B71. Dancing flashes.

.16. (.20.) .28.31.32.35.39.-.42.44.-.46.

The Northern Lights are people who play, dance, sit by the fire, fight or run around with torches.

Scots, French, Germans (Oldenburg), (Maori), Russians (Tula Province), Norwegians, Swedes, East Sami, Finns, Estonians, Latvians, Udmurts, Forest Nenets, Chukchi, Asians Eskimos, Nuniwak, Bering Strait Inupiate, Northern Alaska Inupiate (upper reaches of the river. Kobuk), Baffin Land, Labrador Eskimos, West Greenland, Angmassalik? , Southern Tutchoni, Tagish, Inner Tlingit, (Upper Tanana), Eyak, Tlingit, (Haida, Makah), Quakiutl, Fox, Menominee, Chippewa, Solto, Steppe Cree, Abenaki, Passamaquoddy, Mandan.

Western Europe. Scots [Northern Lights - "jolly dancers" i.e. supernatural creatures fighting for beauty]: Solheim 2005:170 (Gregor 1891:475 in brief); French ( medieval engraving) [northern lights - two fighting troops]: Solheim 2005:172, fig. 172; Germans (Oldenburg) [northern lights - fighting spirits (die Erscheinung eines in der Luft vor sich) gehenden Geisterkampfes]: Wuttke 1900:196.

(Wed. Micronesia-Polynesia. Maori [the southern lights are the light from the fires of those Maori who, after passing New Zealand, continued to sail south and settled there; they signal relatives remaining in the north]: Best 1972:71).

Central Europe. Russians (Tula Gubernia) [the northern lights are a war between evil and good spirits; they converge so quickly that a "hollow fire" (flame) appears from under their feet; if the northern lights play out strongly, you do not need to disturb them with noise and knock; to avoid him for a whole year, you need to knock on pans, flaps and braids all night long on Petrov's day, ride a poker and pomelo for women, girls and young guys, and thus scare spirits]: Kolchin 1899, No. 7:12.

Baltoscandia. Norwegians (west coast) [dead old maidens fall into the northern lights]: Solheim 2005:170; Swedes [northern lights - "polka" (i.e. quick dance)]: Solheim 2005:170; samas [flashes - souls going to heaven; souls of the dead under Ninas's leadership, fighting at night, flooding the sky with blood; their wounds are healed every time; some loparks claimed to find out among the flashes of deceased relatives]: Kharuzin 1890:197-198; (artistic retelling in Czarnoluski 1962:18, 68-72); Estonians: Aarne 1918, No. 8 [by Hurt; heavenly angels fight each other]: 140; Holmberg 1927 ["virmalised taplevad"]: 81; ERA II 160, 20 (25) < Võrumaa [virmalised vehklevad - "flashes are fighting"; flashes are dead]; Finns [northern:" northern old women are swirling in the air"; Kangasniemi: "old maidens light fire"]: Solheim 2005:170; Latvians [when they see the northern lights, say johdi kaujahs - "spirits fight", karru lausehu dwehseles kaujahs - "the spirits of fallen warriors are fighting"]: Afanasiev 1994 (3): 245.

Volga - Perm. The Udmurts [the Northern Lights are an omen of a bloody war]: Vereshchagin 1886:77.

Western Siberia. Forest Nenets [if flashes start playing in the sky, it means "the dead are getting up", the next day there will be a snowstorm]: Golovnev 1995:324.

SV Asia. Chukchi: Bogoraz 1939 [the northern lights are the home of the dead who died a sudden, mostly violent death; the white spots on it are those who died from contagious diseases, the red ones are stabbed with a knife, dark - strangled by the spirits of nervous diseases; changeable light from the fact that the dead move all the time, playing ball with a walrus head; she roars on the fly and tries to poke everyone's fangs who reaches out to catch her; people who told themselves to be strangled with a noose take pride of place among the audience; they reach out to play, but they do it awkwardly because the noose drags them on the ground]: 43; Bogoras 1902, No. 32 [ the northern lights are a special world inhabited by violent deaths; the reddish gleam is their shed blood, and the radiant overflows are souls playing ball with the head of a walrus]: 634-635; Bogoras 1924 [ the northern lights are the souls of those who died violently, running across the sky and attacking each other, so that their blood flows through the sky]: 243.

The Arctic. Asian Eskimos (Chaplino) [a successful whale hunter with 5 daughters; a ceremony must be performed to kill a whale, but the hunter's wife is missing; the following year, the eldest daughter went for roots, she was carried to heaven by an eagle; when he took the last two daughters, he began to fatten them; fox: he fattens you to eat, weave a rope from your tendons; look into the pantry: there are already carried away sisters, the eagle sucked their fat, but they are still alive; to distract the eagle, the sisters tell them to bring prey from afar - they say, their father did it; the fox lowered the girl on a rope to the ground; when the eagle chased, the girl She drew a line with her little finger, a river formed; the eagle dammed the river, getting into the water and spreading its wings, but the girl told the river to freeze, the eagle froze in years, the girl killed him with a knife; the youngest went to find someone , got to a brown bear; he tells him to be beaten when she wakes up with a scraper handle so as not to bite; sends him to those who play ball over the hill; there she was married by a young man; she gave birth twice, both times boy; guests have arrived; she won everyone in running and fighting; returns to the bear for a while, taking a braided rope; then to her parents; then throws the rope up again and rises to the northern lights; {it is obvious that those who play ball are flashes}; gave birth again twice; overtook and overcame everyone; then returned {to the ground} and then went under water; got married and stayed there]: Rubtsova, Vakhtin 2019, No. 41:555-576; Nuniwak Island: Lantis 1946, No. 6 [a poor orphan goes out to recover, a strange walrus takes him to heaven; there other walruses are flashes; a year later the boy is sent back to earth; he is made by a shaman, able to steal the property of strangers]: 272-273;? [flashes - walruses playing with a human skull]; Bering Strait inupiat (unalik) [kiguruyat spirits play football with a boy's head in the sky; he pauses to look at them and they chewed him off head]: Ivanoff Brown 1987:39-41; Northern Alaska Inupiate (upper reaches of the river. Kobuk) [if you whistle during the northern lights, flashes will come, cut off the whistling head and play ball with it]: Aliitchak Gray et al. s.a.: 84; Baffin's Land [lives in the lower world Nuliayoq and her father Anautalik; it's hot there; the souls of taboo breakers go there, A. torments them there; the souls of the good and suicidal go to heaven, where they play ball with a walrus skull; he's alive, claps his jaw; northern the radiance is these soccer souls]: Boas 1901b: 146; Labrador Eskimos [there is a hole in the sky's dome through which the souls of the dead pass; local spirits illuminate their way with torches; this northern lights; you can see them playing ball with a walrus's head; whistling and cracking in winter when they shine are the voices of spirits trying to talk to people on the ground; they should answer in a whisper]: Hawkes 1916:153; Greenland [it's cold in the sky; those who get there after death are called ball players; their ball is a walrus head, the game is the northern lights]: Rink 1875:36-37; West Greenland [it's cold in the sky; walking souls live there in the plague by the lake, playing ball with the head of a walrus; it's the northern lights; if you whistle, it will come closer]: Birket-Smith 1924:435; "the entire Arctic and Greenland {including the Eastern Lights?} [someone steals meat from a hunter; he finds a group of children; they explain that they are flashes, the souls of children who died at birth, dancing with their afterbirth; if they do not eat, the sky will be empty; a person allows them to pick up the meat]: Millman 2004:49.

Subarctic. Southern Tutchoni, Tagish, Inner Tlingit: McClelland 1975 (1) [flashes are people who have died violently; they are now busy playing; their fate is preferable to fate dead from illness; pale blue and green lights are harmless, red lights are dangerous]: 79; 1987 [when the Yukon Indians saw a particularly bright northern lights, they said they were the souls of killed warriors or others who died violently; in some areas, flashes foreshadowed war; some were afraid of flashes, blew into the sky to drive them away]: 272; (cf. the upper tanana [the wolverine behind is white and black; if the sky is flashes, it's wolverine walking, wolverine causes them]: Kari 1996:76).

NW coast. Eyak [Northern Lights seen when someone is killed or dies soon; red is blood, overflows - it flows]: Birket-Smith, De Laguna 1938:233; Tlingit: Boas 1895, No. 3 [souls of the dead they violently go to heaven to Tahit; the Milky Way is a tree trunk on which fighting flare souls jump]: 320; De Laguna 1972 [those who died in war or accident go to heaven, turning into flashes; you can see them chasing the ball (play shinny)]: 771; Veniaminov 1840 (3) ["the souls of those killed in war... are in the form of northern lights... especially those that are pillars or sheaves, which usually move in one direction or another, then run over, then replace one another, which is very similar to Kolosh military maneuvers "]: 60 (quoted in Holmberg 1927:82); (cf. haida [northern lights - "the skin of the sky is burning" and "broken clouds are moving" (broken-up clouds traveling)]: Swanton 1905b:13; poppies [northern lights are the lights of dwarfs living far away in the north; dwarfs are half a paddle tall; live on ice, eat whales and seals; so strong that they can dive and catch whales with their bare hands; then they digest fat by making fires on the ice; these are the lights we see; dwarfs are evil spirits, they are boring, so they try not to pronounce their name]: James G. Swan 1869-1870 in Clark 1953:160-161); quakiutl [flashes - souls of the dead that have descended from heaven, dancing for the living relatives or for those who are about to die]: Boas 1932:218.

The Midwest. Fox [the Northern Lights are trying to lift up the souls of the enemies we've killed; they want revenge and see them not good]: Jones 1911:214; Menominee: Hilger 1960 [Northern Lights in summer there is a reflection of the torches of Manipawak giants living in the north when they are fishing; in winter, sunlight reflects snow and ice]: 49; Skinner, Satterley 1915 [the northern lights are torch fire in in the hands of the Northern Giants when they're fishing (Hoffman record)]: 542; chippewa [Bovista pila B. & C. brown mushroom painted the faces and clothes of the dead, preparing them to join to the dance of Spolokhov; the Northern Lights are dancing spirits; a woman in a trance saw perfume paint their faces with this mushroom]: Densmore 1928:379; solto [flashes - dancing souls of the dead]: Skinner 1911 ? ; Jones 1919, No. 1 [the deceased young man walks along a dusty road, unable to catch up with the dead baby, struggling to carry the board to which he was tied on his back; the young man approaches the turbulent river, through it a trembling log; dogs guard this bridge on both sides; a vine with wild cucumbers hangs over the bridge; when you touch it, the fruits rattle, the dogs rush at the passer; the young man passes without reaching fruit without waking up dogs; comes to the village of the dead, enters the sigwam at a distance; the owner of the dead says that the young man came here in the flesh, it is not time for him to die yet, let him return; explains that dogs those who treated dogs badly during their lifetime are pushed into the river; the dead are seen only at night; the young man sees his grandmother, she eats a rotten tree, offers him, he refuses; at night the dead dance, some there is no head, arm, leg, some upside down; those who lost arms, legs, etc. in the war remain so; on the way back, the young man does not meet the river; tries to talk to people he meets, grabs them, cannot; sees the fire, rushes at it, wakes up; tells his mother about the seat; his deceased grandmother explained to him that the northern lights are the dead dancing]: 3-23 (northern lights: p.22); steppe crees : Dusenberry 1998:78 [Flashes are the souls of the dead playing; they want the Creator to bring the Indians to their world as soon as possible; when they play, they whistle; people try not to whistle at this time], 100-101 [if Flashes they appear on the fifth night after a person's death, the living know that his soul has arrived in a good place].

Northeast. Montagnier, nascapi [northern lights - dancing souls of the dead; informant near Lake. St. John, seeing the northern lights, said it was his old grandmother dancing]: Speck 1935a: 65; Abenaki (in the Wabanski text, perhaps a typo from Wanabaki, distorted from Abenaki) [Chief M'Sartto is coming after his son left on the road of souls to the Milky Way, he enters the country of people with rainbow belts, this is the Northern Lights, they play ball; the local leader tells two birds to bring M. and his son back home, they return safely]: Judson 1997:143-145; passamaquoddy [Chief M'Suru's son ("The Morning Star") often goes north for a long time, does not say where he has been; his father follows in his footsteps, ends up in a brightly lit country, where, however, you can't see the heavenly bodies; local people play ball, they have rainbow belts, shining heads; a local old man explains that these are the Northern Lights, that he once came Here, along the Spirit Trail (Milky Way) from the lower country, now a young man comes to them; tells two birds to take M'Sartto home safely]: Miller 1997:41-42.

Plains. Mandan [flashes are the fire on which northern shamans and warriors cook dead enemies in large cauldrons]: Will, Spinden 1906:134.