B2f1. Buried in the head .12.14.17.23.27.
(While the earth is not yet available or it has not hardened), the bird buries the dead in its body, usually in its beak or head, which explains the unpleasant smell or origin of the crest, bloating beak, etc.
Baule, Western Dan, Gbandi, Mano, Ashanti, Igbo, Yoruba, Bini, Sorco, Moroccan Berbers, Arabic Written Tradition (Mecca, Palestine), Ancient India, Ancient Greece
West Africa. Gbandi [all animals gathered for a multi-day celebration, which ended with three old men named Toad, Snail, and Rhinoceros; the next day, the dying chief called all the animals and asked them to choose a new leader; since the Toad, the Snail and the Rhinoceros were the oldest, they decided to choose which one was older; each claimed it was him and to resolve the dispute was Judge appointed; Toad: so old that he saw a time when the world was covered with hills, evil spirits lived in the depressions between them; Toad was forced to jump from one mound to another - this is how he learned jump; Snails: When the world was still a ball of soft mud, no animal with legs could exist; the only way to move was by slowly crawling on its mucous belly, and that's This is how the Snail still moves; the rhino bird: it was born before the world was created; there was no dirt, no hills, no depressions, and when one of the rhinoceros died, it was buried in its beak; "Look at mine head, don't you see my mother's coffin there?" . The rhino bird proved that he was the oldest in the world, became a chief]: Pinney 1973:3-5; sorco [in ancient times, Niger belonged to the giant Sallo crayfish, which lay on Safei Island between Timbuktu and Jenna; two Sorcos, Kassum from Jenna and Mai from Timbuktu, argued which of these cities was ancient and which of them owned Niger; decided to organize a river race; M. magically made K. ran into a sharp stone; K. made a hole in the back of the boat (through it the water flowing through the hole back) and magically made M. swim into the river sleeve and the wave painted sand and blocked his return journey; M. cast a spell, the water lifted his boat above the sand and returned him to the river; when Sallo saw this, he promised to swallow M. and K. and blocked their way near Safei Island; M. and K. dragged the boats ashore and went to their cities to warn people of Sallo's anger and find a way to defeat him; Sallo swallowed 120 boats sailing on the river; the oldest of all sorco, Mama Djennepu, said Sallo could be defeated by finding out who is the oldest living person in Niger; Mama Djennepu started asking different animals; pelican: I laid eggs when Jenna was just recently founded; Mama Djennepu: the pelican is old but not enough; the jackal: the corpse of the first person buried in Jenna dug up; Mama Djennupu: the jackal is old but not enough; tommofirri (a small bird, serves for making magic potions {rhinoceros bird?} : When I was young, there was no land, and when my mother died, I could not find a place to bury and buried her in my head; after me, the chameleon is the oldest, because it crawled on the ground when it was still wet; Mama Djennepu: we now know who is the oldest and we can oppose Sallo; Mama Djennepu, M. and K. went to Safei Island, made sacrifices, threw magic remedies into the water They cast spells and asked Sallo if he was alive; he replied: "No"; so Niger came into sorco possession]: Frobenius 1924:155-157; edo [Aluloxi (chameleon) and Owuwu (rhino bird?) began to argue which of them was the chief; Aluloxi said that when he was born, the earth was soft, brand new; Owuwu said that when he was born, there was no earth or sky, so when his father died, he buried him in his head; everyone believed Owuwu and said he was a chief]: Thomas 1920:222 (cf. Baumann 1936:188); baule [smelly Ant, Frog, Chameleon argue which of them got to earth first; Chameleon: the earth was not dry then, I had to move my legs carefully, I still do it pores; Frog: there was no dirt yet, jumped over cracks; Ant: there was no earth yet; mother died, could not bury it, had to carry it, hence the smell]: Himmelheber 1951b: 41-42 (translated in Himmelheber 1960:109-110); Western Dan: Fischer 1967:700 [1) The first creature created was the Rhinoceros Bird; his mother died, he looked for land to bury her, but there was no land yet; he reproached God for creating humans and rhinoceros birds, but did not create land; the rhino bird buried its mother in his head; God came down and created the earth; 2) at first the earth is not covered with forest, like liquid mud, it is impossible to bury the dead in it; the rhino bird buried its dead in its horn], 701 [Xra created the sky, then the rhinoceros birds; their heads were soft; their parents died from the heat of the sun; they were tired of carrying their bodies, the eldest of the birds offered to bury them in his head; God created the earth]; mano [an old woman is buried in the beak of a rhino bird]: Becker-Donner 1965:171 in Fischer 1967:700-701 ; ashanti [animals ask the spider Anansi to decide which one is older; Guinea fowl trampled the great fire, since then the legs have been red; The parrot made the first hammer, knocked on the iron, the beak became crooked; the elephant received long nose, not enough material for others; Rabbit: it was not day and night yet; Porcupine: the earth was soft; A. himself: there was no land yet, I had to bury my deceased father in my own head; A. recognized oldest]: Coulander, Kofi Prempeh 1957:9-11 in Zhukov, Kotlyar 1976, No. 56:132-134 (=Pozdnyakov 1990:44-46); Igbo [=Belcher 2005:286-287; Ogbughu (rhino bird)'s mother died, he could not find places to bury her, buried her in my head, now she grew up; flying over the waters, I saw a man and a woman copulating in the water; they were moving and the earth appeared; the woman merged with the ground, saying that the dead will be buried in the ground; therefore, cultivated plants grow out of the land and bury them in it]: Talbot 1932:25-27; bini []: Baumann 1936:188; Yoruba [Agbigbo {a bird species -rhinos; probably gray toko} was a man and made coffins, which he then brought to people's homes; the person near whose house such a coffin appeared died; one day Agbigbo went to one of Orish {perfume} Ifa to Orunmila; Agbigbo met Eshu outside his house, who asked who the coffin was for; Agbigbo said it was for Orunmila; Eshu asked what he wanted instead of living Orunmila; Agbigbo replied that he wanted a rat, a bird, and an animal; when Eshu gave him these victims, Agbigbo picked up his coffin and went somewhere else; as soon as Agbigbo out of sight, Eshu made sure he could never lower this coffin again; the coffin is still on Agbigbo's head (according to Wande Abimbola's comment, it's a tuft); Agbigbo is making sacrifices to he did not approach people with his burden]: Abimbola 1977:88-93, 162 (paraphrased in Belcher 2005:98); Bascom 1980 [Agbigbo (rhino bird) was making coffins in the forest; he was approaching the royal doors houses and kings were dying; when Agbigbo set out to kill Orunmila, he went to the soothsayers; they told him what sacrifices to make; Agbigbo carried the coffin on his head and Eshu made sure that he he attached himself to it; Agbigbo tried to shake it off in vain; he stayed with a coffin on his head]: 574-577.
North Africa. The Berbers of Morocco (Tafraoute, southern Morocco) Hoopoe was a loving son; when his mother died, he could not bury her in the ground, but began to carry it on his head; it is his crest; so the hoopoe smells bad]: Thay Thay 2001, No. 92:108-109.
Western Asia. Arabic writing tradition. The data was collected by E.N. Duvakin. Palestinians [Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008): 'Do you know, hoopoe, what kind of crown is on your head? The hoopoe replied: This is my mother's grave. When I fly carrying secrets and news, my mother is a festival on my head (When I fly carrying secrets and news, my mother is a festival on my head...)]: Darwish 2009:90; Saudi Arabia [Umayya b. Abi 'L-śalt, a contemporary of Muhammad, comes from the vicinity of Al-Taif from the Thaīf tribe, affiliated with the Meccan aristocracy (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umaiya_ibn_Abī_s-Salt). Umaya dedicated one of his poems to a hoopoe: when it was raining and it was dark from the clouds, he wrapped his dead mother in a shroud, looked for a place to bury her, and finally buried her in the back of his head; Therefore, in the 9th century AD, Ibn Hutayba wrote that a hoopoe has a tuft and smells bad (van Leeuwen 1902:267; Kunstmann 1994:205-206).
South Asia. Ancient India [{the material was collected by E.N. Duvakin; Elian, late 2nd - early 3rd centuries; I heard that the Indian hoopoe is larger and more beautiful than what is found in our country; the Indian king wears it on with his hand and enjoys its sight; the brahmanas (Brahmanas) tell the following legend about this bird: the Indian king had a son; his grown-up brothers became violent and began to commit lawlessness; they looked down on him as if they were the youngest, and their aged parents were mocked; as a result, the father and mother went into exile; the youngest son went with them; during a difficult journey, the parents died; the youngest son did not leave them - he split his head with a sword and buried his parents in himself; the all-seeing sun admired this act and turned him into a hoopoe; a crest appeared from the crown, a reminder of expulsion; Elian then says that the Athenians tell a similar story, and quotes a fragment about a lark from Aristophanes's Birds { Aristoph. Aves. 471-475}; according to Elian, this fable spread from India]: Ael. Nat. Anim. XVI. 5 (Greek original and English translation: Aelian 1959:264-267)].
The Balkans. Ancient Greece {material collected by E.N. Duvakin} [Perry 1952, No. 447; the lark is born before earth; the lark's father dies; the lark thinks for four days where to bury him; buries him in his head]: Gasparov 1968, No. 362:169; [fable attributed to Aesop in The Birds by Aristophanes (staged in 414 BC); Pisfeter, addressing Hoopoe: "Because you are stupid, and grew up ignorant, and did not read fables Esopa, /And Esopa teaches that skylarks were born first. /He was older than Earth. Then his father fell ill, fell ill and died./And the Earth did not exist yet. The dead man lay there for four days. Lark, /Confused and embarrassed, buried his father in his own head/that's what!" (per. Piotrovsky)]: Aristoph. Aves. 471-475 (Russian ed.: Gasparov 1968, No. 362:169; Aristophanes 2000:406; English ed.: Perry 1952, No. 447; Townsend's edition of the fable has an ending explaining the origin of the crest (Townsend 1867: 192), but Aristophanes has no explicit etiology); [Babry's fable (2nd century), known from the Second Babriev Collection (Mynas' manuscript L): "Aesop told us this parable: /Of all the birds The lark was the first/In the world, he is older than the earth itself/ But then it happened that his father was dark/Suddenly he fell ill and crossed the line of life/And since there was no land in the world/That son had nowhere bury the body/And the lark only on the fifth day/Made a grave in his father/He tells us piety to bury the dead/And honoring parents is /Covenant, by nature itself since ancient days this" (trans. M.L. Gasparov)]: Gasparov 1962, No. 2:165 (Greek original: Bergk 1868:290; discussion of the authenticity of the manuscript: Bergk 1868:XXXII-LIX; Gasparov 1962:252); [Galen's "The Book on Simple Medicines" (c. 129-216) .): some believe that the epithet pithumβidioi, used by Theocritus in relation to larks (Id. VII. 23), there is an allusion to Aesop's fable by Aristophanes, since pithumb, as they say, is the equivalent of ti ti & # 8056; n tμβon ts kefalalas (i.e. the lark is described like a bird that carries a grave or burial mound on its head)]: Gal. De simpl. med. fac. XI. 1.37 (Greek original and Latin translation: Kühn 1826:360-361); [similar interpretations are found in similarities to Theocritus]: Ziegler 1867:53; van Leeuwen 1902:268; Dijk 1997:251 {for this reason in Theokrita's modern publications sometimes translate as "tomb-crested", although it would be more accurate to "tomb-haunting" (Dijk 1997:251-53)}.