An Original Comparative Mythology Theoretical Framework for Greek-Igbo-Yoruba Triadic Analysis

Comparative mythology has produced substantial theoretical frameworks for analysing structural parallels across mythological traditions, but these frameworks have rarely been applied to sustained three-way comparison involving both classical and multiple West African traditions simultaneously. This study develops an original comparative mythology theoretical framework for Greek-Igbo-Yoruba triadic analysis. A theoretical-constructive methodology employing structural mythology analysis (Levi-Strauss), myth and ritual theory (Harrison, Burkert), and African mythology scholarship was adopted, complemented by original field research with 30 Yoruba and Igbo cultural practitioners and scholars in Osun, Anambra, and Enugu States. The proposed Triadic Comparative Mythology Framework (TCMF) establishes four analytical levels for three-tradition comparison: cosmopoetic structure (the narrative grammar of creation and cosmological organisation), divine ecology (the social and functional organisation of the divine pantheon), heroic typology (the structural categories of heroic myth and their cultural functions), and mortuary cosmology (the narrative frameworks for death, the afterlife, and ancestral power). The framework is applied in full to triadic analysis of creation mythology, divine authority, trickster figures, and descent narratives across Greek, Igbo, and Yoruba traditions. The analysis reveals both shared structural patterns and culturally distinctive variations that illuminate each tradition through the others. The TCMF constitutes an original methodological and theoretical contribution to both comparative mythology and Classical Studies methodology.

Keywords: comparative mythology, Igbo mythology, Yoruba mythology, Greek mythology, theoretical framework