The author would like to thank Professor Jaan Puhvcl, of the Department of Classics, and Udo Strutynski. of the Center for the Study of Comparative Folklore and Mythology, University of California, Los Angeles, for their helpful comments and suggestions.

¹ Georges, Dumézil, Myihe et épopée III (Paris: Gallimard, 1973). p. I4. The passage may be trnnslarcd as follows: In the course of the last several years the word “Structure” has become ambiguous. While retaining its former precise value when, for example, it is a question of the structure of a demonstration, of a novel, or of a state, it has taken on a much more ambitious technical usage in a philosophical system which today is very much in vogue, a system to which it has, indeed, given its name. The result has been confusion. Some have taken it upon themselves to rank my work—and, according to the several authors concerned, this has been cither a matter of praise or of criticism—among the current manifestations or, given the dates involved, among the forerunners of structuralism. Indeed, it happens that some young structuralists are impatient about my slowness or my incapacity to follow the progress of the doctrine and the interpretative techniques which it inspires, and they would teach me by supportive examples of the use to which the more agile or orthodox spirits among them have already been able to put my data. I should like to put an end to these pointless favors: I am not, I have never been, nor will I ever be a structuralist. (Translation mine.)Google Scholar

² See Edmund, Leach, Claude Lévi-Strauss (New York: Viking Press, 1970), p.Google Scholar 62. See also Smith, P. and Sperbcr, D., “Mythologiqucs dc Georges Dumézil,” Annates, économies, sociétés, civilisations, vol. 26 (1971), pp. 559–586.CrossRefGoogle Scholar to whom Dumézil obliquely refers in the passage quoted above.

³ In its bare essentials, Dumézil's thesis con be mi mm an zed as follows: Most, if not all of the early Indo-European speaking communities were characterized by a hierarchically ordered, tripartite ct of ideological principles or “fonciions,” as he terms them. The first of these {i.e., the “first function”) concerned the maintenance of juridical and cosmic sovereignty and was typically represented respectively by a pair of gods, such as the Vedk figures Mitra and Varuna, the Norse gods, Tӯr and Odin, and the.Roman divinities Dius, Fidius and Jupiter. The second principle (i.e.. the “second function”) concerned the exercise of physical prowess and was represented by such warlike figures as Indra, the Norse god Trior, and the Roman Mars. The third principle, that which governed fertility, physical well-being, wealth, and a host of associated phenomena, was typically represented- by a pair of divinities (frequently defined as twins), such as the Vedic Aśvins, the Norse Vanir divinities Njorðr and Freyr, and the Greek Dioscuri; at Rome, which otherwise serves as an anchor point in Dumézil s comparative analysis, the “third function” was canomcolly represented by a single figure, the god Quirinus, although several other figures, among them Ops and Consut, lurk in the background, as it were. In addition, there is frequently a female figure here, such at the aforementioned Ops. the Vedic goddess Sarasvatī. and the Norse goddess Frcya.

At the epic level, the Indo-European ideology is reflected in the distinction among the Indian heroes Yudhiṣṭhira, Arjuna, Bhīma, Nakula, and Sahadeva, as well as in the Norse traditions concerning the warrior figure Starkaðr, the Irish accounts of Cuchulainn, and the several phases in the career of Romulus, to mention but a few examples.

At the level of social organization, the three “fonctions” are best evidenced in the fundamental structure of the Aryan caste system, that is, in the distinctions among Brāhman, Kṣatriya, and Vaiśya, although bits and pieces of a tripartite social system can in fact be detected elsewhere among the ancient Indo-European communities, such as the persistence of a priest-class among the Celts (the Druids), the three founding tribes of Rome (the Ramnes, Luceres, and Titienses), and the traditional Ionian bioi. (It should be emphasized, however, that Dumé;zil does not at present consider the tripartite ideology to have been of much importance in the definition of social reality; see note 12 below.)

It would be impossible here to list all of the major books and articles in which this thesis has been developed. Among Dumézil's more recent works are L'idéologie tripartie des Indo-Européens (Brussels: Collection Latomus, vol. 31, 1958);Google Scholar Les dieux des Germains (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1959;Google Scholar English trans.: Gods 0f the Ancient Northmen, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1973);Google Scholar La religion romaine archaïque (Paris: Payot, 1966;Google Scholar English trans.: Archaic Roman Religion, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970);Google Scholar Heur et malheur du guerrier (Paris; Presses Universitaires de France, 1968;Google Scholar English trans.: The Destiny of the Warrior, Chicago; University of Chicago Press, 1970);Google Scholar Mythe et épopée I (Paris: Gallimard, 1968; 2nd ed., 1974);Google Scholar Idées romaines (Paris: Gallimard, 1969);Google Scholar Du mythe au roman (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1970;Google Scholar English trans.: From Myth to Fiction, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973);Google Scholar Mythe et épopée II (Paris: Gallimard, 1971;Google Scholar partial translation as The Destiny of a King, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973);Google Scholar Mythe et épopée III {ibid.). For an overview of Professor Dumézil's research, together with a Comparative bibliography of his publications (to 1972), see Scott Littleton, C., The New Comparative Mythology (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2nd. ed., 1973).Google Scholar

⁴ Lévi-Strauss's ideas have been developed in a briljiant series of books and articles, chief among them “The Structural Study of Myth,” in Thomas, Sebeok, ed., Myth: A Symposium (Philadelphia: Bibliographic and Special Series of the American Folklore Society, vol. 5, 1955);Google Scholar “La geste d'Asdiwal,” Annuaire de L'E.PH.E. (Sciences Religieuses) (Paris, 1960);Google Scholar English trans.: Story of Asdiwal,” in Leach, E.R., ed., The Structural Study of Myth and Totemism, London: Tavistock, 1967)Google Scholar Anthropologic striicturale (Paris; Plon, 1958;Google Scholar English trans.: Structural Anthropology, New York: Basic Books. 1963);Google Scholar “La structure et la forme,” Cahiers de l'inslitute des sciences économiqties appliqu'es (Paris: 1960);Google Scholar La pensée sauvage (Paris: Plon, 1962;Google Scholar English trans.: The Savage Mind, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966);Google Scholar Le totémisme d'aujourd'hui (Paris: Presses Universitaires dc France, 1962; English trans.: Totcmism, Boston: Beacon Press, 1962);Google Scholar Mythologiques L: Le cru et le cuit (Paris: Plon, 1964;Google Scholar English trans.: The Raw and the Cooked: Introduciion to a Science of Mythology, Vol. I, New York: Harper and Row, 1969);Google Scholar Mythologiques II: Du miel aux cendres (Paris: Plon, 1966;Google Scholar English trans.: From Honey to Ashes: Introduction to a Science of Mythology, Vol. 2, New York: Harper & Row, 1973;Google Scholar Mythologiques III: L'homme nu, (Paris: Plon, 1972).Google Scholar For a critical overview of Lévi-Strauss, see Leach, Claude Lévi-Strauss.

⁵ Leach, Ibid., p. ix.

⁶ See, for example, Dumézil, Le festin d'immortalité (Paris: Annales du Musée Guimet, vol. 34, 1924),Google Scholar Le crime des Lemniennes (Paris: Geunther, 1924),Google Scholar Le probléme des Centaures (Paris: Annales du Musée Guimet, vol. 41, 1929),Google Scholar and Flamen-Brahman (Paris: Annales du Musée Guimet, vol. 51, 1935),Google Scholar all of which are predicated in large measure upon the theories of Sir James Frazer. See also Littleton, The New Comparative Mythology, pp. 43–55.Google Scholar

⁷ See Dumézil, , “La préhistoire indo-iranienne des ideocastes,” Journal asiatique, vol. 216 (1930), pp. 109–130;Google Scholar Éimile, Benveniste, “Les classes sociales clans la tradition avestique,” Journal asiatique, vol. 221 (1932), pp. 117–134.Google Scholar

⁸ See Émile, Durkheim, The Elementary forms of the Religious Life (London: Allen and Unwin, 1915);Google Scholar see also Durkheim and Marcel Mauss, “De quelques formes primitives de classifications: contributions à l'étude des représentations collectives,” L'annee sociologique, vol. 6 (1903), pp. 1–72.Google Scholar

⁹ See Dumézil, , La religion archaïqtie romaine (1966), pp. 147–157.Google Scholar

¹⁰ See Dumézil, , “La Rigspula et al structure sociale indo-européenne,” Revue de l'histoire des religions, vol. 154 (1958), pp. 1–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

^1l See Françoise Le, Roux, Les Druides (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1961);Google Scholar Jan de, Vrics, Kellische Religion (Stuttgart, 1961).Google Scholar

¹² Dumézil, Mythe et épopée I (1971), p. 15. The passage may be translated as follows:… I recognized toward 1950 that the “tripartite idelogy” was not necessarily accompanied, in the life of a society, by a real tripartite division of that society according to the Indian mode; on the contrary, I recognized that, wherever one can establish its presence, the tripartite ideology is nothing (or is no longer, or perhaps never was) but an ideal and, at the same time, a method of analysis, a method of interpreting the forces which assure the course of the world and the lives of men. (Translation mine.)

¹³ See Leach, p. 50.

¹⁴ Littleton, The New Comparative Mythology, pp. 202–203.Google ScholarPubMed

¹⁵ On this point see Littleton, “Lévi-Strauss and the ‘Kingship in Heaven’ Theme: A Structural Analysis of a Widespread Theogonic Theme,” Journal of the Folklore Institute (Indiana University), vol. 6 (1969), pp. 70–84.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Dumézil was a student of the eminent French philologist Antoine Meillet. See Littleton, The New Comparative Mythology, p. 1.

¹⁷ I should emphasize that my use of the term “genetically related” in this and other contexts has no connection whatsoever with any biological process and is meant in its customary linguistic sense; that is, two linguistic forms are genetically related if they have developed independently from a common source. It is also, of course, possible to conceive of a genetic relationship between extralinguistic cultural phenomena. On this point see Littleton, , “Toward a Genetic Model for the Analysis of Ideology: The Indo-European Case,”; Western Folklore, vol. 26 (1967), pp. 37–47;CrossRefGoogle Scholar “Georges Dumezil and the Rebirth of the Genetic Model: An Anthropological Appreciation,” in Gerald James, Larson, Scott Littleton, C., and Jaan, Puhvel, eds, Myth in Indo-European Antiquity (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1974), pp. 169–180.Google Scholar

¹⁸ See Leach, pp. 22–23. In a recent essay on Dumézil's interpretation of Germanic mythology Einar Haugen, using essentially the same Prague School-derived methodology, has attempted to develop an alternative structural model, one based on binary oppositions rather than upon the tripartite ideological principles; see Einar, Haugen, “The Mythical Structure of the Ancient Scandinavians,” in To Honor Roman Jal(obson: Essays on the Ocacasion of his Seventieth Birthday (The Hague: Mouton, 1967).Google Scholar For a comprehensive critique of Haugen‧s argument, see Udo, Strutynski, “History and Structure in Germanic Mythology,” in Gerald James, Larson, Scott Littleton, C., and Jaan, Puhvel, eds., Myth in Indo-European Antiquity, pp. 19–50;Google Scholar see also Littleton, , The New Comparative Mythology, pp. 214–215.Google Scholar

¹⁹ See Littleton, “Georges Dumézil and the Rebirth of the Genetic Model.”

²⁰ See, for example, Part III, “Le cadre des troisfonctions,” of Mythe et épopée HI, p. 320 ff, wherein heavy emphasis is laid upon such paradigms in the Roman tradition.

²¹ Dumézil (1971); personal communication.

²² See Marvi, Harris, The Rise of Anthropological Theory (New York: Thomas Y., Crowell, 1968), PP. 374–377.Google Scholar

²³ It should be noted, however, that in 1955 he spent a year teaching at the University of Lima, Peru, during which he turned his attention to Quéchua linguistics and folklore; see, for example, Dumézil, , “Remarques complémentaires sur les six premiers noms de nombres due turc et du quéchua,” Journal de la société des Americanistes, vol. 44 (1955)1 PP. 17–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁴ See, for example, Henry B., Nicholson, “Religion in Pre-Hispanic Central Mexico,” in Gordon F., Ekholm and Ignacio, Bernal, eds., Handbook of Middle American Indians, vol. 10 (Austin: Univcrsity of Texas Press, 1971), pp. 395–446.Google Scholar

²⁵ Ibid., pp. 404–405.

²⁶ E.g., the seven days of Creation (Genesis 1); the seven plagues loosed by Moses against Egypt; the Moslem concept of the “seven pillars of wisdom”; the seven-year cycle of death and rebirth in Canaanitic mythology (that is, in the conflict between Ba'al and Anath).

²⁷ A colleague at UCLA, Udo Strutynski, is currently working on the problem, but so far he has not reached any definite conclusions. It is, however, curious that the English weekday names, from Tuesday through Friday, seem to reflect the canonical order of the three functions, that is, “Tue's (i.e. Tӯr's) Day” and “Woden's (i.e., Odin's) Day” relate to gods representing the two halves of the first function; “Thur's (i.e., Thor's) Day” relates to the principal Germanic representative of the second function; and “Fria's (i.e., Freya's) Day” implies a day devoted to the principal female figure associated with the third function in the Germanic tradition (see above, Note 3). But the extent to which this sequence is in fact a reflex of a common Indo-European day-cycle is by no means clear.

²⁸ See Dumézil, Ideologic tripartie des Indo-Européens, p. 91.

²⁹ E.g., La religion romaine archaïque; Idées romaines.

³⁰ E.g., Dumézil, , “Les trois fonctions dans quelques traditions grecques,” in Hommage à Lucien Febvre, vol. 2, (Paris: Armand Colin, 1953); pp. 25–32;Google Scholar Atsuhiko, Yoshida, “La structure de l'illustration du bouclier d'Achille,” Revue beige de philologie el d'histoire, vol. 42 (1964), pp. 5–15.Google Scholar

³¹ E.g., Dumézil, Mythe et épopée III, p. 14.

³² See, for example, Rodney, Needham, “The Left Hand of the Mugwe,” Africa, vol. 30, (1960), pp. 20–33;Google Scholar “A Structural Analysis of Amiol Society,” Bijdragen tot de taal-, land- en volkenktnde, vol. 116 (1960), pp. 81–108.Google Scholar