40/2018 Origins – Beginnings – Genesis
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40/2018 Origins – Beginnings – Genesis Cracow 2018 „Maska” vol. 40 Chief editor: Cracow 2018 Katarzyna Kleczkowska ISSN: 1898-5947 Managing Editor: Print: 100 copies Magdalena Wąsowicz Free copy Editorial staff: “Maska” is a peer reviewed academic journal. Katarzyna Kleczkowska According to requirements of MNiSW (Ministry Aleksandra Korzonek of Science and Higher Education) a full annual Anna Kuchta list of article reviewers is available on the Igor Łataś following webpage: www.maska.psc.uj.edu.pl/ Joanna Malita-Król maska/listy-recenzentow Sylwester Szwedzki All texts and illustrations (unless stated Piotr Wajda otherwise) are published in open access mode, Magdalena Wąsowicz according to Copyright Law for non-commercial Kama Wodyńska purposes (under Creative Commons BY-NC 4.0 Agnieszka Wójcik obligations). Proof-readers: Full texts and summaries of published works are Agnieszka Kiejziewicz available on-line in the international database Olga O’Toole “The Central European Journal of Social Sciences Magdalena Stonawska and Humanities” (cejsh.icm.edu.pl). Magdalena Wąsowicz Editorial office: Composition: ul. Grodzka 52 Izabela Pisarek II piętro, s. 102 Karol Ossowski 31-044 Kraków [email protected] Cover: www.maska.psc.uj.edu.pl Paweł Kalina This project was financed by: Print: AT Wydawnictwo tel. 504 799 323 www.atwydawnictwo.pl Table of contents Magdalena Wąsowicz 5 On the idea of genesis and beginning Alicja Neumann 15 Egyptian creation myths as examples of creatio ex deo doctrine – the philosophical approach Szymon Jellonek 33 Foundation Scene on Coins of Mallus Michał Wagner 45 The many origins of totemism. Critical analysis of theories of James G. Frazer, Émile Durkheim and Sigmund Freud Natalia Zajączkowska 59 The Origin, Roles and Social Evaluation of the Caste System. A Case Study in Rural North India Krzysztof Trnka 75 The Origins of a State. a Legal Perspective Raiany Silva Romanni 87 The Myth of European Secularization – Origins and Aftermath Stephen Ogheneruro Okpadah, Taiwo Afolabi Okunola 103 Politics, Theatre and Echoes of Separatism in Nigeria Olga Barbasiewicz, Barbara Dzien-Abraham 115 Remembering the origins. Everyday life of Polish Jewish refugees’ children in Shanghai under Japanese occupation Marcin Hanuszkiewicz 131 An Origin of Unknown Origin: On Unfamiliarity and Making Strange Marcin Kosman 145 Humble beginnings or youthful arrogance: Vladimir Nabokov’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland 3 Justyna Dąbrowska 161 Created by Men and Reborn into a New World. Disability and Displacement in Brian Friel’s Molly Sweeney Dominika Ciesielska 175 The birth of a contemporary myth – fan fiction as a myth-making practice accompanying the Harry Potter phenomenon Joanna Ruczaj 185 Suicidal Career: The Specifics of the Emergence of Suicidal Tendencies in the Life Span 4 Magdalena Wąsowicz On the idea of genesis and beginning Institute of English Studies, Jagiellonian University The urge to know and understand our origins is one of the most primary needs of hu- mankind. The question of how we and our world came into being has always haunted and puzzled people, and we have found numerous ways of answering it. Throughout the centuries, we have conceived creation myths, religions, rituals, philosophy, poetry, history, and science, all of which were devoted to explaining the world around us and our place in it. As Dudley Young writes in his Origins the Sacred: the Ecstasies of Love and War, “the idea of the beginning involves the intersection of the known with the unknown, of being with nonbeing”1. Notwithstanding the progress of mankind, some questions remain unanswered. Worse still, as societies develop and we learn more and more about the world, many new evidences emerge and absorb our attention. Just as we believe we have found the answer to the questions which have troubled us for centuries, we realise that antecedent spoors come to light and encourage us to investigate further. In this issue of MASKA journal, we seek to address the question of how, when, and why things come into being and where to search for their roots. The topic of the issue is Origins–Beginnings–Genesis. The word “origin”, as defined by theOxford English Dictionary, means “the point or place where something begins, arises, or is derived”2 and, like many other English words, comes from Latin where oriri means “to rise”. “Beginnings” is, in contrast, a word of Germanic origin which is derived from the noun “begin” and denotes “the background or origins of a person or organisation”3. “Genesis” is perhaps the most intriguing word in this trinity, as it can be understood 1 Young, Dudley. Origins the Sacred: the Ecstasies of Love and War. London: Abacus, 1993, p. 4. 2 Origin. Oxford English Dictionary. Web. 7 May 2019. 3 Ibidem. 5 MAGDALENA WąSOWICZ in several ways. It is a proper noun denoting the first book of the Old Testament which describes the story of the origin of the world and the creation of the first man. Its name derives from the opening words: “In the beginning…” (“bereshit” in Hebrew)4. However, nowadays the term “genesis” is widely used to describe when something begins or starts to exist, “the origin or mode of formation of something”5. The word entered English via Latin from Greek “generation, creation, nativity, horo- scope”6. Thus the three words that form the topic of this issue ofMASKA refer broadly to the idea of birth, generation, the moment when something begins or starts its ex- istence, a background of someone or something, but also to creation and religion. The impact of these ideas on the history of humankind cannot be overestimated. We may, of course, wonder why the questions pertaining to the idea of origins and creation are so appealing to us. I shall briefly address this problem, as I believe it may serve as a good point of reference to further investigations. First of all, creation myths often served as proof of the high status of the human race. Most cultures claimed in one way or another that man was created by the gods. In Greek mythology, man is formed by Prometheus who moulded people out of wa- ter and earth. In the Quran, God creates man from clay. According to Genesis, God made Adam out of the dust of the ground. Similar ideas can also be found in Hindu or Sumerian cultures, as well as in many other mythologies. The act of creation im- posed, of course, certain obligations on the human race. These obligations, dictated by gods, had to be remembered and passed on to the next generation. Thus the idea that man was created by either gods or a single God, who also provided him with skills, and laws, also served as a proof of an exceptional status of the human race. These obligations which had to be constantly retold provided also a foundation for an individual and collective identity. This, I believe, is a second reason for our fascina- tions with creation myths and origin stories: they provide a crucial role in the forma- tion of identity. Learning how we began is a first step toward understanding ourselves and anticipating our future. More often than not, such knowledge imposes on us an obligation to behave in a certain way, embrace specific values, or, at least, remember about our ancestors and pass this memory on to the next generation. The memory of the remote past, which Jan Assmann, German Egyptologist, calls “cultural memory”7, is stored in myths, anniversaries, feasts and many other rituals. It is formalised, insti- tutionalised, and narrated by specialists such as poets, shamans, mask-carvers or bards 4 Genesis. The New Encyclopaedia Britannica. Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. 1995. 5 Genesis. Oxford English Dictionary. Web. 7 May 2019. 6 Ibidem. 7 Assmann, Jan. “Communicative and Cultural Memory”. Media and Cultural Memory/Medien und kultu- relle Erinnerung. Ed. Astrid Erll and Ansgar Nuenning. Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2008, p. 112. 6 MASKA 40/2018 who have to undergo initiation, instruction, and examination8. Assmann claims that cultural memory does not only store the traditions about the origins of the world and the early history of the tribe (nowadays rather society or nation) but also “illuminates a changing present”9. Thanks to remembering our origins, we can make sense of who we are and where we are going. While the myth of how the human race came into being was (and in many cases still is) one of the most important stories of many societies, the story of the origins of a particular tribe, group or society may play a significant role in explaining and pursu- ing political ideas. Polish nobility, for example, explained their exceptional status and legal privileges they enjoyed in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth by claiming, that they are the descendants of ancient Sarmatians. In a similar fashion, in the 19th century the white southern society of the United States of America traced its roots to the aristocratic Cavaliers (allegedly of Norman origin) who have settled in the south- ern states after they were routed by the supporters of the Parliament in the English Civil War10. By the 1850s the Cavalier legend has become a central myth on the basis of which white southern society adopted a strict masculine code of behaviour rooted in a European tradition of honour11. While such myths could serve as a positive force which consolidated people and made societies possible, they could also be used to validate and legitimise injustice, war, racism, and oppression. For example, the idea that the Germanic people descended from the ancient superior race of Aryans was one of the key concepts in Nazi ideology which rationalised anti-semitism and Hol- ocaust. The myths and legends of origins can, thus, became extremely dangerous and harmful when used by xenophobic ideologies.