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The Arch of Metahistory:
Origins
How one sees the origins of
human culture is also a description of how one wishes to
see the future of humanity.
- William Irwin Thompson, Gaia:
A Way of Knowing
Origins is the keystone of the arch of
metahistory, not because the rise of civilization is the supreme
achievement of humankind, but because stories of our historical
origins present the conventional basis of our identity as a
species and provide the background for our sense of progress
through the ages. We of the modern world are civilized people,
distinguished from those earlier versions of ourselves who lived
in “savage” conditions before civilization. Due to the
inherited model of Origins — that is, the high civilizations
of the past — we believe that “civilization masters nature”
and so the concept of “living with nature” appears
to indicate an inferior form of adaptation.
The unrelenting message today is that the “global market
economy” is the hallmark of advanced society.
In many respects, the world situation in 2000 CE mirrors the
rise of civilization in Sumer around 4000 BCE. Historians
identify the leading factors in the rise of civilization as the
introduction of new technology (mainly, writing and mathematics)
and the spread of commerce. Of the tens of thousands of
cuneiform tablets found in the Middle East, the vast majority
record business transactions, inventories of grain and livestock,
legal contracts, land surveys. The technology of writing with
a stylus on clay that supported Sumerian civilization reappears
today in the far more complex tool of the computer. The
sophistication of the technology is less important than the
innovations it introduces.
Civilization is a grand word but in reality
it may be reduced to the sound-alike "citification": that is,
urbanization, living in cities. The belief that life in cities
such as New York and Tokyo is better than life in the
countryside (anywhere real countryside happens to survive),
is just that: a
belief. Urban living is the dominant option of the global community,
largely because the commercial reward system needs mass markets
to operate profitably, but it's not the only option for humanity.
Indigenous peoples do not look to the rise of civilization from
their ancestral origins, their sense of identity or purpose.
They look to Sacred Nature.
Because the human species consists of
different races, there cannot be one origin story for humanity.
But there are dominant versions. Until 150 years ago the primary
historical origin story was focused in one geographic area, the
Fertile Crescent of Mesopotamia. Because the Biblical narrative
of Noah, Abraham and the Patriarchs took place in that area,
it was assumed that Judeo-Christian “sacred history” was
interwoven with events leading to the rise of civilization.
Consequently, the Biblical version of human origins was imposed
for centuries as the only valid version of our collective
experience.
Historians now concur that large-scale
civilizations arose simultaneously in several regions of the
world: Indo-China, Peru, India, Mesopotamia and Egypt. They also
recognize the existence of civilized societies that existed
before the large-scale urban settlements — that is, before 4500
BCE. The belief that civilization begins with cities has been
challenged through the research of Marija Gimbutas (Suggested
Reading, below) whose discoveries in Old Europe indicate that “civilized
living precedes living in cities.” The work of Gimbutas and others represents
a major paradigm shift in our view of prehistory. Caral, The Mother City
For most of the 20th Century historians agreed that the origins of civilization
could be traced to the organization of society for the purposes of
war and conquest, but in 2001 a lone woman archeologist changed this
view. At Caral in the Peruvian desert, archeologist Ruth Shady found
the remains of a “mother city,” the technical term for a
site that exhibits the first stage of city-building, without preceding
layers of settlement. In pristine condition, this city is now recognized
as the oldest in the Americas, dating to the epoch of the earliest
Egyptian dynasties, circa 3200 BCE. To the shock and bafflement of
many experts, Caral reveals no battlements, no weapons, no murals or
sculptures to glorify conquest, no bones evidential of a violent ending.
It appears to have been a peaceful settlement whose inhabitants dedicated
their time to commerce, religious ceremony, theatre and hedonistic
activities, including the use of mind-altering substances and aphrodisiacs.
Caral has changed the paradigm on what brings people together in large
urban settlements. Love, not war, my yet prove to be the prime motivating
force in the rise of civilization.
Origins is a double entendre in metahistory,
as already noted under Sacred Nature. Both the biological
and behavioral origins of humanity are located in prehistory,
but “the story
of civilization” ignores the long formative
childhood of our species. What happened in prehistory made us
human in the first place, but this development has long been
viewed as less significant than what humanity has made of the
world in the course of history. Our view of history is laden
with beliefs about how the human species came to dominate the
world, how it created a unique way of life, culture, society.
Since Darwin, prehistory has become a matter of intense
debate. The inquiry into “the ascent of man” assumes the central
role in metahistory (corresponding to the keystone of the arch)
because it focuses our deepest beliefs about the human
experiment, not because civilization is the supreme achievement
of humankind. The beliefs we hold about our origins can be
explored and deconstructed by the metahistorical method.
While the creation of the world and the
origins of humanity are universally depicted by the intercourse
of primordial parents, the Origins of civilization are usually ascribed
to a male deity, demi-god or culture-hero. The designation of a
male mastermind who inaugurates civilization is less a fact of history
than a policy of male scribes who write history.
Although "progress" is a very
recent idea, most people in the modern world believe that
the trajectory of
civilization assures a continuous ascent, progress without
end with advancing achievements in all realms. Ancient
myths about the Golden Age challenge this belief, however. The notion
that
great civilizations appear at an apex and decline from
there is typical of various evolutionary schemes of ancient
provenance.
According to the cyclic conception of time, common to
native-mind
peoples, the Golden Age in the past will recur in the
future in keeping with the eternal renewal of the human
experience. (Basic Reading: Memories and Visions of Paradise). Curiously,
some historical studies seem to confirm the first part of this
proposition: the appearance of culture at an apex. The oldest
pyramids of Egypt present obvious evidence of high technology,
but there is very little evidence, either textual or
archeological, of a long trial-and-error process leading up to
their construction.
Both Egyptian and Sumerian civilizations
seem in many respects to have sprung up from the ground,
full-grown, or at least highly evolved at the first stage of
their emergence. Paradoxically, the belief that history
progresses upward and that life improves as civilization evolves
is not convincingly supported by historical evidence.
The most common Origin script in the West is
Genesis in the O.T. version of the story, the Biblical
creation-myth. Genesis describes how humanity emerges from a
primordial couple, Adam and Eve, how civilization arises and
was then eliminated by a flood sent by God, only to arise again
through the Chosen People. Native-mind traditions as
far-ranging as Central America and Southeast Asia also tell
stories about a flood. The universality of the flood stories
may indicate recurrent patterns in the “collective unconscious,” a
theory proposed by C. G. Jung. They may also be evidence of ancestral
memories of massive
geological and geophysical events. William Irwin Thompson has
suggested that some myths may be half-remembered history. In
Memories and Visions of Paradise (Basic Reading), Richard Heinberg
cites a number of examples where this does indeed appear to be
the case.
Among the Hopi and other native peoples of
North America, the First People are said to emerge from the
navel of the Earth, as if from a womb. This script links Origins
to Sacred Nature. It uses biological imagery for the creation
myth. The Child (humanity) emerges from the Mother attached to
her placenta by a cord fixed to her belly. Likewise, the First
People emerge from Mother Earth attached to her placenta
(society, the communal group) by an umbilical cord, the
symbiotic bond with Sacred Nature. In this myth, the biological
Origins of humanity and the social order formed by human groups
belong to a single creative event. This vision of life asserts
the belief that “the earth produces humanity,” rather than
the belief that “God creates humanity.” It also asserts that
“society reflects its natural habitat,” a key belief in many
indigenous cultures, contrasted to the belief that “God
projects and oversees society,” as if the human social order
were a pretext for working out the divine will. Beliefs specific
to the emergence of social order and social morality come under
the category of Origins. Beliefs about what happens in social
order, once it is established, belong to the category of Moral
Design.
In Occidental Mythology comparative
mythologist Joseph Campbell noted that “one of the chief
characteristics of Levantine mythology is that of man created
to be God’s slave.” (The Levant is the geo-cultural complex
extending from Mesopotamia to Palestine, the matrix of
Judeo-Christian-Moslem religions.) The belief that humanity
exists to serve and worship God is totally commonplace in most
of the world, and rarely challenged. Quite a different belief
is asserted in the Asian philosophical concept of Lila, “delight
and cosmic play.” The belief that God’s intent to play determines
what happens in the cosmos bears witness to what
Alan Watts calls “humanity’s eternal preoccupation with
ecstasy.“ (Beyond
Theology in Basic Reading.) This
contrasts radically with the Christian belief that the suffering
of Jesus Christ saves the world from its fallen condition. To
be redeemed and liberated through ecstasy rather than suffering
was the promise of the pagan religion of Dionysos, whose counterpart
in Asia was the Hindu God Shiva. The essential need for play
in the making of civilization has been treated by the Dutch
historian Johan Huizinga who coined the term Homo ludens,
from the Latin root ludere, “to play.” Historians
designate beliefs and practices expressive of the playful and
ecstatic view of religion by the delightful term mystico-ludic.
Lila is a cosmological principle expressing
the belief that the entire spectrum of human experience is a
game of the gods. With the discovery of the mother city of Caral
in Peru, historians are now considering how this belief may
apply to the actual origins of civilization. Artifacts at Caral
show how the inhabitants of the city complex gathered together
to play, dance, perform theatrics and indulge in aphrodisiacs
and other mind-altering substances. Due to the huge bias of the
belief that life in nature is a grim battle for survival, the
belief that play might be at the origin of civilization has not
been fairly assessed. Nevertheless, the evidence from indigenous
peoples and surviving hunter-gathers (whose way of life is
presumed to resemble “primitive” humanity in prehistory) is
that they devote far more time to play than modern people.
Moreover, they have more time to play, for their lives
are not entirely consumed in the struggle to survive. By
contrast, the lifestyle of modern people is fraught with stress
and lack of time to “take it easy.” Play is of a passive,
spectator type, not participatory as it is with native peoples.
Usually play is not integrated into daily life but represents
a departure, a diversion. All in all, modern life seems to fulfill
the belief that God intends enslavement for human beings,
following the Levantine motif, even if it be enslavement they
choose at will and impose upon themselves.
Myths of the origins of racial and national
groups often occur in the same scripts. Since most of
these look back to Sacred Nature, the stories are identical
to those discussed under that category. Racial-national scripts
of
Origins invariably feature “culture-heroes” who introduce
the rudiments of civilization. They teach the arts of
survival and often present the people with exemplary acts that are
imitated in religious and spiritual rites. Around the
world the
initiators of culture are often called by names derived
from the Indo-European root man-, “think, devise, plan.” Two
examples are Manu in Hindu mythology and Manitou in
American Indian traditions. The first pharaoh of Egypt was called
Menes and the male
regent of the matrifocal culture of
Crete was called King Minos, etc.
The initiators are not
exclusively men, however. They can be women or even animals.
For instance, White Buffalo Woman is the key culture-initiator
among the Plains Indians of America. Salmon, bear and eagle
are totemic ancestors who impart survival wisdom and moral guidance
to indigenous peoples. All these scenarios can be summarized
in the belief that “benefactors guide society.” This is a
different view from the belief encoded in high civilizations
such as China and Sumer where a male celestial god mandates society.
Hence the difference between endowed cultures,
originating from instructions given by men, women and animals,
and mandated cultures, originating from instructions
attributed to a male sky god. Mandated cultures are the less
common of the two and occur much later in history. The models
for modern civilization are all mandated cultures.
Close examination of the oldest source
materials shows that the scripts have been deliberately spun
on a male or patriarchal bias. One of the most famous of such sacred texts,
recording the Babylonian New Year Ritual, describes how
Babylonian civilization was founded by the male sky-god Marduk
after his defeat of the Goddess Tiamat. Several drafts of the
texts exist, allowing scholars to determine how it was rewritten
several times to keep the ritual consistent with changes in the
male pantheon. The history of human origins has not only been
written by men -- the authors being a male priesthood who
controlled the secular leaders (shahs, emperors, pharaohs) --
but it has been continually rewritten with the intent of keeping
man in the leading role.
That civilization remains under the control
of men because its directing agendas are written by men is an
elementary insight of many historians and an important tenet
of metahistory. Significantly, endowed cultures such as the
huge mosaic of “Stone Age” tribes that spread across the Americas
before colonization, do not grow into large-scale civilizations.
Mandated cultures do, because they are driven by scripts that
confer the divine sanction of the celestial father (Sky God)
upon violence and conquest. (Mandated culture and endowed
culture are included in the glossary for the site.)
In sexual terms the motif of Origins is
typically concerned with the obscure matter of how the sexes
originated. In the Genesis version, the male (Adam) was created
first, and then Eve was produced from Adam’s rib. This story
encodes the belief that “man precedes woman,” a direct
contradiction to current scientific understanding that the human
body is programmed in DNA from a female-template: we are all
conceived female, and the male variant of the prototypal body
only emerges when certain chromosomes kick into activity. The
superiority of the male sex has its origin in texts written for
mandated cultures that first emerged around 2800 BCE.
Significantly, the origin of writing coincides with the
composition of patriarchal scripts. Feminists argue that by
changing the script for human society, we can evolve into a different
kind of society. Hence there has been ferocious squabbling over
the revision of history and prehistory, especially where the
role of woman is concerned.
Scripts about Origins in which the “primal
father” assumes the dominant role are reflected in the
earliest models of civilization at Sumer and elsewhere, but it
has been shown that these scenarios override earlier ones in
which the female plays an equal or dominant role. In treating
the theme of sacred kingship, some texts describe a male
king or divine regent appointed by a male priesthood, hence the
belief that “men empower men.” Other, older scripts describe
how the sacred king is chosen by the goddess, or a priestess who
represents the goddess, hence the belief that “the goddess
chooses the king” or “the priestess who represents the
goddess determines who is qualified to be king.” (See “Kingship”
in Barbara Walker’s book listed below.)
In modern times, civilization (at least in
the domain of commerce and politics) is largely run by men, and
the role of the initiating priestess has been degraded to a
taboo status. Hence the many and various scenarios of
politically and financially powerful men involved with sexually
powerful women in illicit relationships that often destroy the
men. Is this the revenge of the suppressed priestess who
initially was the agent of man’s empowerment? The misogynist
script states that “women crave power,” and if they cannot
play a role in originating and managing social structures, they
will claim the power by casting a spell over the men who do.
These dubious situations relate to the motif of Origins because
it is the phallic “towers” of the social, economic and
political order who are vulnerable to the wiles of woman, a
recurrent tabloid drama.
This drama seems to restate the old
mythological theme in which the sacred king, originally
dependent on the goddess for his power, must cede his power when
he can no longer please her with his virility. Thus, sexual
politics runs deep into the foundations of civilization. All
power-sharing issues in advanced society seem to hinge in a
precarious way on sexual dynamics, a point emphasized by
Feminists time and time again in their revision of history.
Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham
Hancock is a survey of the historical enigmas surrounding the
rise of civilization in different parts of the world, presenting
evidence pointing back to a global maritime network that existed
before the last Ice Age, that is, before 9000 BCE.
The Goddesses
and Gods of Old Europe
by Marija Gimbutas changed our view of the past by showing that
civilized, goddess-based societies in which warfare seems to
have been lacking existed before large-scale urban civilization
as such.
The
Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and
Secrets by Barbara Walker is a massive compendium of
information on the pagan origins of civilization, presenting
leads to alternative scenarios of history as well as recovering
many beliefs that were lost or suppressed with the rise of
Christianity. |
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