Dominant group/Mythology

"The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths ..., or to a body or collection of myths ".

As examples, comparative mythology "is the systematic comparison of myths from different cultures. " whereas "Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks"

When the patrician class is also the ruling class or an influential or dominant class, patrician class is a relative synonym for dominant group.

Dominant group
Examples from primary sources are to be used to prove or disprove each hypothesis. These can be collected per subject or in general.


 * 1) Accident hypothesis: dominant group is an accident of whatever processes are operating.
 * 2) Artifact hypothesis: dominant group may be an artifact of human endeavor or may have preceded humanity.
 * 3) Association hypothesis: dominant group is associated in some way with the original research.
 * 4) Bad group hypothesis: dominant group is the group that engages in discrimination, abuse, punishment, and additional criminal activity against other groups. It often has an unfair advantage and uses it to express monopolistic practices.
 * 5) Control group hypothesis: there is a control group that can be used to study dominant group.
 * 6) Entity hypothesis: dominant group is an entity within each field where a primary author of original research uses the term.
 * 7) Evolution hypothesis: dominant group is a product of evolutionary processes, such groups are the evolutionary process, produce evolutionary processes, or are independent of evolutionary processes.
 * 8) Identifier hypothesis: dominant group is an identifier used by primary source authors of original research to identify an observation in the process of analysis.
 * 9) Importance hypothesis: dominant group signifies original research results that usually need to be explained by theory and interpretation of experiments.
 * 10) Indicator hypothesis: dominant group may be an indicator of something as yet not understood by the primary author of original research.
 * 11) Influence hypothesis: dominant group is included in a primary source article containing original research to indicate influence or an influential phenomenon.
 * 12) Interest hypothesis: dominant group is a theoretical entity used by scholarly authors of primary sources for phenomena of interest.
 * 13) Metadefinition hypothesis: all uses of dominant group by all primary source authors of original research are included in the metadefinition for dominant group.
 * 14) Null hypothesis: there is no significant or special meaning of dominant group in any sentence or figure caption in any refereed journal article.
 * 15) Object hypothesis: dominant group is an object within each field where a primary author of original research uses the term.
 * 16) Obvious hypothesis: the only meaning of dominant group is the one found in Mosby's Medical Dictionary.
 * 17) Original research hypothesis: dominant group is included in a primary source article by the author to indicate that the article contains original research.
 * 18) Primordial hypothesis: dominant group is a primordial concept inherent to humans such that every language or other form of communication no matter how old or whether extinct, on the verge of extinction, or not, has at least a synonym for dominant group.
 * 19) Purpose hypothesis: dominant group is written into articles by authors for a purpose.
 * 20) Regional hypothesis: dominant group, when it occurs, is only a manifestation of the limitations within a region. Variation of those limitations may result in the loss of a dominant group with the eventual appearance of a new one or none at all.
 * 21) Source hypothesis: dominant group is a source within each field where a primary author of original research uses the term.
 * 22) Term hypothesis: dominant group is a significant term that may require a 'rigorous definition' or application and verification of an empirical definition.

Mythology
Def. "[t]he study of myths and the systematic collection of myths of a people, concerning the origin of the people, history, deities, ancestors and heroes" is called mythology.

Def. "[a] traditional story which embodies a belief regarding some fact or phenomenon of experience, and in which often the forces of nature and of the soul are personified; a sacred narrative regarding a god, a hero, the origin of the world or of a people, etc." is called a myth.

Folktale
Def. "[a] tale or story that is part of the oral tradition of a people or a place" is called a folktale.

"A fairy tale ... is a type of short story that typically features folkloric fantasy characters, such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants, mermaids, or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments. Fairy tales may be distinguished from other folk narratives such as legends (which generally involve belief in the veracity of the events described) and explicitly moral tales, including beast fables."

"In less technical contexts, the term is also used to describe something blessed with unusual happiness, as in "fairy tale ending" (a happy ending) or "fairy tale romance" (though not all fairy tales end happily). Colloquially, a "fairy tale" or "fairy story" can also mean any farfetched story or tall tale; it's used especially of any story that not only isn't true, but couldn't possibly be true."

Folklore
"Folklore (or lore) consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales, stories, tall tales, and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared."

"In usage, there is a continuum between folklore and mythology. Stith Thompson made a major attempt to index the motifs of both folklore and mythology, providing an outline into which new motifs can be placed, and scholars can keep track of all older motifs."

"Folklore can be divided into four areas of study: artifact (such as voodoo dolls), describable and transmissible entity (oral tradition), culture, and behavior (rituals). These areas do not stand alone, however, as often a particular item or element may fit into more than one of these areas. "

Legend
Def. "[a] story of unknown origin describing plausible but extraordinary past events" is called a legend.

"In cultures where demons and witches are perceived as real, fairy tales may merge into legends, where the narrative is perceived both by teller and hearers as being grounded in historical truth. However, unlike legends and epics, they usually do not contain more than superficial references to religion and actual places, people, and events; they take place once upon a time rather than in actual times. "

"A legend ... is a narrative of human actions that are perceived both by teller and listeners to take place within human history and to possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude. Legend, for its active and passive participants includes no happenings that are outside the realm of "possibility", defined by a highly flexible set of parameters, which may include miracles that are perceived as actually having happened, within the specific tradition of indoctrination where the legend arises, and within which it may be transformed over time, in order to keep it fresh and vital, and realistic. A majority of legends operate within the realm of uncertainty, never being entirely believed by the participants, but also never being resolutely doubted. "

Classes of meaning
A dominant group in mythology may have at least four meanings: (1) a mythology-based entity, (2) source, (3) object, or (4) in some way associated with mythology.

The term may serve as an indicator or identifier. In Kirby's An Introduction to Entomology from 1826, a dominant group of species is determined by a regional distribution. Later, this regional distribution became relative and the term entered the field of evolution. Perhaps it is an evolutionary process.

As the field of dominant group is unknown, mythology is as likely as any other. But, mythologists study the myths and their uses by human groups.

Any dominant group may be only an accident.

Artifacts
Def. "[a]n object, such as a tool, weapon or ornament, ... structure or finding in an experiment or investigation ... made or shaped by some agent or intelligence, ... [as] a result of external action, the test arrangement, or an experimental error ... rather than an inherent element" is called an artifact, or artefact.

"Cultural artifact is a term used in the social sciences, particularly anthropology, ethnology, and sociology ... for anything created by humans which gives information about the culture of its creator and users. Usage of this term encompasses the type of archaeological artifact which is recovered at archaeological sites; however, current objects of modern or near-modern society are also cultural artifacts. For example, in an anthropological context, a 17th-century lathe, a piece of faience, or a television each provide a wealth of information about the time in which they were manufactured and used. Cultural artifacts can provide knowledge about technological processes, economy and social makeup, and a host of other subjects."

Dominant group may be only an artifact.

Patrician class
"According to Livy, the first 100 men appointed as senators by Romulus were referred to as "fathers" (patres), and the descendants of those men became the Patrician class. The patricians were distinct from the plebeians because they had wider political influence, at least in the times of the Republic."

"Until the year 445 B.C. [-2445 b2k] a regular marriage (iustae nuptiae) could be contracted only between patricians - members of the ruling class." Bold added.

"'Consequently, the ruling class accumulated all the wealth for themselves, and the slave-population filled the country, while the real Italian population decreased terribly, worn out by poverty, taxation, and military service. And when there was a respite from these things they found themselves unemployed, because the land was owned by rich men who used slaves instead of freemen on their farms.' Whatever the origin of this passage may be, it shows the necessary result of the military expansion of Rome,"

Romulus
Def. in Roman mythology, "[t]he legendary founder of Rome and the twin brother of Remus" is called Romulus.

"Ioannes the Lydian, writing in the sixth century on the usage of his native town, says: 'Our own Philadelpheia still preserves a trace of the ancient belief. On the first day of the month (sc. January) there goes in procession no less a personage than Ianus himself, dressed up in a two-faced mask, and people call him Saturnus, identifying him with Kronos2.'"

"The twins [Romulus and Remus], as in the case of Janus, attach themselves to the Universal Monarch as his two faces, looking in opposite directions."

Romulus may not have been a human, but something in the sky used by a group of humans to make themselves into a ruling class.

Entities
"A sociocultural ontology buttressed by mythology and folklore ... reinforces individual and group perceptions of the superiority of the dominant group."

Objects
"The Life Tree in a matrilineal society was evidently the dominant group in the succession, consisting of the women and the high status male priests, Page 7."

Jupiter
"At the beginning of the play Fred was just a regular man who, like Jupiter in his human form, could not convince Lizzie of anything; however, after Lizzie's inaction reinstalls the myth that maintains the superiority of his dominant group, he suddenly takes on the mythic qualities of the Senator."

"Jupiter "is the king of the gods and of the universe and, as such, the supreme master of everything including those men who sheepishly submit to his decrees, live by his laws, abide by his commands" (Debusscher 311)."

Saturn
"He further suggests that the fraternity was that of the Drapers, apparently in Chaucer's time the dominant group among crafts concerned with textiles and cloth."

"Lenormant, speaking of Rome and Olympia, remarks, "It is impossible not to note that the Capitoline was first of all the Mount of Saturn, and that the Roman archaeologists established a complete affinity between the Capitoline and Mount Cronios in Olympia, from the standpoint of their traditions and religious origin (Dionysius Halicarn., i., 34). This Mount Cronios is, as it were, the Omphalos of the sacred city of Elis, the primitive centre of its worship. It sometimes receives the name Olympos."1 Here is not only symbolism in general, but also a symbolism pointing to the Arctic Eden, already shown to be the primeval mount of Kronos, the Omphalos of the whole earth.2"

Venus
"Instead we have, appropriately to the theme, a dominant group of knights, Cambel and the three sons of Agape, set in symmetrical relationship and forming, in themselves, a unity; a unity which is emphasised by another tournament which stands over against theirs, the tournament for Florimell's girdle, a scene of pointless and chaotic strife."

America
“Of "Weasel" I have heard only one instance, here in current application by members of a political faction for the leader of the rival, dominant group, a man notorious for being somewhere else when he was wanted.”

Asia
"The Sadani literature studied for the present purpose was recorded in the area where the Uraons form the dominant group."

China
“Hence, Ma Ji, who is originally rejected by the Rakshas, appears like them by hiding his 'ugly' features under black make-up, and becomes accepted by the dominant group.”

Indo-Europe
“Finally, the previously mentioned theme of a war between representatives of the first two functions and those of the third is expressed, he asserts, in the mythical conflict between the Aesir, the dominant group of gods, to which Othinn, Tyr, and Thor belong, and the Vanir, to which Freyr, Njordr, and Freyja belong”

Korea
"Korean folk tales emphasize community values rather than individual values, reinforcing, in the process of reinventing oral tradition, the contemporary ideology of the dominant group, the male elite."

Western folklores
"Perhaps not so clearly, folk has carried with it a political and economic meaning, for in most of our employments of the term, an underclass (in analogy to a peasantry) is evoked: one fixed in a marginal socioeconomic relationship to a more centrist and dominant group."

Hypotheses

 * 1) Dominant group came before mythology.