ABSTRACT
There is always a primordial history and this history has a beginning: a cosmogonic myth proper, or a myth that describes the first, germinal stage of the world. Through the cosmogonic myth and its sequel, the Ngadju Dayak progressively unveils the structures of reality and of his own proper mode of being. If we examine a mythology in its totality we learn the judgment of the particular people upon its own sacred history. A "sacred history" has taken place, and this history must be perpetuated by periodical reiteration. We can distinguish two types of primordialities: a precosmic, unhistorical primordiality, and a cosmogonic or historical one. In effect, the cosmogonic myth opens the sacred history; it is an historical myth, though not in the Judeo-Christian sense of the word, for the cosmogonic myth has the function of an exemplary model and as such it is periodically reactualized.
