Think Forward.

Cartographier le monde : la fonction cosmologique des récits 1/5 507

Barbara Decelle, 16 d.
Se raconter la naissance du monde, comprendre les limites de son territoire, nommer les entités et les êtres avec lesquels on cohabite, expliquer la singularité de l’être humain… Toute communauté humaine élabore des représentations communes de son environnement. Les récits participent à la construction de ces cartes mentales qui nous permettent de nous situer, puis d’interagir avec le monde. Les récits de création chez les peuples aborigènes d’Australie en sont une illustration quasi littérale : les « chants de pistes » sont en effet des cartes du territoire facilitant la navigation à travers les contrées parfois hostiles de l’Australie à une époque où les cartes papier et les GPS n’existaient pas. Aujourd’hui encore peu accessibles, au grand public parce qu’ils appartiennent au domaine du sacré et sont réservés aux initiés, ces chants racontent comment serpents, émeus, fourmis à miel ont façonné le paysage en faisant émerger montagnes, cours d’eau, plantes et animaux. Ces « empreintes des ancêtres » constituent autant de signes que les maîtres des chants suivent dans un ordre précis, retraçant ainsi des pistes sillonnant des territoires de plusieurs milliers de kilomètres. Bruce Chatwin dans son livre « Chant de piste » souligne également l’importance du rythme de ces chants : la cadence et la mélodie permettent non seulement de mémoriser ces itinéraires complexes, mais également de synchroniser la marche avec le paysage traversé. Chanter revient alors littéralement à faire exister le territoire, chaque vers réactivant la trace laissée par les ancêtres. Outre ce cas bien particulier, d’autres récits remplissent cette fonction quoique de façon moins littérale voir plus symbolique. Les mythologues les classent dans de nombreuses catégories parmi lesquelles on trouve les mythes des origines : les cosmogonies, qui racontent la naissance du monde ; les anthropogonies, qui traitent de l’apparition de l’être humain ou d’un peuple ; les étiologies, qui expliquent des phénomènes particuliers ; et les récits totémiques, qui définissent les relations entre groupes humains et espèces animales. Bien que distinctes sur le plan thématique, toutes ces catégories remplissent une fonction commune : renseigner l’être humain sur son environnement, sur son origine, et sur les liens qui l’unissent aux autres entités ou aux autres vivants. Parmi les récits les plus anciens qui nous soient parvenus, je vous propose de découvrir deux récits intégrant le motif du plongeon cosmique que l’on pourrait qualifier de fossiles narratifs : Une entité créatrice — dieu, esprit ou animal ancestral — envoie un animal plongeur explorer les profondeurs. Après plusieurs tentatives, celui-ci remonte avec un peu de boue ou de sable. Cette matière, parfois déposée sur le dos d’un animal géant ou étendue par une puissance créatrice, devient progressivement la terre ferme. Selon les travaux de Jean-Loïc Le Quellec et Julien d’Huy, l’origine de ce motif pourrait remonter à la fin du Paléolithique supérieur, (entre –30 000 et –20 000 ans avant notre ère). Il aurait ainsi traversé des millénaires de transmission culturelle, se transformant au fil des migrations. Aujourd’hui largement oubliés dans notre aire culturelle, ce motif circule encore chez plusieurs peuples autochtones d’Amérique du Nord ou encore au Japon, en Inde et en Russie sous différentes formes narratives. On le retrouve notamment dans le récit crow « Le Vieil Homme Coyote crée le monde », ainsi que dans la légende des jumeaux Izanami et Izanagi (Japon)
Barbara Decelle Barbara Decelle

Barbara Decelle

Anthropologiste ratée mais biologiste de coeur et de formation - J'explore actuellement les récits (mythes, contes, légendes, etc) en quête d'un projet de recherche en mythologie computationnelle


1900

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THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER - PREFACE 5447

Bluwr X Commons: Mark Twain, 2 y.
- Short Stories -
0.6 min read.
Most of the adventures recorded in this book really occurred; one or two were experiences of my own, the rest those of boys who were schoolmates of mine. Huck Finn is drawn from life; Tom Sawyer also, but not from an individual—he is a combination of the characteristics of three boys whom I knew, and therefore belongs to the composite order of architecture. The odd superstitions touched upon were all prevalent among children and slaves in the West at the period of this story—that is to say, thirty or forty years ago. Although my book is intended mainly for the entertainment of boys and girls, I hope it will not be shunned by men and women on that account, for part of my plan has been to try to pleasantly remind adults of what they once were themselves, and of how they felt and thought and talked, and what queer enterprises they sometimes engaged in. THE AUTHOR. HARTFORD, 1876.

THE MEDITATIONS - Book I.[1/3] 5596

Bluwr X Commons: Marcus Aurelius, 2 y.
-
3.7 min read.
1. I learned from my grandfather, Verus, to use good manners, and to put restraint on anger. 2. In the famous memory of my father I had a pattern of modesty and manliness. 3. Of my mother I learned to be pious and generous; to keep myself not only from evil deeds, but even from evil thoughts; and to live with a simplicity which is far from customary among the rich. 4. I owe it to my great-grandfather that I did not attend public lectures and discussions, but had good and able teachers at home; and I owe him also the knowledge that for things of this nature a man should count no expense too great. 5. My tutor taught me not to favour either green or blue at the chariot races, nor, in the contests of gladiators, to be a supporter either of light or heavy armed. He taught me also to endure labour; not to need many things; to serve myself without troubling others; not to intermeddle in the affairs of others, and not easily to listen to slanders against them. 6. Of Diognetus I had the lesson not to busy myself about vain things; not to credit the great professions of such as pretend to work wonders, or of sorcerers about their charms, and their expelling of Demons and the like; not to keep quails (for fighting or divination), nor to run after such things; to suffer freedom of speech in others, and to apply myself heartily to philosophy. Him also I must thank for my hearing first Bacchius, then Tandasis and Marcianus; that I wrote dialogues in my youth, and took a liking to the philosopher’s pallet and skins, and to the other things which, by the Grecian discipline, belong to that profession. 7. To Rusticus I owe my first apprehensions that my nature needed reform and cure; and that I did not fall into the ambition of the common Sophists, either by composing speculative writings or by declaiming harangues of exhortation in public; further, that I never strove to be admired by ostentation of great patience in an ascetic life, or by display of activity and application; that I gave over the study of rhetoric, poetry, and the graces of language; and that I did not pace my house in my senatorial robes, or practise any similar affectation. I observed also the simplicity of style in his letters, particularly in that which he wrote to my mother from Sinuessa. I learned from him to be easily appeased, and to be readily reconciled with those who had displeased me or given cause of offence, so soon as they inclined to make their peace; to read with care; not to rest satisfied with a slight and superficial knowledge; nor quickly to assent to great talkers. I have him to thank that I met with the discourses of Epictetus, which he furnished me from his own library. 8. From Apollonius I learned true liberty, and tenacity of purpose; to regard nothing else, even in the smallest degree, but reason always; and always to remain unaltered in the agonies of pain, in the losses of children, or in long diseases. He afforded me a living example of how the same man can, upon occasion, be most yielding and most inflexible. He was patient in exposition; and, as might well be seen, esteemed his fine skill and ability in teaching others the principles of philosophy as the least of his endowments. It was from him that I learned how to receive from friends what are thought favours without seeming humbled by the giver or insensible to the gift. 9. Sextus was my pattern of a benign temper, and his family the model of a household governed by true paternal affection, and a steadfast purpose of living according to nature. Here I could learn to be grave without affectation, to observe sagaciously the several dispositions and inclinations of my friends, to tolerate the ignorant and those who follow current opinions without examination. His conversation showed how a man may accommodate himself to all men and to all companies; for though companionship with him was sweeter and more pleasing than any sort of flattery, yet he was at the same time highly respected and reverenced. No man was ever more happy than he in comprehending, finding out, and arranging in exact order the great maxims necessary for the conduct of life. His example taught me to suppress even the least appearance of anger or any other passion; but still, with all this perfect tranquillity, to possess the tenderest and most affectionate heart; to be apt to approve others yet without noise; to have much learning and little ostentation. 10. I learned from Alexander the Grammarian to avoid censuring others, to refrain from flouting them for a barbarism, solecism, or any false pronunciation. Rather was I dexterously to pronounce the words rightly in my answer, confining approval or objection to the matter itself, and avoiding discussion of the expression, or to use some other form of courteous suggestion. 11. Fronto made me sensible how much of envy, deceit and hypocrisy surrounds princes; and that generally those whom we account nobly born have somehow less natural affection. 12. I learned from Alexander the Platonist not often nor without great necessity to say, or write to any man in a letter, that I am not at leisure; nor thus, under pretext of urgent affairs, to make a practice of excusing myself from the duties which, according to our various ties, we owe to those with whom we live. 13. Of Catulus I learned not to condemn any friend’s expostulation even though it were unjust, but to try to recall him to his former disposition; to stint no praise in speaking of my masters, as is recounted of Domitius and Athenodorus; and to love my children with true affection. 14. Of Severus, my brother, I learned to love my kinsmen, to love truth, to love justice. Through him I came to know Thrasea, Helvidius, Cato, Dion, and Brutus. He gave me my first conception of a Commonwealth founded upon equitable laws and administered with equality of right; and of a Monarchy whose chief concern is the freedom of its subjects. Of him I learned likewise a constant and harmonious devotion to Philosophy; to be ready to do good, to be generous with all my heart. He taught me to be of good hope and trustful of the affection of my friends. I observed in him candour in declaring what he condemned in the conduct of others; and so frank and open was his behaviour, that his friends might easily see without the trouble of conjecture what he liked or disliked.