Yuri E.Berezkin
AMERINDIAN MYTHOLOGY with parallels in the Old World
Classification and Areal Distribution of Motifs. The Analytical Catalogue
30. The Wrong Choice. .61.62.64.66.-.68.72.
Meeting two women who come together or in siccession, man has to choose one.
A. He catches either the less beautiful or the dangerous one inflicting mishaps for himself or for humans in general.
Western Amazonia.
Candoshi [maid instead of mistress; parrot-women (see motif E9D)]: Metraux, Rivet 1912: 35; Achuar [among two or three parakeets that turn into women hero catches not the best one]: Mowitz 1978: 21-39; Aguaruna [among two stars that descend as two worms to two men, the beautiful one is thrown away and the other is married]: CG 1979, no.19, 19a: 221-225.
NW Amazonia.
Karijona [two vulture-women descend]: Schindler 1979, no.1: 41-42.
Eastern Amazonia.
See motif E9A (Parakana [two misterious housekeepers]).
Montana.
Urarina [the hero does not let go the maid he had caught, despite her warning that her mistress is destined to be his wife]: Bartholomew 1994: 27; Shipibo: Gebhaert-Sayer 1987 [a small boy comes, shoots small fishes, they become big; envious people bury him on the beach with all his possessions; a man with his pregnant wife and two children digs him out; he sends flood, tells them to climb a Genipa tree; wife turns into nest of termites; other people drowned; Sun disappeared for six days; father with children find the cooked food every day; throw genipa fruits down to know how high is the water; on the 6th day it falls on the ground; it dawns; the man descends, his children turn into Huancay birds; the man finds his meals ready; he hides, sees two women coming iun canoe; he takes the one on the bow; she is a servant; the one on the prow is the Sun's daughter, she goes away, marries a Spaniard; Shipibo-Conibo descend from the servant]: 347-349; Roe 1982 [as in Gebhaert-Sayer], no.1: 49-50; Setebo [as in Shipibo]: Bardales Rodriguez 1979: 45-46; Machiguenga [man survives flood on genipa tree; descends to the ground; a boy comes and tells him that two women will ride a canoe up the river; he should take for the wife the elder one who sits on the back and not the younger one on the prow that should be his daughter; he takes the younger, the elder disappears; marries the younger, she bears a girl, disappears; she is the wild manioc; were the man obeyed, manioc would be always available without work; the same boy predicts that now a man comes in canoe; this man brings a calabash that turns into woman; she marries (both men?), people multiply; (the text is claimed to be of Conibo origin)]: Baer 198: 245-246.
Bolivia-Guapore.
Tacana: HH 1961, no.38 [man has cotton field; somebody steals the cotton; man surprise two women; they are sisters Moon and Morning Star; Moon advices him to take her sister but he desires Moon; after the copulation his penis grows long, he carries it in basket; at night penis crawls around in search of women; father of a girl cuts it off when it crawls through the opening in a wall into the house; the cut off part turns into amphisbena, lives in the termite nest; var.2: Moon asks the man to put his penis into the basket, it crawls from it copulating with her; var.3: penis crawls high up, copulates with Moon in the sky; man cuts it off, dies; var.4: every woman and girl cuts her part of the penis when it comes to them; pieces turn into snakes; var.5: first man, then his wife cuts pieces off his penis; they turn into many snakes]: 81-83; Nordenskiold 1924 [Moon and Venus are sisters; steals corn, manioc and other crops from Sun's garden; Sun surprises them; despite Moon's warning, choses her and not her younger sister; his penis grows long, he carries it in basket; Venus comes again to steal watermelons; Sun sends his penis, she takes it for snake, cuts it off; Sun ascends to the sky]: 296-297; Chacobo [Sun and Moon women come to rob fruits, man catches the Moon, is killed (not clear if the marriage with Sun would be more benign)]: Kelm 1972, no.8: 235.
Southern Amazonia.
Rikbaktsa [one of two fish jumps back into the river; this fish would turn into beautiful woman; people descend from the fish that turned into plain woman]: HP 1994, no.1: 31-32.
Chaco.
Angaite [a group of people meet a girl in the forest and violate her despite the warning that they have to take her mother instead of her; they become blind]: Cordeu 1973, no.8: 205-206, 211.
B. When the first woman asks the hero to let her go, he obeys and receives another woman that follows the first one.
.59.62.
Guiana.
Pemon [Sun catches the water woman; she sends him successively other women]: Armellada 1947: 105.
NW Amazonia.
Yucuna [two daughters of sky-god come in succession]: Herrera Angel 1975, no.2: 395-400; Witoto [the river woman sends her sister instead]: Rodriguez de Montes 1981, no.17: 140.
C. Among the two girls, the hero catches the dark-skinned one and lets the light-skinned one escape. See
A.
.61.62.64.
Western Amazonia.
(Achuar [Europeans descend from another parakeet-girl]).
NW Amazonia.
(Karijona [the younger one has the lighter skin])
Eastern Amazonia.
(Parakana).
D. Woman comes by canoe; man catches her and marries her.
.62.66.
NW Amazonia.
(Yucuna [two women in two separate canoes come up the stream]).
Montana.
[As in Urarina; canoe moves in a river]. (Urarina [canoe descends from the sky; man catches the girl who sits in a bow, lets go more valuable who sits in a stern]; Shipibo; Setebo; Machiguenga).