神話的採集袋理論：非主宰的技術系譜

Abstract

本文以臺灣原住民神話為核心文本，從人類世與現代農業政治的視野出發，追問：當技術被默認等同於增產、累積與主宰時，我們是否仍能在神話敘事、原住民知識與當代實作之間，辨識出一條「非主宰式技術」的系譜，並據此重新思考「如何生活」。研究採母題比較與敘事分析，藉著起源、黃金時代、雷女與變形母題，結合鄂蘭的勞動／工作區分、生態女性主義主宰二元論批判，將神話視為保存技術想像與關係倫理的概念場域，而非用以證成或反證科學史的材料。 本文指出，神話中的人與自然同源性並非理想主義圖像，而是一組包含競爭、贈與、禁忌與協作的複雜關係配置；技術的出現也不必然導向農業革命式的線性進步，反而經常是可回復、分散、以餘裕與關係修復為目的的實踐。透過技術中介者的類型化與時間性分析，本文進一步說明：循環、線性與永恆等多重時間感在敘事中並存，並與人獸界線的可穿越性相互勾連，構成一種拒絕被不可逆失落與必然主宰框限的世界觀。最後，以穀物的神聖性、祭儀的技術保存功能與女性照顧技術為關鍵線索，論證文明由循環走向主宰的歷程並非必然，並指出國家化並非人類群體生活的前提，而是特定技術與治理組合下的歷史結果。此一非主宰技術軌跡亦被連結至戰後以來的抵抗系譜與自然農法等當代實作。進而，本文嘗試將神話理解為能介入現代世界的理論資源，從而為技術倫理、農業政治與原住民神話研究開啟另一種問題化的路徑。

This study takes Taiwanese Indigenous myths as its core texts and, from the vantage point of the Anthropocene and contemporary agrarian politics, asks the following: when technology is tacitly equated with increased production, accumulation, and domination, can we still discern a genealogy of “non-mastery technology” across mythic narratives, Indigenous knowledge, and present-day practices—and, on that basis, rethink the question of how to live? Here “technology” is used in a broadened sense, closer to technics: not only tools but also embodied know-how, ritual transmission, and the socio-material arrangements through which collective life is organized. Methodologically, the study combines motif comparison with narrative analysis. Drawing on motifs of origins, the Golden Age, Lei-nü (Thunder Woman), and transformation, and bringing them into dialogue with Hannah Arendt’s distinction between labor and work as well as ecofeminist critiques of dualistic domination, it treats myth as a conceptual field that preserves technological imaginaries and relational ethics, rather than as material meant to confirm or refute the history of science. The thesis argues that the consubstantiality of humans and nature in these myths is not an idealist image but a complex configuration of relations that includes competition, gift-giving, taboo, and cooperation. The emergence of technology does not necessarily lead to an “agricultural revolution” model of linear progress; instead, it is often depicted as reversible and distributed, oriented toward leisure and the repair of relationships. Through a typology of technological mediators and an analysis of narrative temporality, the thesis further shows that multiple senses of time—cyclical, linear, and eternal—coexist within these stories and intertwine with the permeability of the human–animal boundary, composing a worldview that refuses to be constrained by irreversible loss or the presumption of inevitable domination. Finally, by foregrounding the sacredness of grains, the technical function of ritual in preserving know-how, and women’s care practices as forms of technology, the thesis demonstrates that the civilizational movement from cyclical rhythms to domination is not inevitable. It also suggests that state formation is not a prerequisite for human collective life, but a historical outcome of specific assemblages of technologies and governance. This trajectory of non-mastery technology is then connected to postwar genealogies of resistance and to contemporary practices such as natural farming. In doing so, the thesis proposes myth as a theoretical resource capable of intervening in the modern world, thereby opening an alternative problematizing pathway for research on the ethics of technology, agrarian politics, and Indigenous myth.