Date: Fri, 5 May 1995 12:04:56 -0500
Reply-To: nsheldon@students.wisc.edu
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From: nsheldon@students.wisc.edu (Nemesis)
To: Current and Former Detling Members 
Subject: The Masks of Detling
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X-To: detling@lucy.cs.wisc.edu

The following is an excerpt from an early, unpublished version of Joseph
Campbell's 'The Masks of God'.  The section this was excerpted from was
removed at the last minute at the request of the editor, who did not see
its relevance to the rest of the material in the treatise and needed to
reduce publishing costs.  Campbell was given a choice of removing this, or
removing another section which was the backbone of the whole work.  He
reluctantly removed this section with a promise that he would republish the
entire section later.  Time passed, other projects came onto his mind, and
he never did get around to doing so.  The section was mentioned in his
famous interview with Bill Moyers "The Power of Myth" broadcast on PBS in
the late eighties but again was cut from the footage in Moyers' process of
editing.


...Another ancient story of this type is the Myth of the Honors Students.
It is known by many names in many cultures, although it is most common
among those cultures which have a highly developed University System
complete with Student Accomodations.  Ancient variations on this have the
students invariably grouped together to learn from a great philosopher (the
Intelligaeum of Aristotle), a wise prophet, or -- in even more primitive
cultures -- a powerful sorceror or shaman.  The Story of the Fire Lodge
People told by the Sioux and related earlier in this chapter shows some
similarities to this ancient and powerful myth.
        In the United States, this myth -- one of the few that is still
kept alive there -- is known as Detling.  None know where this particular
name came from, it seems to be of Germanic origin.  According to the myth
as it is told at the University of Wisconsin, it is named after a woman of
great scholarship and philanthropy who taught at the University some time
ago.  This figure often appears in this sort of story, obviously an
incarnation of the Earth Goddess.  In most of these stories, after her
death the University President, or the Board of Regents, or in some cases a
Secretary in the Commerce department of the school, names a Residence House
after her.  This house later is proclaimed by the same body as an Honors
House, restricted or at least preferred by students who are in the honors
program.  It is thought that the true origin of the word comes from the
Greek, when Homer mentions his own version of the Myth in his Iliad:

        Agamemnon spat upon the ground, saying to Oddyseus
                "Who makes these people think, these scholars?
        Should not the great lord Zeus himself strike them
                Down, lest they think too much?"

        In many of the original versions of this, the word which is usually
translated as 'scholars' is written as -daptylyngnoses-, a word which has
no known translation.  However, this word has passed down through the
generations, not at all surviving in written material again until it calls
attention to itself in Ovid's Metamorphoses as -daetyllinitia- which is
translated as Athena's children, then in St. Augustine's 'City of God' as
-daetilinus- where it has no known translation and is usually ignored by
translators, and finally in the epic of Beowulf it appears as -Deatlingas-
where it is again untranslateable.  These are the only four places it
appears, although from its appearance in Beowulf which is somewhat out of
lineage of the other three, it is probably that although it was rarely
written, it has remained a word in the oral languages of Europe throughout
the centuries.  It may be what Shakespeare is talking about when he says
'ye Dettelin's of Yorre' in his rare prologue to 'Love's Labours Lost'.  In
effect, it has survive only orally throughout history until it finally
appears in this particular myth.
        This 'Detling' House myth always has the same sort of people
involved in it.  The leader of the house, the RA or the 'Housefellow' a
term found only in use for this myth and nowhere else in American Culture,
is either a woman similar in nature to the woman whose name went to this
place, or a man with little attachment to the House, being removed in some
way from the inhabitants -- also similar to the Myth of the Male Creator
found among state-level societies who creates the world and then removes
himself from it in some way.  In ancient versions of this myth, the female
leader is actually a reincarnation or avatar of the original namesake of
the house, and the male leader ousts her due to manipulations and intrigue
among higher powers.  One example of this event is when the Residence Hall
directors decide to switch the wings of the house which house the females
and the males, and claim that they have to keep the Housefellow's room the
same and therefore must choose a male housefellow instead of a female.
        Other people in the myth seem to all be variations on the Trickster
God or the Wise God.  Either can be both beneficial, or malicious.  Many
stories go along with this line of Myth, wherein the inhabitants of the
House take on strange and seemingly unneccessary tasks of great magical
power.  Such as building a Sun and shining it out on a courtyard, or a
garden outside the house.  Or trying to teach a Gorilla to read -- or in
more modern versions run computers -- and thereupon turning him into an
actual human being -- similar in some ways to the Pygmalion story.
        Two of the more popular characters in the myth are the Fool and the
C-F-O.  The Fool, known as Dean in many versions, is supposedly the one
person in the House who can do anything, and yet remains very quiet and
humble except among his close friends.  The C-F-O, known as Ed in some
earlier versions of the myth, does not live in the House but has friends in
the house and invariably attempts to move in.  If he succeeds in the story,
then he becomes a Music Major and a hopeless romantic, and if he does not
then he goes on to become a Carnival worker, Math Teacher and a hopeless
romantic who has a penchant for taking long trips to wonderful lands --
often DisneyWorld in the modern versions -- and bringing friends with him.
There are some stories in which both of these archetypes appear.
        Whole theses could be written about the Myth of Detling and all of
its aspects, but it is important to get on to what it means.  The Myth of
Detling -- and remember we are still using the definition of Myth not as
falsehood, but as a sacred story which may or may not be true, but in
either case holds some great meaning for the people who tell it -- is a
story told to give students at large universities a feeling of family,
especially those who live on impersonal residence halls and have no
attachment to fellow residents.  Detling creates the feeling that there is
a belonging, there are companions who share ones misery and happiness,
there are people who actually care about the Rite of Passage that is School
and what it means.  It is often created spontaneously by various types of
students who are tired of being alone and wish to create a better life for
themselves - Computer Science Graduate Students who rarely sleep at home;
Cartography Majors with a penchant for Over-elaboration and -- forgive the
term -- bullshit; Muslim Astronomy majors with a love of all things Disney;
English Majors with a dream of achieving graduate degrees in Library
Science;  Freshman Computer Science students with a fear that something is
not right with the world, normal Student Angst; and many, many others.  All
of these people create this myth for themselves, whether it is real or not,
often to the point where they actually believe it, even though it is all a
figment of the imagination.
        But as with every myth, it will always have a place somewhere.




                                            NEIL
                                       {nsheldon@students.wisc.edu}

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