Stepping Stones through Time

• Issue: Volume 27, Number 1
• Author(s): Emily Lyle
• Article: View PDF | Download PDF
• Citation: http://journal.oraltradition.org/issues/27i/lyle

Abstract

Indo-European mythology is known only through written records but it needs to be understood in terms of the preliterate oral-cultural context in which it was rooted. It is proposed that this world was conceptually organized through a memory-capsule consisting of the current generation and the three before it, and that there was a system of alternate generations with each generation taking a step into the future under the leadership of a white or red king.

eCompanion

Alternate forms of the four-generation capsule with bilateral cross-cousin marriage.

Graphic: Emily Lyle

Orientation in time.

Graphic: Emily Lyle

The four-generation capsule.

Graphic: Emily Lyle

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