the human quest:
- as long as there have been people, people have asked questions such as…
- where did we come from?
- where will we end up?
- why are things the way they are?
- how are all these things i see related?
connection to nature:
- people usually look to their environment when asked these questions
- plants are a major component of the environment, so many of the answers involve plants
folklore and myths
- folklore and myths are stories
- religion incorporates stories, especially myths
- “story” is derived from the latin word historia
- historia originally meant both “story” in the fictional sense, and “history,” the nonfictional or factual narrative of events that actually occured
folklore and myths:
- little consensus on the functions or definitions of folklore and mythology
- generally agreed that folklore and myths
- began as oral traditions
- have multiple origins among peoples of diverse cultures over millennia of time
- incorporate forms of narrative
- are products of the human imagination
folklore and myths, as oral traditions, persisted because the stories were of great significance to their cultures
- people do not continue to tells tories that are not useful to them in some way
- “evolutionary” element to folklore and myths
- useless ones get weeded out and disappear
- useful ones persist through time