American Regional Myths

CompassIn his chapter titled “Mythical Space and Place” Tuan discusses human relationships to points on the compass: North, South, East, and West. He states, “The United States as a whole is divided up into North and South, East and West. Unlike Australian use of directional terms, regional labels in the United States are not promulgated by central authority; like the regions of mythical space the names and meanings of American regions are acquired in the cours of time, as part of the growing lore and literature of a people.”
American regionality (i.e. Midwesterners, Southerners, Northeasterners, etc.) are still defined by the points on a compass and, like in his interpretation of people in relation to mythical space, Tuan seems to be saying that American “regional people” have created their own mythical spaces based on the regional identity we have created. He even says that the meanings of a region are “part of the growing lore and literature of a people.”
It seems we’re still living in relation to our mythic spaces. Tuan describes the past civilizations—ancient Greeks and the Salteaux Indians—and how they relate to their mythical spaces. For instance, the Salteaux use the compass points to describe a religious belief where the South is the land of the dead, and so on.
Today we do the same thing. Though our beliefs may not be necessarily religious in belief, we do believe in the knowledge of American places even if they are not true. For instance the mythical belief of New Yorkers is that they are unfriendly which isn’t true. We have created mythical spaces in American regions based on legend and lore: all culture exists in the northeast, the south is racist, Midwesterners are freakishly religious. But these are just myths... There’s no way such all encompassing statements like these can be true of all the people in a place. But we have, as Tuan says, created these mythical places for ourselves just as the Greeks and Salteaux did before us.