“I am not far from believing that, in our own societies, history has replaced mythology and fulfils the same function, that for societies without writing and without archives the aim of mythology is to ensure that as closely as possible—complete closeness is obviously impossible—the future will remain faithful to the present and to the past.”

— Claude Lévi-Strauss

Source: Myth and Meaning (1978), Chapter 4 : When Myth Becomes History

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Claude Lévi-Strauss 35

French anthropologist and ethnologist 1908–2009

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