Yuri E.Berezkin
AMERINDIAN MYTHOLOGY with parallels in the Old World
Classification and Areal Distribution of Motifs. The Analytical Catalogue
3. The Lightning Weapon. .19.23.42.-.44.46.48.-.53.55.-.57.59.-.62.64.65.-.68.70.71.74.
The lightning (and thunder) is (produced with) a special object (axe, sword, mirror, belt, stones, skin, etc.) in hands of anthropomorphic being.
Australia.
Wikmunkan [Taipan the rainbow serpent is a very great medicine man; possesses a big red stone knife at the end of a string, and when angry he throws it to strike a tree, which causes lightning, and then drags it back over the ground making a rumbling noise]: Roheim 1945: 196.
India.
Garo (Assam) [Goera (the Thunder) makes exercises with his sword, lightning is the flashing of the sword; formerly
G. lived on earth, slew monster pig with his sword]: Playfair 1909: 88.
NW Coast.
Bella Coola [four brothers hunt mountain goats, get to see a man with a weird face who produce thunder and lightning stricking rock crystals; one is killed with lightning, two die, the fourth teach how to make Thunder mask]: McIlwraith 1948(2): 209-210.
Coast-Plateau.
Quinault [see theme K27; Sisemo marries Thunder's daughter; Thunder demands to get lightning from the Underworld; local dwellers play ball with it;
S. turns into something, no one knows what, steals the lightning); Thunder extinguishes with rain the pursuers' torches; puts lightning under his arms, gives pieces to all birds and animals who are painted red]: Farrand 1902, no.9: 113-114; Modoc [five Yaukul (stone people) brothers kill men, enslave women; make five Tcpun brothers hunt for them; orphan boy Goshgoise (Rabbit, the T.'s nephew) meets one of
T. who tells him that
Y. killed his father and other kin; his grandmother gives
G. lightning-spear which breaks stones, covers his body with five kinds of rock;
Y. old woman commands
G. to give her his weapons, he does not react; when the eldest of
Y. brothers comes,
G. cuts his head off with his spear; this way four
Y. are killed;
G. gives the
T. spears,
T. help him to overcome the youngest of the Y.;
G. transforms
Y. and their mother into water fowl who eat dead fish; marries their sister, liberates his mother and other women; to overcome five Kaudokis brothers (they are also bad, enslave women)
G. asks mole to dig holes aroubd;
K. fall into them,
G. kills them, transforms into worms, marries the eldest K.'s wife, liberates other women; old man Juljulcus has a son and a daughter, the son kills daughters' husbands; mole digs a hole, brother falls into it,
G. kills him, transforms into cricket; old J.'s spear is the little lightning,
G. exchanges lightning-spears with him; with it he kills fire-people, gives his short lightning to Darkness in exchange for his daughter; transforms him into darkness to be used when people go to sleep]: Curtin 1912: 169-182; Yakima [thunder is caused by a great bird flappings its wings in a storm-cloud; lightning is flint darts that the bird thrusts againsts objects of its wrath]: Hines 1992, no.19: 65-66.
Midwest.
Winnebago [evil chief tells his sons to kill a young man; Thunders are enraged, wander the earth striking it with their clubs and in this manner created the valleys and ravines; the evil chief and his son fled for safety into the underworld and became earthworms]: Smith 1997: 100-101.
Plains.
Mandan [see motif K39; two hunters marry Thunder's (=Bald Eagle) daughters; father-in-law cannot kill serpent, giant beaver, red rabbit; hunters do it rather easily; return to earth, receive lightning-clubs]: Beckwith 1938: 57-62; Skiri Paunee [see motif B5A; the Power of the Morning Star is in the bed of flint on which he stands; and the Morning Star gave to the Evening Star his Power; to the Evening Star helongs the Powers of the West, the Power of the Storms is here; but into the Storms the Morning Star put his Power of Flint, and placed it in the clouds to strike as lightning from the rainstorms]: Chamberlain 1982: 25.
California.
Pomo: Barrett 1933, no.25/IV [youth makes first for himself, then for his younger brother and his sister a belt, a head-dress and other things to produce lightning; they ascend to the sky; the elder brother goes south, the younger north, the sister east], 39 [man is angry when his sister and her husband do not give fish to his son; descends to the ocean,becomes Thunder; when moves any part of his body it thunders; under his left arm, he keeps a square crystal; when he takes this out and moves it around, it makes the lightning]: 134-135, 188-190; Chumash [girl goes to bathe; Thunder comes to her holding a tokoy in his hand; tokoy is with that he makes the thunder]: Blackburn 1975: 105.
Great Basin.
Ute [when they observe lightning and thunder they say Tov-wots is shooting at the clouds to make them rain]: Powell 1971: 78.
Great Southwest.
Hopi: Stephens 1929, no.5 [virgin bears twins from Sun and Rain; they visit Sun; he tests them, recognizes as his sons, suggests to take presents; they reject ornaments, take bow and arrow, and resilient lightning], 6 [kill monsters with this lightning]: 10-13, 15; Zuni: Cushing 1901 [Ahaiyuta and Matsailema live with their grandmother; steal two lightning-clubs from the rain gods, play with them producing rain; grandmother drowns; they bury her, pepper grows from her heart; rain gods punish the twins' father Centepede making him small]: 175-183; Handy 1918, no.13 [two war gods uyuyewi (the elder) and matsailema (the yonger) live with their grandmother; come to the house of rain-makers, play with lightnings and thunder-stones, take them home; angry rain-makers send rain, grandmother drowns, brothers throw their lightnings off]: 462; Keres (Sia) [the thunder people have human forms, with wings of knives, produce thunder by flapping these wings; lightnings are arrows shot by the lightning people]: Stevenson 1894: 38; Navajo: Burlin 1907: 359-360 in Edmonds, Clark 1989 [She-Who-Changeth conceives twins from Sun; they come to their father, he gives them arrows of rainbow, of sunbeam, of lightning to destroy monsters]: 99-100; Stephens 1930 [Hostin (old man, Creator) goes to the East to Teholtsody's house made of clouds, finds there a big black bow and arrow, also eagle feathers; these uses as Thunder (the arrow for lightning, the feathers to guide the arrow); he and other ancestors fight against each other using lighting arrows]: 91-92; Apache (White Mountain) [girl clibs to the top of the hill, exposes herself to the sun, bears boy Najyenezgan; lies under water, bears another boy Tobatc'istcini; both come to Sun; testing them, he pushes them in with lightning which has sharp spines; they remain unharmed, Sun recognizes them as his sons; they destroy monsters]: Goddard 1919: 93-101.
NW Mexico.
Yaqui, Mayo [black water serpent with horns like a ram produces floods going down the rivers; dwarf shoots the horned snakes producing thunder; rainbow is his bow]: Beals 1943: 64; 1945b: 200.
Mesoamerica.
Otomi [lightnings are souls of women who have died giving birth; they play a small drum which sounds as thunder]: Galinier 1979: 486; Huastec: Alcorn 1984 [three Maams deliver the rain; the
M. of the East is Muxi (San Juan), he is their leader* every year turns from boy to old man; the
M. of the North is lame because of the accident suffered during his study of rainmaking; sacrificed himself to be reborn as an immortal god; the
M. of the West is San Pedro; together the three
M. stride across the sky wielding their machetes and stone axes, and pouring rainwater from their water gourds (xomom)]: 58-59; Stressner-Pean 1952 in Mendelson 1967 [lightning gods Mamlab drive clouds from East to the mountains with their lightning machete or axes; hurry to meet thei wives frogs]: 406-407; Coastal Totonac [twelve Thunders adopt an orphan boy; warn him agains opening their box; he opens, puts on their clothes, takes weapons; storm begins; they pursue him, tied up under the ocean; he asks if it is Saint John's day today; people answer, No; if get to know the day, he would release himself, destrow world with a flood]: Williams Garcia 1954: 77; Sierra Totonac: Ichon 1969, no.III-10 [see motif K27; Crocodile wants to swallow the boy; he asks him to open his mouth, cuts his tongue off, divides into four pieces, puts them into four reeds with water foam, they turn into lightnings; boy gives them to Thunders, tells to produce thunderstorms and heavy rain (there were no clouds before); boy is Corn, revives every year]: 63-69; Kelly 1966 [Thunders produce thunder by blows from their sword and the flash is the lightning]: 397; Gulf Nahuatl, Popoluca [man hunts a deer, deer asks him to grasp his tail, leads to the cave of Thunders; Thunder's wife shows him rain clothes, thunder and lightning swords, frogs and toad who would produce flood if being touched; he puts on the cape, takes the sword, touches the frogs; storm begins; Thunder turns him to one of the Thunders, throws to the sky; this Thunder defends people]: Munch 1983a: 169-171; Yucatec [during the ceremony five Chacs are represented by men carrying on pumpkin shell full of rain-water and a wooden machete with which to produce thunder and lightning; the highest Chac is in zenith, other in the cardinal directions: E: white, N: red, W: black, S: yel.]: Villa 1969: 171; Kekchi [see motif A3; Thunder seizes his axe, pursues future Sun and Moon]: Dieseldorff 1966 in Van Akkeren 2000: 234; Kekchi, Mopan [windbag, calabash, drum to make wind, rain, and thunder]: Thompson 1930: 149; Lacandon: Boremanse 1986: 178-179 [Subin lives in the lake; swallows people during the drought; Sun descends, most of the water evaporates; Ah K'in Chob kills
S. striking him with an axe (=lightning), drought ends], 330-331 [Subin (water monster) kills people, who come to take water; produces drought; Thunders kill him with their green axes = lightnings]; Tzutujil [angels (=Thunders) have the right to visit women every fifteen days; one disobeys; takes off his clothes and arms, climbs a tree to eat fruits; snake curls itself around him, sucks his blood with its tail; Angel asks a merchant to help him; he uses Angel's weapon producing lighting; both snake and Angel are killed; the merchant is brought to the kind of Angels; Angel revives; both merchant and Angel are beaten by the king]: Mendelson 1958, endnote 5: 125; Mocho [see motif G3; people seek for corn everywhere, cannot find it; send flee, then dove, both fail; ant finds corn inside the mountain, attempts to carry away; Dueno catches ant with a rope loop, ties, the ant's belt becomes narrow; ant says that he is from the other world, asks to let him free, comes to Rey, reports where is corn; Rey asks Red Thunder to break the mountain; Thunder comes with his axe, breaks the mountain; ants carry corn to Rey; people get corn; Thunders come across the air producing thunder with axes which they hold in hand]: Petrich 1985b: 159-169; Zoque [woman dies, her husband takes another wife, her son Pedro weeps; Thunder takes him to his place; tells to prepare food, to put one measure of beans,
P. puts two, cooked beans pour out of the pot; the same with other foods; he puts on Thunder's clothes, comes to where Thunder works, Thunder is angry; Toad is Thunder's wife, serves him food, cow's dung is tortillas for her;
P. kills her, makes a drum of her skin; Thunder is angry; People are building a church, cannot rise a heavy log,
P. makes it alone; People are afraid of him, want to kill him; he turns into eagle, now lives on top of Cerro Tres Picos]: Villa 1975: 227-229; Mam [lord of the clouds took a man away to his home; the man sees angels who produce rain running, thunder and lightnings with their flashing swords; the noise of their capes is the storm; later the man put on their capes, went out by himself; rain is too heavy, angels stop the man and scald him; another time they left him home to make supper, having first measured the beans for him to cook; he puts more, they swell, spread over the floor; Angels put them back to earth]: Morales 1977, no.10 in Bierhorst 1990: 116-117; Mixtec [rain people's shrines are caves, they produce thunder beating drums; lightnings are their yuchi (machete; ancient Mixtec word for obsidian knife); obsidian is fossilized lightning]: Monaghan 1995: 108-109; Mixe: Lipp 1991 [during the thunderstorms 'Ene (Thunders) are fighting with each other; pieces of flint, obsidian blades are E.'s weapon]: 29; Miller, Villa Rojas 1956, no.8 [man has a son and a daughter who constantly play with machetes; the old people decide that they could turn into Thunders because it was no rain; they turn, after eight days it rains]: 112.
Lower Central America.
Jicaque [stone axes found in the ground are axes of Thunder]: Chapman 1982: 100; Guatuso [female deity possesses lightning which is tail of a parrot; strikes pregnant women to prevent people from multiplying; is invited to drink cacao; male god asks her to let him look at her lightning; when returned, lightning hits only trees]: Constela Umana 1993, no.8: 153-156; Bribri [thunder is God's rifle; he hunts quetzals to give them to little grandmother, his thunderbalt falls on the ground or in a tree; when it falls on the nest of zompopas, it means that he kills zompopera snake]: Bozzoli de Wille, Murillo Chaverri 1984, no.8: 11; Eastern Panama (Cuna?) [Thunder sticks in blackberry bush; hunters release him, take to their house; he produces thunder with split reads, lightning emerge from his mouth; disappears]: Adrian de Ufelde in Casimir de Brizuela 1972: 127-128.
Northern Andes.
Kogi [Thunder is an angry chief who cuts trees with his machete; rain is his dancing wife]: RD 1985(1): 237; Guajiro: WS 1986(1), no.24 [arrows of the jaguar-men that never missed their aim; jaguar-men cannot hit the pupils of the man in the moon, turn into jaguars], 97-99 [Rain steals lightning and thunder being in the possession of Howler Monkey]: 60, 260-285; Guambia [naked old man in the clouds throws his golden staff to the ground producing lightning; it returns to him by itself]: Hernandez de Alba 1965: 99-100; Paez [Thunder gives to Llivan his spearthrower; it produces thunder and lightnings;
L. kills enemies Pijao; his mother and sister dio not get to hide, are killed too; he revives them; turns into Thunder]: Nachtigall 1955, no.3: 294-297; Sibundoy (Kansa + Ingano) [sling is Thunder's weapon]: McDowell 1989: 178-179.
Llanos.
Sicuani [hero and his men ascend to sky on chain formed by their arrows; meet Lightning; exchange his lightning staff for a wooden copy; defeat Lightning in fight, remain in the sky]: WS 1992, no.14, 16, 44 [little boy asks his grandmother to bathe him in a basin; this way starch is produced; people invite the boy to bathe in the river, collect the starch; boy is angry, tells his grandmother to be alert and hear the big noise; she falls asleep, only Kinkajou hears the noise and knows where Kaliewirnae tree grows; all kinds of edible fruits grow on it; Chamani (the lizard) makes Kinkajou vomit, people get know that he eats secretly; Agouti fails, Paca follows Kinkajou across the river, fights with him, finds the tree; Ch. asks Palamekune to give axes; he refuses; is given drug, vomits tools (=birds' beaks);
P. gives people bundles with mosquitoes; those who opened them turn into capibaras; people chop Kaliewirnae's trunk which is of manioc but its heart is hard; in the morning the trunk is intact; to work day and night people need fire-drill; Cayman has stolen it; frogs lure him to come, people open his belly, get the drill; tree is held above by a vine; a bird fails, Squirrel gets to cut it; a branch with peach palm fruits falls into water; Tapir tries to conceal it for himself, people find it; after felling of Kaliewirnae people are mortal; Ch. puts them to dance to become light and enter the other world; Ibarruuwa old woman breaks sex tabu making love with Cayman; to call her lover she puts calabash face down on the water and strikes it; people kill the lover, make
I. eat his penis; angry
I. makes Ch. to be devoured by a fish; his brothers make rapids on the river to stop the fish, resuscitate Ch.; people shoot arrows, only a virgin girl gets to hit the sky, makes the chain of arrows; Ch.'s people ascend to the sky as termites; Yamahene the Lightning lives there; Ch. replaces his weapon with a fake;
Y. cannot kill them, they kill him; his wife orders ants to put his pieces together again; Ch. and
Y. make piece; people continue to climb the arrow ladder; bat cuts it, they fall, turn into turtles, parrots]: 80-81, 90-91, 191-199.
Southern Venezuela.
Makiritare [Thunder's son-in-law substutes lighting cane with a fake; when Thunder is going to kill his him, he burns him himself with the lightning; becomes the new Thunder]: Civrieux 1960: 180-185; 1980: 92-93.
Guiana.
Pemon [man marries daughter of Thunder; Thunder demands to prepare the garden plot before his return (birds fulfil this and other tasks); man replaces Thunder club with a fake; man's younger brother turns into tapir, Thunder kills him; man puts brother's heart into a pot, it turns into Mochima cannibal bird; birds kill
M. with curare arrows; its feathers turn into bid earthworms; reeds to make blowguns grow on its grave]: Armellada 1973, no.15: 59-61; Taulipang [Thunder is armed with a club]: Koch-Grunberg 1923: 263; Wapishana [Tuminkar fights with thunder and lightning as his weapons against giant Baukur; bounds him to the sky, he turns into Orion, continues to shoot his arrows in form of meteors]: Farabee 1918: 101, 107 (cited in Goeje 1943: 40); Ogilvie 1940 [as in Farabee; T.'s weapons are falling stars, B.' weapons are lightnings;
T. throws a mountain, breaks B.'s thigh, he turns into Orion]: 68; Kalina [Thunder is an army of warriors, who smash their enemies' heads with flashing clubs]: Goeje 1943, no.b19: 41; Aparai [Apotolo dances all night; women refuse to dance with him; his club becomes lightning, women and he himself are killed; his brother-in-law Schikopuli takes this club, comes to another village, help Aparai to destroy their Wayapi enemies; on the way home a man wants to wash the club in a spring; it turns into electric eel]: Rauschert 1967, no.20: 191-192.
Ecuador.
Cayapa [thunders are husband and wife with blue wings; their flapping causes the thunder; lightning is a swordlike weapon carried by Thunder; Thunder is angry to people during the rainy seasons]: Barrett 1925: 360-362; Colorado [Thunder is a Negro; drinks tobacco jouce, becomes drunk, walks, runsm throws his spear (epee au cote; ligtning)]: Wavrin 1937: 517.
Western Amazonia.
Secoya [thunder mace; hero makes a copy, gives it to Thunder instead of the original]: Cipolletti 1988, no.4b-c: 53-55; Napo: Foletti Castegnaro 1985, no.1e [twin brothers come to the sky, play with bows and arrows producing lightnings; the younger Cuillur shoots to the greater distance; Thunder is angry, shoots him, he falls to earth; the elder Duciru looks for him, picks up tree fungi;
C. cries, fungi are his ears;
D. extracts him; they ascend to the sky again, become Morning and Evening Stars]: 71; Wavrin 1937 [Thunder hunts big serpents and caymans; during the thunderstorm, throws his harpoons]: 524.
NW Amazonia.
Baniwa [see motif F38; female ancestors steal sacred flutes; male ancestors overcome them using weapon that is thunder and lightning]: Saake 1958: 276; Tariana [while Thunder is asleep, brothers replace his powerful mace with a weak one]: Bruzzi 1994: 131-132; Macuna [as in Tariana, but one hero]: Trupp 1977: 50-56; Barasana [as in Tariana]: S.Hugh-Jones 1979, no.2E: 269; Desana [lightning is a) a glance the Sun casts upon the earth; 2) the product of a paye (shaman) who throws his quartz cylinder at an enemy]: RD 1971: 98; Bare [thunder ear-plugs]: Pereira 1980(1): 265-268; Kabiyari [as in Tariana; replace mace with feathers of a parrot]: Correa 1989: 49-50; Tucano [thunder ear-plugs]: Pereira 1980(1): 265-266; Andoque [as in Tariana]: Landaburu, Pineda 1981: 57-63; 1984: 60; Witoto [brothers take male thunder mace away, leaving only female mace to the Thunder]: Pereira 1980(2) [mace and mirror]: 496; Rodriguez de Montes 1981, no.23 [mace]: 206; Urbina 1986 [mace and mirror; replace mace with a wooden imitation]: 59; Yagua [see motif J4A; Orphan revenges on his mother whose brothers have eaten his father, she took part in the meal; he produces thunder and lightning with his eel staff, his mother is split in two, he buries the parts in two holes, every one turns into frog; now during the thunderstorm tadpoles lose their tails and turn into frogs]: Powlison 1993, no.15: 96.
Eastern Amazonia.
Urubu [see motif J9; Mair goes away from his pregnant wife; she follows him, comes to Opossum (Mikura), begets Mikura-mimi (Son of Opossum); Mair-mimi is offended, does not show her way anymore; she comes to the Jaguars, is eaten up; her sons kill the Jaguars come to M.; he gives them bows and arrows; they are angry because
M. has abandoned their mother, throw the bows and arrows into the woods, they turn into snakes;
M. tests the brothers; 1) to take a bait from Anyang's hook; Mair-mimi takes the bait off, pulls A.'s line for fun; Mikura-mimi takes the hook into his mouth, is pulled out, eaten up; Mair-mimi turns into ant, finds his bones, revives; 2) to come to Grandfather-Wind; they come to his house, Mair-mimi tickles his wife, Wind hears her laughter, blows, tree falls on the brothers, Mikura-mimi is killed, Mair-mimi revives him; 3) to walk between moving grinding stones; Mair-mimi goes through, Mikura-mimi is crushed; Mair understand that he is not his son, sends brothers back between stones; Mikura-mimi is crushed again; Mair-mimi is angry, ascends to the sky, taking the stones and producing now thunder with them; Mikura-mimi follows him]: Huxley 1956: 217-220.
Central Andes.
Huamachuco (La Libertad dep.) [Ataguju creates Guamansuri (Huamansuri) sends him to Huamachuco inhabited by Guachemines (Huachemnes); they make him work their fields for them; Cautaguan is Guachemines' sister, Guamansuri seduces her; Guachemines burn Guamansuri, ground his body to dust, the dust rises up to the sky to A.;
C. bears two eggs, dies; eggs are placed in a dung heap, two boys Catequil and Piguerao hatch from them; Catequil resuscitates his mother, she gives him his father's slings; with them he kills many Guachemines, drives the others out of the province; asks
A. to create new people;
A. tells him to go to Guacat (=Ipuna) hill, dig the people out of the ground there; Guamansuri produces thunder and lightnings with his slings]: Relacion 1918: 19-21; San Pedro 1992 in Topic 1998: 112 [abstract]; Inca and Highland Peru in general: Cobo 1956: 160 in McDowell 1989, in Silverblatt 1990: 15-16 [Thunder in the sky has a staff in the left hand and a sling in the right; is dressed in shining clothes, which give that flash of lightning when he spun about to release the sling; to produce rain, he takes water from the river which we name Milky Way; under the name of thunder they also venerate lightning, rainbow, rain, hail, tornado, etc.]: 178; Polo 1916: 6-7 in Silverblatt 1990 [Chuquiilla, Catu illa, Intiullapa is a name of a man in the sky who holds a sling and a club producing rain, hail and thunder]: 17; Atacameno [Rey Trueno appears during the rainy season; with rain, thunder, lightnings, stone fall from the sky; people ask San Santiago that he should strikes in the clouds with his sling stones producing the rain]: Lehnert 1993: 154.
Montana.
Cashinahua [small people hack the sky with their axes, making the noise which we hear as thunder; they would destroy the sky but celestial ants always fill the cracks]: Capistrano de Abreu: 429 in Metraux 1944: 133-134.
Bolivia-Guapore.
Harakmbet [see motif J16; jaguars kill the woman, her son Marinke kills most of the jaguars; one escapes; jaguars appear again; people ponder about what they should do; Convert into a tree? - They will cut us down; Hide under the ground? - They will stamp on us; Hide in the rocks or in the river? - They will find us; a boy say that they must go to the sky;
M. and other people climbed to the sky which descended for let them do so; they trampled the boy by chance who converted into tobacco;
M. turns into Thunder, uses his club in the sky; throws axe to his grandmother but it hits her, she turns into curassow]: Gray 1996: 118-128; Guarasu [woman suggests her husband to lie in a pit; he falls asleep as if dead; she covers him with leaves, put animal meat above; her sons suspect that their father is in the basket; one of them puts his eye and his saliva on guard, gets to hear and see how their mother asks their father will he die soon; they make four rings of ashes around the house; she falls and dies stepping across them; sons cure their father; want to kill woodpecker; he asks them to give him live, steals gluing oil from the master of the peach palm, smears with it their arrows; they make chain of arrows up the sky, ascend it; father turns into Thunder, shouts scolding his wife; his sons shoot their arrows-lightnings; some lightnings are split because toad's urine dissolved the glue]: Riester 1977, no.3: 226-230.
Southern Amazonia.
Kamaiura [thunder axe]: Agostinho 1974, no.9: 195; Munzel 1973: 130-131, 142-143; Nambikwara [man comes to the strange house; is served chicha of pequi (Caryocar brasilensis); tabua hanging over the entrance produces thunder when the wind blows in it; man runs away; Thunder tells him not to be afraid, makes a hole in his house with his wooden sword]: HP 1983, no.91: 117-118.
Eastern Brazil.
Cayapo [hunter is deprived of his share of tapir meat; makes the first club-sword, paints himself black, ascends to the sky; people's arrows make him no harm; he kills his enemies with lighting flash from his sword]: Wilbert 1978, no.35 [hunter's name is Bekororoti], 36 [Bebgororoti]: 115-119; WS 1984a, no.13 (Pau d'Arco) [Bebo]; 43-44; Apinaye [man is ill, ant crawls into his ear, he becomes cobered by sores, abandoned by villagers; Hummingbird extracts the ant, Vultures bring him to their country; Thunder has club which is thunder and lightning; gives him a similar one; man comes back; the club frightens his wife and her lover with a stroke of lightning; then sends a scorpion who stings them in genitalia, then a swarm of wasps who badly sting them]: Wilbert 1978, no.157: 387-388.
South Atlantic Brazil.
Botocudo [during the thunderstorm spirits shoot burning arrows]: Manizer in Ploetz, Metraux 1930: 210; Kamakan [angry spirits strike fire stones producing thunder and lightning]: Metraux 1930: 270.
Chaco.
Mataco [Tupa produces lighting with a piece of iron and thunder with a mano of a mortar]: Califano 1974: 51.
Patagonia, Chile.
Mapuche [two nephews want to marry their uncle Latrapai's daughters; he demands 1) to cut an oak (usually fire emerges from it; brothers receive an axe from Thunder or wives put fire out with snow), 2) to overthrow a fire stone (wives put fire out with rain and snow), 3) to kill cannibal guanaco (one man is swallowed, cuts monster's heart; brother helps him to come out), 4) to kill a bull (they catch it with lasso of Thunder)]: Lehmann-Nitsche 1929: 49-51; Lenz 1896, no.5: 31-36.
A. Persons steal or receive thunder axe from Thunder to cut dangerous tree.
.62.74.
NW Amazonia.
Steals. See motif K15 (Andoque; Witoto in Urbina].
Patagonia, Chile.
(Mapuche).