B3. Primary swamp. .11.12.23.24.26. (.29.) .32.38.52.

At first, the land is soft, it is a swamp.

Baja, Western Dan, Anyi, Guro, Kono, Gbandi, Baule, Ashanti, Mosi, Mamprusi, Yoruba, Igbo, Sorko, Bhuya, Juang, Mangarai, Fataluku, Koreans, (Ingush: Land Like Vata), Komi, Ainu.

Bantu-speaking Africa. Baja [first a swamp below the sky, a mixture of earth and water; Gbasso ("Big Soul") threw mountains from the sky]: Tessmann 1937:1.

West Africa. Kono [(retold in Beier 1966:3-6); Sâ (Death) lived in an empty dark world with his family; created a plain of mud; the god Alatanga visited him, made the surface hard, vegetation on it and animals, secretly married his youngest daughter S., because S. rejected his open offer; ran away with his wife, who gave birth to 4 white boys and 4 girls, 3 boys and 3 black girls; they became to speak different languages, A. went to S. for advice; he gave white and black the cultural elements they now possess; told whites to marry whites, blacks to black; A. sent a rooster and another the morning bird should ask S. for light; he said that as soon as they sang, the day would come; this is how the sun rose; the moon and stars appeared in the evening; S. demanded every child in exchange for the daughter given to A. he will ask him; so people die]: Holas 1975:29-33; gbandi [all the animals gathered for a multi-day festival, at the end of which three old people came to the settlement; their names were Toad, A snail and a rhino bird; 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 the one who the older of them; each stated that he was the oldest, so a judge was appointed to resolve the dispute; Toad: so old that he saw a time when the world was covered in hills, in valleys evil spirits lived between them; the Toad was forced to jump from one mound to another - this is how he learned to jump; Snails: When the world was still a ball of soft mud, no animal with legs could not exist; it was only possible to move by slowly crawling on the mucous belly, and this is how the Snail still moves; Rhino bird: it was born before the creation of the world; there was neither dirt nor hills, no hollows, and when one of the rhinoceroses died, they buried them in their beak; "Look at my head, don't you see my mother's coffin there?" , The rhino bird proved that he was the oldest of all in the world, became a chief]: Pinney 1973:3-5; baule [Niamye made humans, animals, spirits; everyone lived in the sky; made a circle out of dust, put Nemye in the swamp; this is land, and it is still surrounded by this swamp; when the land was dry, N. sent his wife Assie there, she brought trees with her; N. Anangama made a chain, lowered people and animals to the ground, the last to the rooster; N. went down to earth, sent A. to heaven; her sewage fell into N.'s food; then he called A. to the ground again, returned to the sky never descended; A. lives on the other side of the Nemier swamp, where the Sun descends in the evenings and where the Month lives, also N.'s son; there the earth meets the sky; N. lives just above A., she gave birth to him a lot children, they live in heaven]: Himmelheber 1951b: 13-18 (translated into Himmelheber 1960:35-40); anyi [chameleon and toad argue which one is older; chameleon: when I appeared, the earth was semi-liquid, so until I'm still stepping cautiously and slowly; toad: when I appeared, there were only three mounds, I had to jump from one to another; and when these mounds disappeared into the swamp, the earth looked like you remember you]: Basset 1903, No. 82:198-199 (retelling in Dähnhardt 1910:222); Western Dan [Xra created the land from mud, it was barren, devoid of vegetation; then the forest grew]: Fischer 196:702; guro [the chameleon was the first animal; when it started walking on the ground it was not yet firm, so it has been swaying ever since. Informant Yuan Bi Irie Hubert, Gouraud, was born in 1976 in the village of Gohunfla (east of Goitafl sous-prefecture), recorded in Abidjan; in brief in Benoist 1977: the chameleon is an antediluvian beast, so even now moves with caution]: Kuznetsova O.V., 2009 field materials, personal message 14.04.2016; Ashanti [Onakoupon lived with his family in the sky; the earth was a swamp; O.'s children went down the web there play; O. decided to make playgrounds for the children; told an assistant named Abosum to go down to the ground, gave land, shells and three birds; A. threw a handful of land with shells into the swamp; the birds began to look for grains, to rake the ground, it covered part of the swamps; the shells fell to the shores of the sea and rivers; O. sent Chameleon, who returned, said that the land was dry; O.'s children went down and settled the land; his seven sons became patron spirits of the days of the week]: Anpetkova-Sharova 2010:36-37; Yoruba: Parrinder 1967 [first water and swamp below the sky; The creator of Ol-orun gave the Great God Orisha Nla a snail shell filled with with earth; he poured the earth into the swamp, the Dove and the five-toed Chicken began to scatter it, land appeared; O. sent Chameleon to check; he said that the earth was large enough but still wet; on the second once said that it was dry; the creation lasted four days; since then, four working days in weeks, the fifth was devoted to honoring O.; the first people were created in heaven, sent to earth]: 20; Wyndham 1919 [first below the sky is water and swamp; Arámfè sent his sons Odúva and Orísha to create peace and people; Oruve gave royalty, Oriša a bag of wisdom and arts; on the way down Oduva gave Orisha water, stole the bag; lowered a chain from the edge of the sky, sent Priest Ojúma down it, giving him a snail shell filled with magic sand and a five-toed chicken; he scattered sand on the water, the chicken scattered it with its paw , land appeared, Ife in the center; after that, Oduva and Orisha descended on their own; Orisha began to make people; it was dark; Aramfe sent the sun, moon and fire; fire brought a vulture on his head, so she bald; Oduva, Orisha, and the gods who supported everyone began to fight for the bag of wisdom; Oduva took it away, turning into stone and falling into the underworld; his son Ogun, the god of blacksmiths, became king]: 107- 108; Igbo [the creator of Chukwu (aka Chi) lowered Eri's anthill from the sky on a rope, there was a swamp around; C. ordered the blacksmith to dry the ground; ordered E. to kill and bury his son and daughter, yams grew out of the graves and cocoyam; then E. killed a slave and a slave, oil and coconut palms grew; four people came to E., each with a basket; at night E. let the rat go, she successively began to nibble on the baskets; each time one of people woke up to another, saying Name, a rat chews on your basket; in the morning E. could greet guests by name, they were the four gods who named the four days of Igbo week]: Belcher 2005:287-288; sorco [while the land was still a swamp, the bird buried its dead old people in its beak]: Frobenius 1924:157 in Fischer 197:700; mosi [the chameleon was the first to walk on earth, and because the land was still soft, it moved slowly; although the ground was dry, the chameleon continues to move through the trees and slowly]: Tauxier 1917:507; mamprusi [a long time ago, when the earth had not yet hardened , all living things that lived on its surface moved with caution; they were afraid of damaging the ground, failing and flying upside down from nowhere; only the chameleon did not think about it and ran out from home so fast that everyone was breathless and everyone addressed him with the song: "Gumachua, be careful, /Don't sell the land! /Oh Gumachua, our dear brother,/Don't sell the land!" ; the flattered chameleon took a slow step; now that the earth has long hardened and all humans and animals have forgotten their previous caution, the chameleon continues to walk the slowest because it cannot change your usual gait]: Anpetkova-Sharova 1966, No. 26:45-46.

South Asia. Juang [first a fluctuating sea of mud; an anthill rose from it, Mahesur Rusi from the anthill; he ate forest fruits and rhizomes; met an asur girl; she said she lives alone and not going to eat it; they got married; a Kapila cow lived on Baora Hill; the wife sent MR to bring and slaughter the cow, then the ground would stop shaking and wobbling; when the cow's blood spilled on the earth, the earth was established; the blood turned into a rainbow, it arched over the world, attached to each end with a peg (nail); from the head of a cow; at first MR did not want to eat beef, his wife said, otherwise the earth would not will be established; Dharam Deota gave a digger stick, taught farming, gave clothes from bast and leaves; this is how Juang appeared]: Elwin 1949, No. 18:39-40; bhuya [there were 14 parts water and 7 parts clay, all mixed ; Dharam Deota came out of the water; after collecting dirt on the right side of his body, he sculpted a female doll, on the left side a male doll; he revived it, it was Boram and his wife; at first they are brother and sister, but DD changed their features, sending smallpox, they met and did not recognize each other; they have a son Parihar; the gods created the tiger and sent him to grab P.; the tiger poured ash on P. who had slept and ran away in horror; P. found a sleeping tiger, he also poured ash and ran away; the gods told the tiger to attack when P. went swimming and left his weapon on the shore; the tiger killed P.; his blood spilled to the ground, the ground became hard and reddish; his legs turned into big trees, hands into small trees, hair into grass, bones into rocks and stones, head turned sun, chest moon; moon print on the moon; B. lamented the loss of his son, but DD gave him many more kids (named)]: Elwin 1949, #3:29-30.

Malaysia-Indonesia. Mangaray (western Flores) [at first the earth was soft, flowing, rocks like silt]: Arndt 1931:844; fataluku [at first the water was mixed with the quagmire, it hardened to form the ground; it arose the nahu worm (rather a centipede; in another interpretation, nahu means "mold"), all humans were born from it, and plants from another nahu, and other living things from others; alternatively, a snake seven times she laid seven eggs each, and the eagle sat them; six brothers and sister were born from the first clutch eggs, the others gave birth to various animals and plants; six brothers parted in search of food; the sister found the elder Tchenu-Kukuru, stayed with him; found a tuber, ate it with her brother, then got together with him, gave birth to seven sons, each living on their own mountain]: Azevedo Gomes 1972:47-48.

China - Korea. The Koreans [the daughter of the Lord of Heaven dropped the ring; her father sent a giant strongman to get it; he rummaged through the wet mud for a long time, finally found it; the places where he put the mud became mountains, and then where I dug deep, rivers formed]: Cho 2001, No. 76:117.

(Wed. Caucasus - Asia Minor. Ingush [The earth was formed before God, it looks like an egg and stands on a board, the board on the sea, and the sea in some "darkness". If God wants, he will lay the whole earth in an egg (the uncertainty of the size of the earth). At first, the ground had a soft surface, like cotton wool, so that the foot went deep into the ground. In order for the earth to become stronger, 20 years after its appearance, God created mountains]: Akhriev 1875:8).

Volga - Perm. Komi-Zyrians [zap. P.G. Doronin in 1927, I knew it since childhood); at first there was no earth, no sky, one swamp; two frogs, blind and sighted, climbed onto the hummock; the sighted one was Yong, the blind was cunning Omel; falling off the hummock, turned into human beings; the sighted one broke two teeth, they turned into horns, all living things appeared from a drop of blood, all living things appeared from a drop of blood; and when they fell into hummocks, they turned into humans; the sighted broke two teeth, they became a woman; she became O.'s wife, met in E., O. beat him; E. tamed pigeons, created the sky, created a hole in the center, released pigeons through it; O. vorona, this one for them the hole is small, O. made the other wider, the crows flew into the sky, killed the pigeons, escaped alone; returned to E. with mud; O. sent a crow, he took the mud, E. grabbed the crow by the throat, squeezed it, the mud fell down, formed land; the water that spilled out of his beak was the sea; while E. was away, O. plugged the hole in the sky with the hut in which E. lived; flame burned around the hole; O.'s wife said it was from her silk mitt, gave a flap of her dress to make another mitten, her E. broke the flame; O. sucked the flame; O. from her silk mitt, let a flap of her dress make another mitten, to her E. with her crows and animals fell to the ground; O.'s wife stayed in heaven with E., gave birth to his daughter Yoma and son Wojpel; O. persuaded her to open a hole in the sky, broke in there, threw Y. and V. on the ground (they are the ancestors of people), found a mitten, grabbed half of the sun, but ran into a branch, got stuck in a tree; E. cursed him, O. threw away what he had captured, this half became a month, it had O.'s fingerprints; the female broke off, O. fell, the branch became his tail; E. went down to visit his son, who was making pots; demons O. flew in, boasting that they could cloud the sun or fit in four pots; E. closed the pots, but one crashed, E. drove the demon; whoever fell into the water became water, the goblin into the forest, his fingers became damn fingers; in the ground in the pot O. tries to escape; one day he will come out, fight with E.]: Doronin 2004:392-396 (another lane on in Russian in Novikov 1936:40).

Japan. Ainu: Batchelor 1927:119-120 [2 var.; first the earth was a swamp, a mixture of earth and water; God sent a wagtail, which began to hit the swamp with its tail, separated land from water], 128 [earth first was a swamp, there was a huge trout, God told it to support the land]; Etter 1949 [chaos first, the earth is mixed with water; the wagtail separated the earth from the water; the round earth floats on the water ]: 18; Sarasina 2014, No. 7 (southern Hokkaido) [first there is a shapeless mass on the ocean surface; the haze that rose from it became heaven, the mass hardened and became a mountain; god and goddess descended on it; from the five-color cloud separated the black color, threw it into the sea, rocks appeared; filled the void between them with a yellow cloud, earth arose; a white cloud of fish and shells was thrown into the sea; from the green cloud, trees and herbs; red is made of precious metals and stones; an owl flew in and began to sign them, they realized that they were going to marry; they have many children, including Peker Chup ("bright star" and Kunne Chup (" dark (night) light"); a mountain with two peaks; the sun rose on the female top, the man top for a month; they climbed the cloud and rose into the sky, began to alternately illuminate the lower world; after that the original couple of gods returned to heaven]: 62-63.

Mesoamerica The Masateki [first the earth is soft, the possum is the ruler of the world; the land has agreed to harden and agreed to be dirty (maltraten), but people must return to it as a payment; the stones were also soft; it took a special tree to make the smoke, if it burned, harden the ground; everyone searched, but only found the possum, dug this stone; the fire was obtained by friction using Mexican black cherry (capulín)]: Portal 1986:45.