B39. The narrow waist of the insect. (.41.) .52.55.61.
Aninsect or character who later becomes an insect knows where food (cultivated plants) or water is located, but refuses to share his knowledge. To find valuables (usually to make an insect reveal a secret), the first ancestors pull a rope tied around the character's belt (the origin of the jumper between the abdominal and thoracic parts of insects ).
(Koyukon, Upper Tanana), Puebla Nahuat, Soke, Tsotzil, Tseltal, Tocholabal, Mocho, Mom, Quiche, Embera, Napo.
(Wed. Subarctic. Koyukon [the husband is hunting, the cannibal comes in, the wife says she will go for firewood, hears the ogre tearing and frying her child; comes running to her husband; when the ogre comes up, they kill him with spears, they burn the corpse; apparently, the cannibal has bewitched them to break up; when they come to live in a village where the woman's parents, the husband often leaves; the wife follows the trail, looks into the house where two giggling girls try To hold him; leaves alone, lives on the seashore; Seagull comes in a kayak, takes her away forcefully; in his house there is only rot and tear; the woman sees Seagull's huge beak, swallowed and regurgitated many times; A man comes in, takes her away; this is the Eagle; an old woman is in his house, feeding her well; the Seagull comes, demands that his wife be returned; the Eagle says that the Seagull kills wives by swallowing them and regurgitating them; The Seagull says that the Eagle throws her wives off a cliff; a woman gives birth, the old woman replies to Eagle that the child is a girl, immediately recovers that she is a boy; warns a woman to go in need only where the path does not lead; after the birth of the sixth girl (by the number of feathers in the Eagle's tail), the old woman tells the woman to follow the path; the woman misses her parents and earthly husband; the Eagle is ready to take her home; they go with the children; at the fork a woman chooses the wrong path; they come to a house where there are many children, they behave ugly; in the morning those who come see that they are dogs; in the next house at night someone crawls, a woman stabs one; It was an ant house, since then ants seem to have been cut in half; in spring, travelers reach a woman's village, where her husband and parents are; the eagle husband and children who have become eagles fly back]: Attla 1983:215-241; upper tanana [the hunter climbed into the porcupine hole, the giant Yaachoh blocked the exit with a stone; had to go with him; his family was killed by giant Gol'; they fight, look the same, Gol shouts it's him -" grandfather" man; Joachoch cut his veins, killed him; got together with his wife, a river flowed out of it, lice like muskrats; Yochi told the man to throw them into his mouth; killed Gola's wife; killed their children by piercing their heads with a finger and sucking their brains; the man took the beaver's tail for himself; the sky is low, Joachoch rubs his head against him, bald; he picked it up (after he got up in the sky, the sky had to move higher up); ants attacked; he {it's not clear whether a giant or a hunter} cut an ant, so ants have a drooping ass and a narrow waist; the giant gave the man a stick where it would fall, the hunter comes home, where they celebrate a memorial ceremony for him]: Kari 1996:47-52.
Mesoamerica Ant, corn. Nahuat (northern Puebla): Taggart 1983:89-90 (version from Yaonáhuac village) [a young man with animals built a house, grew corn, put it into a house; the young man said he was leaving after that animals are speechless; Thunders have nothing to eat, they are looking for corn; Thunder saw an ant drag a seed, found out that it was carrying chamois from a barn or mountain; tied itself to an ant ever since ants narrow waist; but can't get inside; brought grain to other Thunders, everyone decided to go get corn; smashed a mountain, got corn; the grains choked (or the mouse bit them), became flat; the oldest The thunder slept for a long time, with only leftovers], 91-92 (Huitzilan version) [when it first dawned, the ants paved the path; the thunders saw them dragging corn; made the ant confess where do they get it from, pulling his waist with a rope, since then it has been narrow; the main Thunder pierced the mountain with his head; everyone rushed for the grain, trampled on it, the grains became flat; the one who broke the mountain lay unconscious ]; juice: Baez-Jorge 1983 [the corn was inside the mountain; the Ant pulled the grains out of there through a small hole; to force him to tell him where the corn came from, they dragged his waist with a rope; they tried to blow up the rock unsuccessfully; Thunder managed to break it]: 392-393; Sulvarán López 2007:41-42 [Crab (cangrejo) saw leaf cutter ants carrying food; clenching their bodies with claws, which are since pores of steel with bandages around his neck and waist, made her show a hole in the rock; tried to squeeze, but could not, but only became flat since then], 158-162 [the owner of the corn asks her husband to bring it from the field cobs, but every time he says that the corn is not ripe yet, and then that it's gone, we have to wait for next year; she goes by herself, picks corn, cooks at home; her husband comes back, drives him away furiously her; all the corn was gone; leaf cutter ants found corn inside the mountain, did not tell me where the grains came from; people asked Crab (cangrejo) for help, he threatened the ants to cut them, they led them to the mountain, where corn; on the way, Cancer fell off the cliff, fell, became flat; but still did not fit into the hole, only his forehead became flat; The turkey peeled off the feathers from his chest, the Rooster kicked so much that his fingers were now far from each other friend; The horse flattened its legs and arms, they became hooves; The woodpecker and other birds came, screamed, could not widen the hole either; The thunder agreed to break through it if the Wind cleared the mountain; The wind told fortify houses, demolished trees on the mountain, Thunder hit, pierced; there was a bird inside the mountain, pecking Thunder's eyes, since then he has gone blind], 162-163 [the corn is gone because people burned it, relieved it; people asked the Crab to make a hole in the mountain, a stone fell on it, the Crab is now flat; the same with the Cockroach; with the Leaf Cutter Ant, now he has a bandaged waist; the same with the little ant; the Turkey broke chest, it is now shabby; The boar broke a hole, people came in, the first took large grains, the latter were small ones, so the corn is different; wild boars, turkeys, cockroaches, tieper crabs eat corn in the bins]; tsotzil: Guiteras-Holmes 1961 [Jesus, aka kox, planted cotton seeds, they turned into bees; told his two older brothers he saw a hive in a tree; they climbed a tree, but they only shed wax on the youngest; he sculpted gophers out of wax, they undermined the roots, the tree fell, the brothers broke {and turned into wild boars}; Kox asked his mother for 6 cakes, built a pen, stuck cakes on the faces of the wild boars (piglets) that came, three wild boars ran away, tearing off their tails, which were wild; promises mothers (= St. Virgo) that he will be able to cultivate the field himself; turns sticks into workers; when he returns, the forest is intact again; {does he think wasps are to blame?} He tears wasps to pieces, so they have a narrow waist; finds two rabbits and two deer telling the trees to rise; he stretched out their ears, they are what they are now; the rabbit is the elder brother of a deer like how gopher is Aguti's older brother; Kosh teaches his mother to go to heaven - count to 9; he became the Sun, she became the Moon; there used to be another sun, Lusibel; it was not hot enough, the earth did not dry out , it was impossible to burn vegetation in the field]: 183-186; Hermitte 1970 [the hunter sees ants in the forest carrying corn kernels; ants refuse to answer where they get them; the hunter asks God help; he cuts the ant in half, then connects the halves; the ant confesses that the corn is hidden inside the rock; God tells the young and old woodpeckers to hammer the rock; both break their beaks; God gives the old an iron beak that breaks a rock; a man gets corn; a woodpecker has been hammering strong trees ever since]: 28-29; celtal [people saw a black ant dragging corn grain; to force him confess where he was dragging the grain, they began to pull his waist with a rope, it became narrow; they came to the rock through the hole in which the ant took out the grain; the woodpecker began to hammer the rock, broke his beak; broke his beak his rock was nahual; two Thunders (Chahuuc) failed, the third, red, split, exhausted; the Jews took a lot of corn, the rest of the people the remnants; their corn rose, but the corn taken by the Jews did not; they asked advice from the red Chahuuc, who advised putting the seeds in lime, the seeds died, so he punished them]: Slocum 1965:1-7 (retelling in Thompson 1977:421); mocho [people catch Tornado (his image merges with the Corn Mistress); he promises them corn, beans, and other plants in exchange for digging and a candle; people everywhere are unsuccessfully looking for corn; they send a flea, a throat, both do not find; an ant ( Coecodoma mexicana, or Atta mexicana; picks up everything it can carry) finds corn inside the mountain (=underworld), tries to endure it; The owner catches it with a loop, squeezes it, since then ants have a narrow waist; the ant explains that it came from another world, asks him to let go, comes to the King (Rey; Reyes lived before the sun), tells us where the corn is; the King asks Red Thunder to break the mountain; Thunder destroys her with their ax; ants bring corn to the King, humans get corn]: Montemayor 1996 (2) [like Petrich, short version]: 64-65; Petrich 1985b: 159-169; Tocholabal: Jiménez 1996 [to To force the Ant to tell him where he is dragging the corn grain from, the man pulls his body with a rope, now the ants have a narrow waist; corn in the rock, the woodpecker could not penetrate, the Thunder pierced, the Woodpecker burned head, it turned red; the corn was burnt, became different colors]: 47; Ruz 1983:422; mom [the corn was owned by a woman; people sent Magpie, the woman caught it, she did not return; they sent an Ant zompopo, he brought a seed; a woman came, asked who stole it, began to pull Ant's belt, her waist became narrow; ants should not be killed]: Valladares 1957 in Thompson 197:423; quiche (Achí) [Jesucristo's father hid corn and other crops in the rock; leaf cutter ants started taking them from there; Jesucristo punished them by bandaging them in the middle, since then they have a thin waist]: Shaw 1971:42.
The Northern Andes. Embera: Arango Bueno 1963:185; Isacsson 1993:52-53; Pinto García 1978:156-157; Rochereau 1929 [old woman Goetser had water and fish; she bathed and fished in the trunk of a huge tree ; the hummingbird spied; Karagabi ordered the axes to be sharpened, the tree cut down; the notch overgrown; K. went by himself, grabbed the old woman by the belt, she turned into a black gentleman with a narrow waist; (more as in Torres de Arauz, the tree was cut down)]: 87-89; Torrez de Arauz 1963 [the waist was not bandaged, but deeply cut]: 25; Wassen 1933, No. 3 [the ant Conga had all the water; he refused to give water to God; that made him open his mouth with his waist, which had become narrow; the water was in the tree; God gathered everyone to cut it; in the evening, when the others were resting, the Toad asked the axe to work, but with every blow the felling did not deepen, but overgrown; God saw that he stepped on the Toad, which became a toad; four days later, the trunk was cut, the tree remained hanging on the vine; all the bird people tried to cut it, toucan, the parrot and others could not; the guacamayo cut, the tree fell, the trunk became the sea, the branches became rivers; God told the Devil to throw salt into the sea, he threw it, but the water was still fresh; God threw it himself, became salty] : 109.
Western Amazon. Napo [Apustulu alone uses a tree with fish in its trunk; a wasp boy helps him fish; Jaguar and others pull the Wasp's belt with a rope; he reports on the tree; they can't catch fish, cut down the trunk; felling overgrows as soon as they don't look at it; they work without interruption, burn chips; the tree still does not fall; the bird sees that it is tied to the sky by a vine; Squirrel climbs upstairs, cuts off the vine; the tree falls, turns into rivers, leaves into fish; A. in anger throws his feather fan and belt into the water; they turn into a poisonous stingray, into an eel; turns the rest chips into fish and aquatic animals; makes rapids to prevent fish from going up the river; turns squirrel into stone as punishment]: Mercier 1979:69-80.