B116A. Knowledge is stored in the stomach.. 21.22.24. (.25.) .26.27.29.33.34.

A person or animal eats a sacred book or its remnants. During the ritual, this knowledge is actualized in oral speech, in the sounds of a musical instrument made from a part of the animal's body, or in parts of the animal's body used for divination.

Gurung, MRU, Kachins, Karen, Palaung, Muongi, Sarawak Dayaks, (Semangs, Bilaans), Miao China, Qiang, Lahu, Nasi, Kalmyks, Kazakhs, Buryats.

Tibet is the Northeast of India. Gurung [the shaman and lama argued who would be the first to climb to the top of Mount Kailash; the shaman sat on his tambourine and flew, and the llama woke up in the morning and immediately reached the top in the sunlight, a little bit ahead of the shaman; he broke his tambourine in his hearts, so the lamas have two membranes, and the shamans have only a membrane on one side; the shaman burned his books, but heard God's voice: let you burn them, but you have everything you will also have to perform rituals and read texts; then the shaman ate the ash from the burned books, so he retained the necessary knowledge]: Oppitz 2002:96; mru [after creating the world, the creator sends a bull give people important instructions; when the bull comes to the Bengalis, leaves them a book and tells them to weed and harvest three times a year; when the bull came to mra, he became thirsty, he leaned down to drink and swallowed the book; confused the instruction and ordered him to weed three times, but only harvest one crop; for this, the creator hit the bull in the face, since then he has no front teeth; but the creator ordered the bull to be tied to a pole, dance around and then kill the bull; to remember what happened, the bull's severed tongue must be nailed to the top of the pole; the swallowed book is still inside the bull, this is his book ( ruminants' forestomach, Blättermagen)]: Oppitz 2008:13-14; Kachins: Hanson 1913 [When the world is put in order and different peoples are assigned their habitats, Ninggavn wa Magam after building the house On Mount Shayang and the dance grounds on the Sumgan Plain, having reconciled all destinies, he summons the sons of men and informs them that he is now ready to return to his grand central palace. The tribes beg him to stay because they are helpless without him. He cannot satisfy this request, but gives the wild boar fangs and the hornbill beautiful plumage. To help people, he gives every nation a book. The Chinese get theirs on paper; Shan and Burmese books on palm leaves; he also gives paper books to Europeans; and kachins receive a book on parchment. Upon return, the recipient of the Kachin book cooks and eats it to satisfy hunger, or because he thought it was the best way to preserve it. Since that day, the Kachins have not had a written book; great priests and storytellers keep it in their stomachs and repeat it all over major holidays, when it takes three days and nights to say it out loud] : 116-117; Oppitz 2006 (dulong) [only Penggen, the first ancestor of Dulong, survived the flood; the tiger brought him to the heavenly god Mubenge; M. offered his two daughters to choose from; one eye is beautiful because they never did not wash her face, and the other only one eye; she made her own choice, and the other daughter went out to fish; when the couple returned to earth, M. gave them all kinds of cattle and seeds, as well as a book on their skin; on the ground the couple has many children; one day, while playing, they threw the book into boiling water and ate it; the signs in it stuck to their stomachs, so although the dulong now does not have books of their own, they remember texts that should be sung or recited]: 29; Scherman, Scherman 1922 [The great spirit gives writing to Burmese and Shans on palm leaves, Chinese and Europeans on paper, kachin on parchment. Kachin takes a leather document under his arm, sweats, the parchment gets wet, and is hung out to dry over the fire. There rats grab it, drag it into a rice basket and gnaw it. People think about preserving the content of the scripture, starting to soak rice and drinking water. Therefore, every dumsa (priest) still drinks rice vodka before starting to prophesy to absorb knowledge]: 99-100.

Burma - Indochina. Karen: Jolliffe 2016:17-18 [the motif is known to speakers of various Karen languages and dialects, including Kayah], 18 [God has three sons - Karen, Burmese, and Englishman. God asks all three of them to bring food. An Englishman brings delicious meat, Burman brings fruit. The older brother, Karen, brings a small portion of food with a weird sweet and sour taste. God praises him for his intelligence and delicious food, and when he returns to heaven, he asks Karen to go with him; he replies that he is not free and must work on the farm. Then God asks his younger brother, an Englishman, to go to heaven with him. There he gives him two books - a gold book and a silver one. They contain all the knowledge of the world. God tells you to give the first book to your older brother and keep the second one for yourself. The younger brother takes both books and promises to give the book to his older brother. When he returns to the farm, he shows the book to Karen. He works at home, so he puts his book on a tree trunk, and his younger brother returns home. The older brother also steps aside and forgets the book in the tree. Termites eat books and chicken eats termites. To regain access to knowledge, Karen kills a chicken and looks at its bones as if it were a book containing important information. For this reason, karen still use chicken bones for divination. At the same time, an Englishman is reading a book and learning a lot. The elder brother Karen keeps hoping that one day his younger brother will give him back knowledge]; McMahon 1878:143 [In ancient times, God gives the Chinese a book on paper, the Burmese on palm leaves, and the Karen on skin. Chinese and Burmese take care of their books and study them diligently, but the Karen don't value their copy enough, leave it in an unsafe place, the boar tears it into pieces that were then picked up chickens. Karen notes that Chinese and Burmese have gained knowledge because of their familiarity with the book. They come to the conclusion that once the chickens ate their book, they certainly have all the knowledge it contained, therefore, they have become repositories of the lost law, and since then they have been guessing their bones] 143-144 [The Higher Mind honors the Karen of the religious and civil code, which is written on the skin. One day, while the keeper crosses the river, the code is left unsupervised, the dog grabs him and runs away. The dog being chased drops its trophy, but the chicken manages to scrape off the signs from the skin before the owner can get the skin back. Therefore, the Karen respect the feet of ordinary chickens, as they are stuck with sacred signs]; Palaung [the creator of Hulu ("gorlyanka pumpkin") planted calebasses, from which 72 peoples came out, among them are Palaung, Wa, Lili, Bai, Moso, and Han; they came to two towers whose owner told them to go to the creator and get sacred texts; they would have to be read when someone died to find their way to ancestors; they had to cross the river on the way home; Palaung dropped his book into the water, and when he went ashore, put it to dry; the grazing ox ate it, so the cows have a book-shaped stomach; when they saw what happened, the khan turned out to be smarter, put his book in his pocket and it was preserved; only a part was swallowed by the fish; the owner of the towers advised me to cut out wooden fish and knock on during rituals her; Taoist monks do so; wooden fish is a kind of drum]: Oppitz 2008:10-11; Muongs [the Muongs had their own writing; when crossing the river, they put its signs in their mouths and accidentally swallowed; now, if a story needs to be told, it is "extracted from the depths of the abdomen" (when starting the story, the narrator "tries his voice" by making throat sounds)]: Grigoreva 2019:66.

Malaysia-Indonesia. Dayaki Sarawaka [The Creator, by providing language to humanity, gathers the oldest people from different nations to tell them how to use writing. They all receive these written signs, but the Dayaks swallow them; the signs connect to the body and turn into memory]: Roth 1896: CLXI.

(Wed. The Philippines. Bilaan [at first there were three nations - Americans, Muslims, and Bilaans; the supreme deity ordered each of the three nations to send one person to heaven for holy council; peoples obeyed; when the advice was over, all three were given a book for each to carry it to their people; on the way back they had to swim across the river; the American raised his hand with the book high above his head, Muslim tied the book to his head, and Bilaan, entering the water, put the book under his arm; when he swam, the book slipped out and the river carried it away; that's why the Bilaans still can't read or write; that book picked up a white dove; ever since Bilaan is going to do something or go somewhere, he listens first to the bird cooing; she says whether it will succeed or fail]: Rybkina 1975, No. 2:29).

China - Korea. Miao (China): Graham 1954 (Chuan Miao) [Miao and a Chinese man went to the Living Buddha for sacred books and he gave them them; on their way back, both decided to swim in the river; at this time, the Miao book was eaten by Western A cow (a mythical cow or buffalo), and part of the Chinese book was eaten by fish; Miao and the Chinese returned to Buddha; he refused to give new books, but ordered the Miao to pull cowhide on the drum and beat him he was during the ritual, and the Chinese was told to take a wooden image of a fish and knock on it; during the ritual, Miao tells this story]: 129; Oppitz 2008 [the shaman sat in front of a stretcher, on who was deceased, and read texts from the book that should help find the way to the world of ancestors; the shaman left for a while, leaving the book; the ox swallowed it; since then, ox has been killed at the funeral, meat has been distributed among the guests, the skin is pulled over a drum, and a cowhide, consisting of pages of a book, is placed on top; as the drum beats, the soul of the deceased finds its way step by step; a shaman tells the story of the loss of a book; one end of a rope is tied to the deceased's hand and the other to a drum]: 12-13; Qiang [the first shaman goes to the lama and returns with Buddhist books; one day fell asleep and his books were eaten by a sheep; the monkey advised him to slaughter the sheep and pull the skin over the drum; knowledge will come from the drum; therefore, during rituals, the shaman wears a leather headdress this monkey and her skull is also on display]: Oppitz 2008:25-26; lahu (moso) [two shamans, one moso and the other nasi, went to Lhasa to study sacred books; on their way home, they took books are on his skin, but during the blizzard they were without food and ate books; the moso priest drinks alcohol during the ritual so that knowledge from his stomach rises to his head]: Oppitz 2008:22-23; nasi [children the first person was asked by a bat to fly to heaven and bring a book of knowledge from there to treat diseases; the bat received a bamboo jar with 360 books and the heavenly princess told me not to open it; but as soon as the bat reached the ground, it opened the vessel out of curiosity; books scattered and fell into the water, and divination came to different peoples; lamb shoulder blades for divination to Niû-ni; 9 divination laces - to moso; hemp ropes with knots - to Tibetans; divination kauri - to LLâ-bb; chicken legs, whose boiled bones are also guessed, to Lú-lù; fallen into the lake swallowed by a frog, which now has a book on its back; it was shot with a bow by 4 hunters; eight trigrams (ba-gua) were created from its members; the first man learned this heavenly wisdom; trigrams also appear on Qiang drums]: Oppitz 2008:27-28; (cf. yi [during the flood, the deity sends three shamans to teach people; each sits on the back of an ox, and the book is tied to horns; before the water comes down, the books are wet and the shamans hung them to dry on black beech; some of the pages are stuck to the branches, so some knowledge has been lost; during the ritual, black beech branches are stuck into the ground]: Oppitz 2008:14-16).

Caucasus - Asia Minor. Kalmyks: Basayev 2004 [A wise old Kalmyk lives in the steppe. The Kalmyks do not have a calendar for determining the winter period. The old man invents the "Yellow Letter that Instantly Recognizes Any Phenomenon" (a divination book, a calendar that provides information about natural phenomena). After putting the last point, he decides to rest and falls asleep. Suddenly, his kibitka blows away. The sheets of "yellow writing that instantly recognizes any phenomenon" fly in the wind. When they fall to the ground, they cling to the thorny grass and stay lying in the middle of the steppe. Sheep pass by there and eat all these leaves along with the grass. The calendar written on those sheets is printed on the shoulder blades of sheep, which determines the possibility of divination by lamb shoulder blade]: 60 (=Bembeev 2004:120); Basangova 2017, No. 86 [Zaisang will give her daughter to someone who recognizes her among 12 girls; the son of a rich man went from afar to try his luck; stayed with an old woman; she filled the cauldron with water, climbed into it, poured goose feathers on the water and through a pipe from under the water suggested signs; the young man easily found the girl from them; Zurkhachi asked his book who gave the young man the answer; the book revealed that he was a man living in water, with bird wings and an iron neck; Zaisang gave his daughter to a young man, and tore the book and scattered it across the steppe; the scattered leaves were eaten by sheep; therefore, lamb meat became healing]: 165-167.

Turkestan. Kazakhs (Krasnovodsk Oblast of Turkmenistan) [A scientist has a book that answers various questions of life. It, in particular, talks about the eternal life of people (the righteous?). The scientist's opponent is Azrail. The scientist, holding the Book, was sitting in the middle of a bridge over the river, and Azrail approaches him as a human being and inquiring about Azrail's whereabouts. The scientist, looking at the book, replies: "Since Azrail is not in heaven or on earth, he is on the bridge, and therefore it is either you or me. And since I'm not me, you're Azrail." When Azrail heard an answer, he snatched the book from the scientist's hands and threw it into the water. Suddenly, a rising wind carried her down the river and threw scattered leaves ashore. Sheep grazing on the shore ate the pages of the book, and therefore sheep kumalaks (litter pellets) - "good things", items suitable for divination]: Konovalov 1991:156.

Southern Siberia - Mongolia. The Baikal Buryats (Kudinsky) [the first Buryat shaman Bokholi-Khara had great strength, was not inferior to the gods and competed with the lamas, had a written book that he received from Esege-Malan- Tengary; the rich man had no children; BH created a child for him; upon learning of this, EMT sent three winged messengers to bring him the boy's soul; the messengers turned to three lamas and asked spend the night with a rich man, and left the next morning, taking the child's soul with them; EMT put his soul in a bottle that he covered with his right thumb; a shaman came to EMT and asked for the boy's soul to be returned; EMT refused; BH turned into a wasp, stung EMT, snatched his soul and brought it back into his body; EMT became angry with BH, tore his book; cut his tambourine into two parts, reducing its strength, then four more, and Finally, eight parts, which reduced the strength of other shamans; 9 sons of heaven came to EMT and said: "We need him because we fire nine arrows on the ground every day, which he sends back to heaven"; EMT let BH go to the ground: 9 sons of heaven sent 9 arrows and 9 arrows to lamas; BH's book was eaten by a ram; BH stabbed a ram, took a shovel and saw everything there; that's why today's shamans are bewitching on the shoulder blade ; BH raised 9 arrows back to the sky and 9 Lamas, and the lamas only half read the book; EMT ordered BH to ride on the black stone until the stone or himself was erased; if BH was erased before the stone, it will be gone, and the shamans will be bad; if the stone is erased faster, BH will come to earth with the same strength; BH wore the unbearable iron boots he received from Zayan-Sagan; still jumps on a rock, it's worn off to half]: Boholi-Hara 1880:89-90.