Myth

18th Apr. (4)

I just found something about myth (Smile – howyeh, howyeh this is a Chinese version of hurrah). To be honest with, actually I was at my wits end to get to know what myth is or are… sometimes in my recounting of the folklores of the Malays and the Orang Asli, most of them look like a combination of myth and legend. So what exactly myth is? Whatever, myth actually universal in nature (this is what I found). They are definitely never factual, yet seldom are they ‘hundred percent’ untrue. Most of the myth in the world have something to do with what we don’t know but at the same time, we just simply cannot dismiss them (snap my finger) just like that. Myth eludes any definition because; it is not something that we can isolate for a closer look. Human thinking (according to the author of the book that I read) is not hundred percent rational, regardless whatever your belief in life, your mind definitely shaped by your faith, as what Alexander Elliot (the author) said, the more adventurous reach of our thinking (mind) are not wholly rational, they do partake of faith as well. So the mind will move into the direction of primal (automatically, naturally, born with, innate?) that he called as mythosphere. Well, since many of the myth in Malaysia pertaining to the creation of nature and mankind i.e asal usul Tasik Chini, Asal usul Tasik Bera, the origin of Thunder (a Chinese version one that my standard three teacher’s Ms Lim recollection), I wonder how does this myth has to do with my belief in Islam, (definitely not), as you see, for me being a Malay Origin whose descendant used to be pagan, we could not totally escape from what Elliot said, for myth was something primal, that are built in our brains, our genes and our blood. Myth was passed to me via reading and story telling of the folklores of my ancestors. However the more faithful side of us whose guidance sources are from the Al Quran and hadith asked us to be defiant in believing the myth hundred percent. We know in the creation of the earth, which last time was one the sky and the earth (that is before the Big Bang Theory) but not totally the same as my Polynesian ancestors told me… hahahah, opinion? This is what the Polynesian version of the creation of the world – earth planet, once upon aforetime, there were two beings in loving embraced. The father sky Rangi, and the other earth Papa. For million years, these two made love and in the darkness between their bodies, born a few offspring (the insolent Father of Human beings, the father of forests father of animals, father of wind etc who later become disrespectable and would like to push apart the parents. So that is it, they succeed in the process and here we are…
However so in the Islamic belief when the Malays embraced it, we knew that the whole things are dongeng dahulu kala, yet the reality is the world exist, this is where myth means, it can be never factual for we cannot rely on the story of these parents of us, tak pernah nampak pun… but yes they truly exist in a form of wind, forest, animals etc….

Is it true that there are a family up there in the sky who clean up their house and the water is the rain that we have now. The sound of a furniture is the thunder? Hihihi..
By the way actually I got another myth of the relationship between the Orang Asli and Melayu, for both can be considered adik-beradik, from the puak Semelai view point… wanna share later?