Cultural Hero

CULTURAL HERO. - This is a figure encountered in the mythology of many primitive peoples and has a secondary and subordinate function in relation to the Supreme Being. He is closer than the latter to humanity, for which he generally procures immediate advantages: he is not, however, always beneficent. He is also a creator where creation, considered as work, is attributed to a being subordinate to the Supreme Being: in that case he can also be the progenitor in his capacity as demiurge. He is generally the author of the present ordering of the world, without for the most part having an ethical character; he intervenes directly, by very human methods, in the affairs of this earth.

This figure has attracted the attention of historians of religion both for the analysis of its characteristics and for the position it holds in the controversies over the formation of the concept of divinity. This controversy is summarized in an article published in 1906 by P. Ehrenreich (cf. bibliography). In it the author criticizes the theory of K. Breysig, as well as those of other authors belonging to the evolutionist school who dealt directly and indirectly with the subject, such as Max Müller, E. B. Tylor, D. Brinton, J. Frazer, down to Andrew Lang, who treats it in his Making of religions (London 1901). In particular he notes a clear contradiction in Breysig's ideas, according to whom the formation of the concept and figure of God derives among primitive peoples from that of a heroic, strong and wise man. This man, however, according to Breysig, is not a terrestrial individual of the distant prehistoric past, a being of the human race, but an ideal figure in which the demand for human spirituality is brought to its highest sensible expression and man in the end bows down before the ideal that he himself has created. More consistent, on the other hand, is (again according to P. Ehrenreich) E. Durkheim, who, although interpreting the ethnological documentation without a critical spirit, holds that the idea of the great gods among primitive peoples came from totemic ancestors and has a basis in the figure of the culture hero. For W. Wundt, finally, the gods were first conceived as heroes; later, then, as spiritual beings. Opposite is the opinion of Ehrenreich. He, in agreement with the theory of the Vienna culture-historical school on the original monotheism of primitive peoples, maintains that it is from the Supreme Being that the figure of the culture hero gradually detaches itself and takes shape, acquiring life and vigor in inverse proportion to the weakening of the idea of the Supreme Being among cultures that move away from the original form. The figure of the culture hero is in fact absent among the Pienei, among whom the concept and cult of the Supreme Being have their purest manifestation. We find it, however, among peoples that are also very primitive, such as those of north-central California. The demiurge in the cosmogonic traditions of the Algonquins is Nanabosho (known also as Manabush, Messou, Michabo, etc. among a great number of tribes). For the Una of Tierra del Fuego, Teumale, the Supreme Being, He who dwells in heaven, cares little for the affairs of men, except to inflict punishments upon them, such as death, and leaves to Kenos, the first man, the task of attending to the affairs of this world. Indeed he also gives him the task of giving form to the universe and of establishing the social and religious rules that must be observed by men. The most important figure in the mythology of the Hottentots after Tsui Goab, the Supreme Being, is Heitsi Eibib, a demiurge hero born of a virgin, author of marvelous deeds, who died and was reborn several times, and who has assimilated many traits of the old Supreme Being. In Africa we find the figure of the culture hero also in the beliefs of the Herero, the Kaffirs, and the Sudanese of the interior.

Belief in the culture hero is very widespread and perhaps general in Australia: the details of the deeds they performed vary from tribe to tribe, but the background of the narrative of these is almost identical. One of the most characteristic figures is Putiaputia, the protector of the Aranda. They, as A. W. Howitt holds, did not create men, but only perfected them with their teachings. Among the Warungeri, however, the creation of men is attributed to the culture heroes. The culture hero of the Maori was Tane, son of Heaven and Earth. He also had the character of creator. Maui, on the other hand, the hero of many Polynesian myths, does not take part in the story of creation, but it is he who forces the sun to a regular course, who procures fire for men and performs many deeds on their behalf. But it is among the American natives that the figure of the culture hero has its greatest development, not only among the most primitive peoples such as those cited above, but also among peoples of more evolved culture. Such is precisely the Bochica of the Chibcha, which constitutes one of the clearest examples of a civilizing hero. Subordinate to the Supreme Being Chiini-ni-gagua, it is he who taught men agriculture, the arts, and piety, and then withdrew from the affairs of this world, intervening in them again only once to prevent a flood of the valley of Bogotá. It is strange, however, that some traditions relate that he in turn made use of another being to complete his work among men, a second culture hero, Nemquetara Sagigua. This is perhaps to be attributed to a confusion of traditions, or rather to a repetition of an identical figure through an overlapping of different versions of one and the same myth, which then come to constitute a single narrative.

American Indians North of Mexico, Washington 1907-18 (Bull. of Bureau of Amer. Ethnol., Smithsonian Institution, 20); A. L. Kroeber, Handbook of the Indians of California, Washington 1925 (Bull. of Bureau of American Ethnol., Smithsonian Institution, 78); W. Schmidt, Der Ursprung der Gottesidee, I-VI, Münster 1920-1940, passim; W. Wundt, La philologie dei popoli, Torino 1920; H. Baumann, Schöpfung und Urzeit des Menschen im Mythos der Africanischen Völker, Berlino 1936, passim; Handbook of South American Indians, I-V, Washington 1940-49, passim (Bull. of Bureau of American Ethnol., Smithsonian Institution, 143); M. Pettizzoni, Miti e leggende, I, Torino 1948, passim.

Tullio Tentori