty years of Spanish intercourse, is as a drop of oil in water, surrounded and touched at every point, yet in no place penetrated or changed inwardly by the flood of alien belief that descended upon it.” Frank Hamilton Cushing, from Zuni, Selected Writings of Frank Hamilton Cushing, edited, with an introduction by Jesse Green, Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press, 1979, 181.

6 Barbara Tedlock, The Beautiful and the Dangerous: Zuni Ritual and Cosmology as an Aesthetic, in Conjunctions: Bi-Annual Volumes of New Writing no.6, New York, MacMillan Publishing Co., 1984.

7 Frank Hamilton Cushing, Ibid 185-193.

8 Barbara Tedlock, Zuni and Quiche dream sharing and interpreting, Dreaming, ed.by Barbara Tedlock, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1987, 107.

9 This custom is not strictly applied anymore.

10 Jane Young, Signs From the Ancestors, Albuquerque, University of New Mexico Press, 1988. For more insight about the Zuni cosmology see Ms. Young’s book.

11 Barbara Tedlock, Ibid.

12 See Barbara Tedlock, Zuni and Quiche Dream Sharing and Interpreting, in, Dreaming, ed. by Barbara Tedlock, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1987, 108-109.

13 It is interesting to note that the Zuni word for Earth Mother -‘awitelin tsitta- has the same root as the word “four” -‘a:witen’-. Jane Young, Ibid. 99.

14 Jane Young, Ibid. 106.

15 Barbara Tedlock, The Beautiful and Dangerous, Ibid. 259.

16 When Zuni people pray, they ask for “more”; namely, more rain for their crops. All is related to the concern that the Sun Father continues his daily journey and that the rain falls in abundance. The sun’s light coupled with water and Earth Mother are the essence of all life. “More” is also related to the idea of “everything” associated with the desire for the accumulation of things and prosperity. The Zuni pray for more success in hunting, many children and a long life, as well as an increase in jewelry sales.