Yuri E.Berezkin
AMERINDIAN MYTHOLOGY with parallels in the Old World
Classification and Areal Distribution of Motifs. The Analytical Catalogue
8. Wooden People. .0.38.40.-.44.55.56.58.59.62.-.64.66.-.68.70.73.
The first people or (the first) woman are made of wood.
Australia.
Dieyerie, Proserpine River [the Moon made males from stone, rubbed them with ash, used a pandanus root as penis, made females from boxwood tree, rubbed them with yams and mud, cut organs with sharp root, used pandanus fruit to produce menstrual cycle]: Waterman 1987, no.430: 37.
Japan.
Ainu [Creator sends Sparrow to ask Sky god how to make a man; he answers that of the wood (willow); then sends Otter to change his decision and tell that of stone; Otter does not come, fishes; Sky god steps on its face in punishment; people are mortal]: Etter 1949: 22-23.
Arctic.
Aleuts (Unalaska) [man wants to have son-in-law but has no daughter; makes a daughter of wood; gives her a female slave who would talk and act in her stead]: Jochelson 1990, no.21: 203.
Subarctic.
Athna [Raven makes people of rock; they are too heavy, the ground goes down; he makes people of brush; they are light, die fast]: Rooth 1971: 343; Tagish [Crow carves first men and women of poplar tree bark]: McClelland 1987: 187; Southern Tutchone, Inland Tlingit [Crow made people of poplar bark, divides into Crow and Wolf moieties]: McClelland 1975(1): 93.
NW Coast.
Kwakiutl [large bird Xolos descends from the sky, takes his bird mask off, makes two men and two women of alder]: Boas 1910, no.27: 369-377; Nootka [see motif B21; Transformer transforms animal people into animals; carves man's and woman's image from a piece of wood, brings them to life]: Boas 1916, no.6: 913.
Coast-Plateau.
Shuswap [old Grizzly Woman lives alone; makes daughter of gum, she melts in the sun; of stone, she drowns; of clay, she dissolves in water; of wood, she is good; is abducted by Trout man; her children return to their grandmother; see motif J24]: Teit 1909a, no.28: 691-693; Thompson [three brothers burn Coyote's wife; send him wives made of birch and alder trees]: Teit 1898, no.II: 44; Lillooet [Coyote has tree branch for a wife; four Bear brothers burn it; cut for him two wives of elder and of aspen wood; tribes with darker and lighter skin descend from them]: Teit 1912b, no.44: 357-358; Halcomelem (Lower Frazer) [Qals siblings (three brothers and sister) travel, transform primeval people; Coyote has for wife a piece of wood with an opening;
Q. make him a real wife of cedar bark]: Boas 1895, no.1: 23; Lkungen (Lummi) [Swetan (the younger of two brothers) makes an image of rotten wood; Xelas (transformer) sprinkles it with water, it turns into woman; Taleqamec tribe springs from Swetan and her]: Stern 1934: 108-109.
Midwest.
Timagami Ojibwa [see motif J39; man carves wife of wood; she asks to close her for three days in wigwam; he peeps before time, she goes away; he goes after her to the sky; wins competitions, is recognized as son-in-law]: Speck 1915d, no.9: 57-62; Kickapoo [Lynx chases Rabbit; he turns into old man, makes two daughters of wood, gives them in marriage to Lynx; in the morning there is but rotten wood in Lynx' bed]: Jones 1915, no.4: 23-25.
Northern Andes.
Yupa [Kemoko tries different sorts of trees; red sap (=blood) flows from one; he carves man and woman from it]: Villamanan 1982, no.1 [makes first two couples of clay; they are bad, he abandons them; woodpecker pecks trees in the forest, blood flows from one], 3 [woodpecker pecks a tree, it bleeds, he reports to Kemoko;
K. cuts the alive trees, two men and two women come from them, Yupa descend from them], 4 [Amoretoncha (=Kemoko) sends woodpecker to get know which tree would bleed; makes a man and a woman from two trees; first they have no genitals]: 6-7, 8, 8-9; Wilbert 1974, no.1 [cuts different trees with his axe; puts figures into the box, commands the woodpecker to sit upon figures; Creator's wife finds alive people in the box]: 75; Muzo [Are comes, carves figures of wood, throws them into water, they turn to the first people]: Fernandez de Piedrahita 1942 [1676](2), lib.7, cap.6: 263.
Llanos.
Guayabero [Kuwoi makes woman of clay, she dissolves in water; of wax, she melt near the fire; carves of wood; futher as in Sicuani]: Schindler 1977a: 223; Guahibo (Sicuani and/or Cuiva) [dissolved person is a man]: Morey, Metzger 1974: 107; Sicuani [culture hero (Kuwai, etc.) carves woman of fragrant tree; calls animals to copulate with her making vagina; Monkey flattens his penis; Fox inserts a twig or a bone into penis, makes vagina]: WS 1992, no.26 [Kuwai], 27 [Furnaminali], 28 [Furna makes a woman of clay, it dissolves when it rains; of wax, it melts under sunshine], 39 [Furnaminali first wife becomes to smell bad, goes away; he makes the new one of wood]: 133, 138, 142, 178.
Southern Venezuela.
Sanema [Omao plans to make people of hard wood; in this case, they would shed skins after bathing in river and rejuvenate; snakes were planned to be made of soft wood and die; his foolish brother Soave brings soft wood to make people; now people are mortal]: Wilbert 1963: 232-233; WS 1990b, no.190: 375-376.
Orinoco Delta.
Warao: Wilbert 1970, no.110 [the first man Haburi produces son without a woman (no details); meets the first woman Wauta, they leave the country in a giant canoe made of wax; the son carves a girl of wood; Indians are their descendents], 120 and 172 [hero marries a wooden girl; birds make her vagina, paint themselves with her blood], 152 [Nahakoboni (He-who-eats-plenty) carves himself a daughter of a plum tree; Sun carries out the marriage tasks; Opistho comus bird deflowers her; her father extracts snake from her vagina; Sun journeys westward, pregnant wife follows him; see motif J16C]: 232, 247-248, 358, 378.
Guiana.
Locono [Cayman makes girl of wood; birds peck her vagina; Sun wants to kill Cayman, he gives him the girl for a wife to spare his life]: Magana 1988a, no.60-61: 107-109; Macushi: Amorim in Lehmann-Nitsche 1939 [after the flood, creator makes woman of clay; her genitals break during the copulation; makes boy and girl of cottonwood, people descend from them]: 12; Soares Diniz 1971, no.2 [see motif J16; Cayman steals fish from Sun's trap; Sun catches him, tears his tongue off, it turns into mazie fish; Cayman promises to give Sun his daughter if he spares his life; has no daughter; makes a girl of tabatinga wood; she enters water, her feet float up, she falls; makes a girl of wax; she puts a jar on her head, becomes to laugh; makes a girl of samaumeira wood, she is good; has no vagina; Sun makes her vagina of banana peel; she gets to the house of Toad and Jaguars, dies; her twin sons kill Toad]: 78-80; Wayana: Magana 1987, no.53 [see motif J9; to save his life, man promises his sister in marriage to Jaguar; she is not willing; he carves woman of wood, she falls from the hammock, is broken; he makes a woman of wax, basket sticks to her back; he paints three women with genipa, sends to the Jaguar, he recognizes the deceipt; the woman is impregnated by Jaguar, goes to his village; takes the wrong path, comes to Opossum; her unborn son tells her to put leaves in vagina before copulation; she goes further, gets to the village of the Jaguars, is killed], 97 [opossum invites her to him; she walks ahead, is eaten by jaguars], 56 [man makes girls of resin, they melt under the sun; of sticks, they are good]: 44, 46; Aparai [Creator makes the first woman of clay, she dissolves under the rain; of wax or resin, melts under the sun; of wood; she is good, evil spirit has stolen her]: Rauschert 1967, no.6: 183-184; Aparai, Wayana [man does not want to give his sister in marriage to Injoliworo; makes Arumakani girl of rotang palm;
I. copulates with her inserting a flute into her vagina; goes away, asks her to follow her with her son after some time; she gets to Jaguars; old Toad woman hides her under a pot; Jaguars come, eat her; Toad preserves eggs, two boys Malakalewa and Warannara and two girls Latukoni and Molokolipo emerge from them; wood hen tell them about their mother's death; they lure Jaguars into the communal house, Mal. turns into rock, crashes them to death; flood begins; both brothers survive in a mortar which turns into palm;
W. transforms old Toad into a duck; girls turn into fishes]: Rauschert 1967, no.8: 184-185; Wayapi [see motif J9; pregnant wife of sky deity gets to the Jaguars; her sons Mayamayali and Wayamakale kill Jaguars, come to their father who is cutting wood at the bank of the sea, chips turn into fishes; he tests them,
W. fails to stand the tests,
Y. says that he is the Monkey's son; makes parrot from his skin, monkeys from flesh; ascends to the sky;
M. makes woman of wood;
W. comes again, copulates with her despite M.'s warning; woman turns into hard wood, W.'s penis becomes long, he carries it in a basket; comes to the village, dances with all women while the men sleep; women disappear in an underground hole; pet parrot and monkey take off their skins, prepare the food while men are on hunt;
W. returns from the hole; a woman cuts his long penis off; a part remains in vagina, falls into river, turns into eel]: Grenand 1982, no.5: 67-72.
NW Amazonia.
Karijona [Kuwai hears laughter from a fragrant tree; carves a woman; makes vagina inserting monkey's tail; Vultures abduct her]: Schindler 1979, no.3: 70; Cubeo: Goldman 1963: 147-148; Andoque: Landaburu, Pineda 1984: 49; Witoto: Preuss 1921, no.2 [girl rejects suitors; Sikire Buneima (
B. are mythical water creatures) impregnates her when she sits on a trough; comes to her as a youth, takes her underwater, sends back; she gives birth to a child who turns into huge tree; all crops are on its branches, its roots are edible; she cooks them putting under her knees and into armpits; people do not eat anymore powdered stones, white clay, rotten wood; come to cut the tree; Nofuyeni tries Toad-axe, it does not fit; gets Red Parrot-axe from his grandfather, fells the tree; chips fall to water, turn into fishes; carves woman of bigger chip, Hitoma (Sun) marries her;
N. turns into Hawk, ascends to sky]: 170-188, 203-204.
Central Amazonia.
Mundurucu [Karusakaibo's son is killed by wild pigs; calls his father,
K. sees but two trees; carves a doll but the only human trait he gets are the ears, orehla de pau fungus; throws this doll out, makes another, it turns into handsome boy; see motif F34]: Murphy 1958, no.2: 73-74.
Eastern Amazonia.
Urubu [Mair carves first man and woman of red wood]: Huxley 1956: 150; Tenetehara [Maira carves wife of tree trunk; makes her pregnant, goes away; after some time she follows him; see motif J1]: Nimuendaju 1915, no.1: 282.
Montana.
Machiguenga: Baer 1984: 188, 242 and 244 [Tasorinchi makes people of soft balsa wood, tells that they will be immortal; people do not like this wood, answer that they want to be mortal; some non-human beings are made of hard wood, are immortal], 425 [people made of soft wood die soon; of hard, live longer].
Bolivia-Guapore.
Tupari [Waledad carves wife of wood, cuts vagina with a tooth of aguti, paints it red, puts a stick for clitoris; Wap asks to make wife for him too; Waledad makes a woman who has no vagina; Wap fails to copulate]: Caspar 1985: 191.
Southern Amazonia.
[Man promises dauthers in marrige to Jaguar; girls refuse to go; he makes five wooden girls, three of them die on the way to Jaguar's house]. Trumai: Murphy, Quain 1955: 73; Mehinaku: Gregor 1985: 46; Waura: Schuiltz 1966: 25; Kamaiura: Agostinho 1974, no.1, 3: 162, 172; Munzel 1973: 17-22; VB 1973: 57-58; Kalapalo: Baldus 1958: 47; Kuikuru: Carneiro 1989: 5; VB 1973: 72-74; Bakairi: Steinen 1897: 323-324.
Eatersn Brazil.
Suya [chief of Jaguars makes two girls of wood, marries them; one of them spits algodon spinning; her Jaguar mother-n-law breaks wind, thinks that her sister-in-law spits in disgust, kills her; Jaguar extracts two twin boys from the dead woman's belly; they are Mburu and Mbudro; they kill the Jaguar olf woman with a stone, burn her corpse; a bone flies off breaking Mburu's nose; Mburu is the father of Indians, becomes the Sun; Mbudro is the father of white men, becomes the Moon]: Frikel 1990: 17-18.
South Brazil.
Ofaie [Sun makes a man but he cannot nurse children; makes a woman of wood]: Nimuendaju 1914: 377.
A. Cayman makes wooden girl, gives her in marriage to the Sun.
.58.59.
Orinoco Delta.
(Warao, no.120).
Guiana.
(Locono; Macushi).
B. Person gives a false daughter or sister in marriage making the girl of wood.
Midwest.
(Kickapoo [Rabbit gives wooden daughters to Lynx]).
Guiana.
(Macushi [cayman promises daughter to the Sun, gives wooden girl]; Wayana, no.53 [man promises daughter to the jaguar; wooden girl is broken, he has to send real one]).
Southern Amazonia.
[Man promises dauthers in marriage to jaguar; girls refuse to go; he makes five wooden girls, three of them die on the way to Jaguar's house]. (Trumai; Mehinaku; Waura; Kamayura; Kalapalo; Kuikuru; Bacairi).