| Chapter 1: | Myth and Theory |
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Lévi-Strauss was able to illuminate a historical phenomenon (Gow 2001, 13). The historical phenomenon that he was concerned with was the interconnectedness of groups of what had previously been seen as isolated communities.28 This he established by demonstrating that the mythic systems of these people, while showing considerable local variation, can all be seen as part of a vast interconnected set. The idea of interrelated cultural material forming sets is clearly expressed in, amongst other places, From Honey to Ashes, where Lévi-Strauss suggested that mythic material can be tracked from an arbitrary starting position by moving out from the nebula of a spiral, which will lead us to a point where the myth we are looking at, while it bears relation to the one we examined just before it, now bears no relation to the original myth: at this point, Lévi-Strauss argued, we can close the set and start again.29
By showing the interconnectedness of material across space and time and the importance of comprehending the totality of the logical system, Lévi-Strauss was arguing against the functionalist tendency to only consider that which the anthropologist has personal experience of and which was therefore, by nature, of a limited scope, both in terms of time and space. Although Leach had earlier (1970) made this point, Lévi-Strauss’ argument was far from redundant. Indeed, Lévi-Strauss’ famous critique of functionalism, first made in 1971, still warrants repeating today:
It may at first appear that such a critique may be aimed at this work, which is far less ambitious than Lévi-Strauss’ Mythologiques, and is content