THE SMITH, THE TEACHER OF SPEECH, AND CREATIVITY: A Postmodern Reflection on Cosmologizing Through Myth

Centering on a dialogue between a French anthropologist & a Dogon elder in Marcel Griaule's Conversations with Ogotemeli: An Introduction to Dogon Religious Ideas (New York: Oxford U Press, 1965), the creative process among nonliterate peoples who use mythic images for thinking is examined as a cosmogonic process that creates flexible worlds of meaning as people metaphorically relate their experiences to their mythological traditions. The myths are not static, but adapt themselves to changing questions & experiences. This dynamism challenges representational & expressionist theories of Western art that are grounded in a Cartesian dualism, in which reality is either an external world of fact or an internal world of feelings. Ogotemeli reverses the way that we usually think about symbolic expression & creativity; symbolization is not a medium for expressing some deeper truth, but is itself the grounding for truth. AA