Yuri E.Berezkin
AMERINDIAN MYTHOLOGY with parallels in the Old World
Classification and Areal Distribution of Motifs. The Analytical Catalogue
14. Monsters Destruct the World. .44.-.48.50.-.53.55.56.60.-.62.65.-.67.70.72.73.
During or before the world catastrophe (deluge, darkness) monsters attack and destroy humans.
A. Animated Objects' Revolt (see motif C13A).
Great Southwest.
(Zuni).
NW Mexico.
(Tarahumara; Huichol).
Mesoamerica.
(Otomi; Nahuatl [San Luis Potoci]; Huastec; Sierra Totonac; Tzotzil; Yucatec; Quiche; Trique).
Lower Central America.
(Guatuso; Cuna).
Western Amazonia.
(Mai Huna).
NW Amazonia.
(Barasana).
Central Andes.
(Mochica culture; Huarochiri; Inca).
Montana.
(Machiguenga).
Bolivia-Guapore.
(Harakmbet; Tacana; Chiriguano; Manasi).
B. Other kinds of demons attack humans.
The Northeast.
Seneca [White Buffaloes dwell underground; a race of dwarfs watch them protecting people from their invasion]: Cornplanter 1938, no.8: 84; Onondaga [horned serpents live underground; Thunders prevent them from coming to the surface; they will come at the end of the world]: Hewitt 1928: 805-806.
Plains.
Wichita [earth is overcrowded; woman bears fours monsters; they grow up, stand in the center of the earth looking in four directions, devour people; flood begins]: Dorsey 1904a, no.55: 291-294.
The Southeast.
Natchez [during the flood all kinds of dangerous creatures devour people]: Swanton 1929, no.1: 214.
California.
Maidu [flood begins, the frogs and the salmons pursue people and eat them; a couple escapes to the hills, present people descend from it; a chief fasts, becomes strong, commands the Creator to banish the waters from the plain; Sacrament valley is formed]: Judson 1994: 70-71.
Great Southwest.
Hopi [during the flood water serpents devour people]: Voth 1905, no.3: 10.
Mesoamerica.
Aztecs: Kohler 1977a [collapse of the sky, jaguars eat people up]: 271; Sahagun in Thompson 1934 [Sun eclipses; Tzitzimitl monsters descend to earth to eat people]: 229; Tzotzil [when Sun eclipses, the chohchohotzo (eagles or great hawks) come down to peck people's eyes; people cover them with wax, it is taken away instead of the eyes]: Guiteras-Holmes 1961: 153, 194; Lacandon: Boremanse [it becomes cold and dark; male jaguars from the underworld and female jaguars from the sky attack people; they are tied to calabash and to copal trees respectively] 1986: 280; 1989: 71; Cline 1944: 108 [big jaguar will put the end to the world and eat it up], 111-112 [jaguars will eat up Sun and Moon or eagles put end to the world]; Davis, Standard 1997 [the giagantic pets of the gods are unleashed; the snakes, eagles, porcupnes, and jaguars descend to earth, grab people in their claws and eat them; Hachakyum decapitates people in Yaxchilan, boils their blood in a huge cauldron, and throws them to the animals; little children are especially delicious; wind, rain, and fire destroy the earth, and in the end nothing remains; eventually a god plants seeds, and the new world begins to grow]: 49; Chorti: Fought 1972, no.27 [if Eclipse catches Sun or Moon, the dead, ghosts and animals attack people in darkness]: 428-429; Chol: Anderson 1957, no.1 [to destroy the world, god sends darkness and jaguars; one man survives, is transformed into monkey]: 313; Whittaker, Warkentin 1965, no.10 [God decides to destroy people, to make the new race; sends darkness and jaguars, all people are killed; one hided inside his house; God teared his head off, stuck it to his bottom parts; a tail grew on the place of the head; man turned into howler monkey; spider monkey descend from the foreigners]: 55-57; Trique [when the world comes to it end, sea serpents come to bite people to death; new race will appear]: Hollenbach 1980, no.42.5: 475.
Lower Central America.
[Sun extinguishes; those who are indoors survive, monsters devour the others]. Guaymi [people do not sleep in the house of the chief; the dead and the evil spirits attack humans]: Constenla Umana 1982 in Margery Pena 1994a: 100; Cuna [people are in their houses; jaguars, flying jaguars, giant snakes, bats and mosquitoes attack humans]: Chapin 1989: 168-169.
Northern Andes.
Kogi [Kogi youths have their first sexual act with an old woman; Sun had it with Selda-bauku; then marries and rejects Toad, Snake, marries Moon;
S. is jealous; every months attempts to eat the Moon; pursues Sun with two other old women; both Sun and Moon have two guardins, one agead, another behind; when
S. gets to eat the Moon up, she descends to earth and devour people]: RD 1985(2), no.4: 33-34.
Llanos.
Yaruro [during the flood huge fish attempts to devour a man and his aunt who have escaped to the mouthain]: WS 1990c, no.7: 26; Cuiva [collapse of the sky, locusts deoculate humans]: WS 1991b, no.9: 32; Sicuani [during the flood people fall from the tree, piranhas devour them]: WS 1992, no.25: 127.
Ecuador.
Colorado [jaguar ate up the Sun and was going to eat humans; the rats were eating up people's knees]: Aguavil, Aviles 1982: 16.
Western Amazonia.
Napo [monstrous snake and hawk killed by twins and transformed into stone revive at the end of the world]: Oberem 1957: 184; Shuar [water monsters devour people during the flood]: Pelizzaro 1993: 146.
NW Amazonia.
Letuama [at the end of the world, wild animals change their nature: big ones become small, small insects become big and destroy humans]: Palma 1984: 101-103.
Central Andes.
Santa Rosa de Rapaz, Cajatambo prov. (Lima dep.) [a poor woman, a highlander (llacuaz) is impregnated; does not know by whom; wise man tells her that two foxes, her sons, will devour the world during a night and a day; after giving birth she has to run away without looking back; she looks back, sees how white fox goes to the see, devours people in the lowlands, they turn to stones and mountains to which we bring coca and alcohol; the black fox goes up to devour the inhabitants of the highlands; woman turns into stone, we bring her coca and alcohol; both foxes come together at the Puna de Lauricocha; one man with his llama survives, comes there, shams dead; hears how the foxes say that now it will be another world where people must suffer more; foxes come to the shore to drink; the man pushes them into the lake, did not let them come out; if these foxes get to escape, the world will be destroyed again; this man is our grandfather]: Ortiz Rescaniere 1980: 55-58; South Coast of Peru (Nazca-Wari vase painting) [anthropomorphic creatures with bird's wings and tails catch and decapitate people; these creatures seem to be counterparts of Tiwanacu/Wari angels that are clearly identified with Mochica animated clubs/shields on Mochica V paintings (Donnan 1972; 1985: 92-93)]: Benson, Conclin 1981: 67; Fung Pineda 1968: 16-17, fig.b; Sonqo (Cuzco dep.) [in time of the world-reversal there will be lightning, wind, earthquakes, amaru serpents will come to chase the Mestizos]: Allen 1995: 93.
Montana.
Shipibo [it becomes dark; huge bats attack people who have to sleep under ceramic pots; (futher text has Christian motifs)]: Gebhaert-Sayer 1987, no.35: 384; Cashibo [flood, darkness; people escape to the mountain; defend against crabs, crayfish, tapirs, forest dwarfs, spirits of the dead who gather at the same place]: Franc et al. 1990, no.4, 5: 78-79, 88; Girard 1958 [few details]: 275.
Bolivia-Guapore.
Tacana [hunter kills too many monkeys; they cut him into pieces, throw them down from the tree; his brother-in-law puts pieces into the basket, carries home; head gnaws the basket, falls out; man buries the head; it emerges from the grave in another world; when it whistles, it is bad day on the earth; person should not whistle or the head comes and devour the people]: HH 1961, no.110: 242; Chiriguano [jaguar that hides himself under the Moon' clothes will come out to destroy the world]: Cipolletti 1978: 51.
Southern Brazil.
Apapocuva [Nanderuvucu drives away the Eternal Bats who eat Sun and Moon; once he will let them to devour the luminaries putting the end to the humans; Jaguarovy (the Blue Jaguar) looks like a dog with a sky-blue skin; sits under N.'s hammock; will descend and devour all people; once he descended already but a boy thrust a burning spear into his throat; J.'s spirit has returned to the sky]: Nimuendaju 1914: 319-320.
Eastern Brazil.
Craho [daylight extinguishes for several years; ferocious animals, mosquitoes, grasshoppers kill people]: Wilbert 1987, no.22: 94-95.
C. Monster is closed up (besides Chiriguano: monstrous feline in a cave). It will come out one day to destroy all the people.
Midwest.
Kickapou [Wisaka underwent a struggle with the evil underworld horned panthers; first they attempt to freeze him to death; two birds in succession come to warn him of coming danger but he continues to sleep in his house; third bird descends to gorge out his eyes;
W. frightens it, it tells the horned panthers that they are not able to kill W.; the panthers make the sea spread around
W. until everything is cover by water;
W. makes a skiff, saves himself; the snapping turtle dives to the bottom, brings up earth;
W. scrapes soil from under its flippers and body; the dove brings twigs; combining the twigs with the soil,
W. makes a tortilla, puts it on water, it spreads, locks the huge horned panthers under this world; the thunderers help to keep them in their place; when the world come to end, the horned panthers will come forth and devour everyone]: Latorre, Latorre 1976: 261-262.
Lower Central America.
Rama [people find a pot of Waksuk (half jaguars, half peccaries), cook food in it; one woman does not eat; at night
W. come; woman cannot awake sleeping people, escapes to an island;
W. devour the essence of people, though the bodies remain; shamans take
W. to the cave, close the opening with a cork made of Anona palistris; when it becomes rotten,
W. will come out]: Loveland 1982: 129-131; 1990: 45-46.
Northern Andes.
Kogi: Chaves 1947, no.11: 486; RD 1985(2), no.7 [Kashindukua puts on jaguar mask, takes a blue stone in his mouth, sees a pineapple instead of a woman, devours her; together with other jaguars continues to eat people; people make a tramp in form of a woman, kill
K. with arrows; put his head and claws into the cave; at the last day
K. comes out, destroys the humanity], 8 [Noana-se is K.'s son, devours women like his father; Bunkua-se clubs him to death; jaguar jumps out of the corpse, joins his father in vace; comes out with him to devour the people]: 43-47.
Western Amazonia.
Napo: Davila 1920, no.2 [a couple of Jaguars kill people; Apostol tricks the male into entering house that turns into rock; Jaguar makes a small opening, other jaguars feed him through it; he comes out at the last day to destroy the people]: 466; Foletti Castegnaro 1985 [eschatology uncertain]: 64, 114; Mercier 1979: 33 [twins make a house in a cave, play there musical instruments; Mother-Puma enters to hear the music and to dance; sits on a banck, sticks to it; the twins close the cave; at the last day Mother-Jaguar comes out to devoure people], 85-87 [chief of Jaguars is Apustulu's dog; eats people;
A. enchains her; at the last day she will release herself]; Oberem 1957 (Quijo): 183-184.
Montana.
Ashaninca (River Campa) [eschatology uncertain]: Anderson 1985: 21-23; Machiguenga: Baer 1984: 250 [giant two-headed jaguar lives in the sky; will descend to earth, multiply, devour everybody], no.9 [shaman's wife sleeps with his brother; he turns into Jaguar, kills both; he and other jaguars kill many people; his younger brother tells his mother to pour pitch into Jaguar's nostrils; big woodpecker, stork, lizard, monkey try to break the pitch; small woodpecker makes a hole, Jaguar remains alive; the younger brother directs him and other jaguars into a cave; the entrance closes up; Jaguar's attendant gives him chickens; when he serves him human meat, Jaguar will come out, destroy humanity]: 446-448.
Bolivia-Guapore.
Chiriguano [two-headed Jaguar escapes from the twins; female Moon invites him to hide under her clothes or in her bag; he eats her producing eclipses; at the last day he comes from under Moon's clothes]: Cipolletti 1978: 50-52; Nordenskiold 1912: 271, 294-295.
Chaco.
Eastern Toba [great darkness was 15 days long; jaguars emerged from under the earth and descended from sky, devoured people; when it was light again, some people turned into anteaters]: WS 1989a, no.67: 98-99.
D. During the cataclysm, monsters deoculate humans.
.52.56.
Mesoamerica.
(Tzotzil [eagle or great hawk; eclipse of the sun]).
Llanos.
(Cuiva [locusts; collapse of the sky]).