Yu.E. Berezkin, E.N. Duvakin

Thematic classification and distribution of folklore and mythological motifs by area

Analytical catalogue

Introduction
Bibliography
Ethnicities and habitats

E15. Ducks and boats.

.19. (.32.) 37.41.45.56.58.59.62.66.68.-.70.

People learn how to make boats and rowing from birds; a bird or part of its body serves as a model for making a boat.

Melanesia. The Majprat [Charumprés tries four times to drag the dog away from the stone under which the wallaby has disappeared; then he digs, the wallaby runs away, water gushes from under the stone, the water spirit in the stream pursues C. he barely ran away, a lake of fish formed at that place, the fish was edible (C. first gave it to the dog); C. began to look for bananas in the Tämaj tree; the bananas fell, turned into people, C. heard a voice , Look down, not up; C. decided to make the boat sail on that lake; the raincoat boat exploded when he stepped into it, split out of the bark; hollowed it out of the tree trunk, but did not stem of the canoe, she drowned; saw a duck, carved a duck's head on the bow of the boat; this boat was fit]: Elmberg 1968, No. 6:256-257.

(Wed. Volga - Perm. Komi [see E15A motif]).

Amur - Sakhalin. The Udege people [fish disappears in the rivers; three brothers from the Kukuchinka family go to fish owner Sugzia Azani; in a dream, he tells the elder Tunchi to make a boat; the middle Kandasuli tells him to put on a boat wooden duck: head to nose, wings on sides, tail behind; younger Sugb is told to throw chips on the bottom, throw them into the water when they sail on the sea; by chips, the duck boat finds its way into the sea; turns into a duck, dives, brothers hold on to its tail, find themselves in the underwater world; fish complain that inept fishermen have maimed them; the fish owner forgives people, tells them to treat fish well; brothers return by duck boat in the same way as they arrived]: Podmaskin, Kireeva 2010:124-126.

Subarctic. Koyukon: Attla 1990 [brothers go missing one by one; younger Betohoh (then his name is K'etetaalkkaanee, "The one who rows {on a boat} among humans and animals") goes in search; many encounters with people who turn out to be different animals; decides to make a boat, choosing black grouse (Dendragapus canadensis) as a nose sample; tries the bark of different trees for plating; fir, poplar sinks, birch bark does not; chooses wood for the frame - birch is not suitable, larch is suitable; when she wakes up, the boat is sewn; next time she spies; the woman who will become the Polar Owl, makes large stitches, others reproach her for it; B. tells the most beautiful to lose her awl; she stays looking for her, he grabs her, she barks like a fox, he releases it; he will tar the boat; comes to the burrow house; The younger sister of the Fox woman, the Squirrel woman, comes out; offended that B. does not want her; two types of Caresses come out, B. tries to grab each, they rush back, promise to give him his wife; then the Mouse comes out; then the half-blind Polar Owl; the Long-eared Owl; there were also Mink, Marten; B. found a flaw in everything, only those Lasky liked; the hole became big, he went in, sat next to the one he fell in love with; he took her, swam with her in a boat; one day she felt hot in the sun and a fox smell came from her; he let her ashore, she ran away barking]: 76-88; De Laguna 1995, No. 22 [a man throws fir bark into the water, poplars, other trees; everyone drowns, birch bark floats up; to make a frame, a person kills a hawk, tries on its lower jaw - not good; the same with the jaw of an owl; the hazel grouse jaw is just right, he makes a boat; girls come to sew it; he can't catch the one he likes; her father gives it to him; it's Lisa; she cries; he throws it out of the boat, sails down the Yukon]: 188-190; upper pieces [two sons complain to their father that their uncle Ch'ititazkane is just sitting at home asking them to melt the snow and bring him a drink; the father advises him to bring water and dog crap to his brother; C. is offended, leaves; a man kills beavers, bakes one, gives C.; in the morning there are no signs of a fire, it was Wolverine; C. makes a boat; takes the chest bone of a black grouse (Dendragapus canadensis) as a model for the frame; asks who will sew birch bark; hears a response from the forest and from the coastal willow; spies on two pretty young girls sewing; in the morning he sees that one has small stitches, the other has large stitches, and her hair was large, and she had hair disheveled; throws large stitches, calls again, the neat girl finishes work; C. tries to grab her, but she flew away; C. will tar the boat, sails along the river; someone from the shore tried to grab him, C. stabbed the attacker in the eye; it was the Mouse, so the mice have small eyes; C. sees a trap on the river, falls into it, pretends to be dead; the catcher brings him home, wonders that the prey lets in winds; puts a baton under C.'s head, he jumps up, kills the owner, the old woman hits the tail, so the wolverines have a flat tail; Wolverine's wife climbed a tree and began to write from there; C. left her alone , returned to the boat; the man spikes salmon; C. turns into salmon, takes the tip; this is the seagull's beak; C. comes to that man, he asks if he has deprived him of his tip; in the parking lot to C. a girl comes; he sees that she has been making human skin; she does not agree with her, wants to know how she kills people; she spreads his legs, sticks her wand, takes out half; thinks she killed him; but he He jumps up, kills her with a truncheon; they come to people who don't know what a dream is; he falls asleep, they think he's dead; he teaches them to sleep; C. sees a bear sleeping on the shore with a smeared blueberry ass; C. tells him he won't sleep like this; the bear runs away into the forest; since then the bears have not slept by the shore]: Deaphon et al. s.a.: 74-84; tanana [Chetitalkani wonders how make a birch bark boat; kills hazel grouse, makes a frame out of its chest bones; Hazel grouse girls sew birch bark; C. doesn't like their job, he sews the boat himself, sails down the Yukon]: De Laguna 1995, No. 5:96 -97; kuchin [Jateaquoynt throws pieces of fir, poplar, willow bark into the river; they all sink; birch floats up, he makes a boat out of it; kills a partridge (willow grouse), makes a nose modeled on a bird's sternum; while sleeping, two types of partridges sew pieces of birch bark; spruce grouse was on one side, her steps were smaller, stitches were more frequent; on the other, willow grouse, she did worse, spruce grouse redid what was done; J. first covered the seams with clay, it melted into the water, the boat began to sink; then he looked, the boat sailed]: McKennan 1965:104-105; tanaina [The raven sails in the boat, taking from his beloved of two wives to hunt; people from the oncoming boat take her away; he prepares material for a large boat, tells partridges and hazel grouses to sew a leather coating on a frame made of twigs; puts it on his nose a wooden image of a merganser duck; she turns her head, the boat begins to sail like a duckling; he sails in it to his wife's kidnappers, takes her away, runs on the shore, hides with his wife in the steam room; in the morning he sees how The water rose high at night during the storm]: Tenenbaum 1976 (2): 28-31; upper tanana [the witch doctor decided to make the first boat, taking parts of the bodies of birds and animals as a model; the frame was made in the shape of a bird's sternum; tried different types of bark, everyone drowned, only birch bark came up; while sleeping, birds and animals sewed the boat; the Partridges had too big stitches, the Rabbit also failed, Mouse sewed well]: Brean 1975:17-19.

Northeast. Mikmak [Gluscap kills poultry, eats meat; after examining the sternum, decides to make the first corybean boat based on this pattern]: Wallis, Wallis 1955, No. 11:330.

Llanos. Sicuani: Wilbert, Simoneau 1992, No. 83 [a man hunts a tapir who takes him to the country of women; women have a common husband Irrabovato, an underground penis; a man kills it by pouring it from above hot coals; runs; three types of ducks consistently agree to transport him across the sea; every time they fly away when he blows the wind against warning; Tomáliva Ducks Mother in guise men bring him home; forbids him to look at her, he looks; she hits him with her penis; she shines, but not the moon], 84 [when hunting, Tapirih takes the young man in the form of a woman; for this purpose she turns him into time in tapira; under the sea he passes into the country of women; they kill Tapiriha; the girl finds a man, hides; he refuses to eat Tapiriha meat; the girl says that their husband is their father, she is not wants to have sex with him; Amazons kill boys; man sees women take turns sitting on a penis protruding from the ground; he is covered with a cassava push-up bag; man takes it off, sperm splashes him in his face; he fills his penis with boiling water; his wife sends a man home; women revive the Penis, happy; various ducks, herons swim across the sea; their boats are their beaks; each group takes a man leaves in the water every time it blows the winds; the last is Tomalinae; its paddle is lightning, the boat is the pelvic bone; it puts the person aft, tells him not to look back; on the shore he turns around, sees her vulva; she is ashamed]: 309-321 (duck-boats, p.319), 327-328 (beak boats - p.325-326); cuiva: Wilbert, Simoneau 1991b, No. 67 [a waterbird the size of a dove (Heliornis fulica) makes the first hollow], 68 [God makes the duck (Oxyrua dominica) unsinkable, it is also the first boat]: 124-125.

Guiana. Varrau: García 1993, No. 90 [Mayacoto fisherman has two wives, each with a son; when he returns home, he always plays the flute; Chebu (forest demon) Jajuba swallowed him, disguised as he came to to his wives, but did not play the flute; fell asleep, snored, then the wives heard the voice of the swallowed flute; the sisters took the children and ran away; the eldest put her hair off her head on the path, the youngest turned it prickly thickets; Guauta did not want to open the door for them at first, they pinched the children, they cried; when she found out that they were boys, G. let him in; invited Khahuba to put his head under the door, cut it off with a knife; sent cassava sisters, at that time turned their babies into adult boys, their common name is Jaburi; told them to bring her fat birds from hunting, skinny ones, urinating on them, give them to women; the arrow of one stuck in a tree, he climbed after her; young otters passed under the tree, saw Haburi's bowel movements, said it stinks of crap from those who give mothers bad birds and Guauta good ones; they told the brothers everything story; they described skinny birds, gave it to Guauta; recognized mothers; one of H. made a boat out of clay, it melted in water; from wax, the same; from the bark, they sailed in it; the supports of the house, the leaves on the roof shouted to Guauta that the women and the boys had run away, she did not understand them; understood the parrot, threw herself into the water, grabbed the boat, H. cut off her fingers with an oar; the women asked to take G. so that she would not drown; H. began to row the end oars, the bird shouted to row with a blade; H. knocked down a tree with a hive in the hollow; G. began to suck honey, H. knocked another tree on this tree, G. stayed in the hollow, called "son Haburi", told the boat to stand a rock when it reaches the sea; this is a rock near Trinidad Island]: 281-287; Wilbert 1970 [birds teach you to row with a blade rather than a handle], No. 139, 141, 140 [the hero makes the first boats, ducks learn swim, stealing one of them], 144:282, 287-288, 292, 305; curl [a group of people led by a shaman went for stone axes; traveled for many years, meeting unusual creatures; sail to fish people; the shaman does not tell fish to shoot at night, one secretly shoots and eats; warriors come in the morning, say that one of their comrades is missing; they force everyone to drink hot water and spit up; who has eaten fish they throw it into a boiling pot; elsewhere, one of the team sees a dead anteater, comes back, the anteater is gone; it turns out that he has only slept; elsewhere, the locals are trying to row not with a blade, but with the handle of oars; the shaman turned into a bunia bird (Ostinops sp.), began to scream, with a blade; this is how they learned (Essequibo has an island where women used to row oars); in the country The shaman ordered the bats to spend the night in a sheltered place; one hung a hammock in the forest, with only bones in the morning; one violated the ban on touching an empty boat, she took it away; in the village of women, old woman, said that the arrivals will be released after the girls are born to them; two or three wives each; the hammocks have rattles, the old woman makes sure that they rattle at night, which means those lying copulate; during the day women hunted, fished, performed all male duties; after a few years, those who arrived were allowed to leave; reached the land of stone axes; local people ate axes; returned home with axes ; the shaman forbade converging with women; one got along, stayed in this position]: Roth 1915, No. 151-159:220-223; vapishana: Farabee 1918 [Tuminicar (tum = create, make) creates people; Dweed brings them food every day; people look after animals, find a tree with all the cultivated plants on the branches; no longer need D.'s services; T. cuts down a tree, its stump - Avayapiapu rock (=seiba); some plants have not learned to grow, they are gone; the water from the trunk floods the ground; people make a boat out of the upper jaw of a musk duck; sail to Mount Serriri; throw to North stones to find out if the water is deep; they formed a hill; ducks wear their beak around their necks like an amulet]: 110-113; Ogilvie 1940 [Tuminikar and Dweed brothers; every day D. brings people edible cultivated plants; two girls watch Agouti, find a tree with all the cultivated plants on the branches and roots; now people do not need D.'s services; T. tells us to cut down a tree; the stump is Mount Roraima; water from the trunk floods the world; a person turns a pendant from the beak of a musk duck into an ark; takes plants with him; sticks to the mountain; people throw stones into the water to see if the water has descended; after the flood, it grows on this mountain lots of bananas]: 64-67; arecuna (kamaracoto) [Maichak got on the boat but doesn't know what to do next; the bird teaches you to put the paddle into the water]: Simpson 1944:268; trio [two shaman brothers sailed for horizon where souls go; moved slowly because they rowed with the edge of the oar; green oropendola (Psarocolius viridis) teaches you to row with a blade; brothers returned home safely]: Koelewijn, Riviere 1987, № 51:177-178; Magaña 1987, No. 38:139

NW Amazon. Bar [looking at ducks, people learn how to make boats]: Brandao de Amorim 1943:48.

(Wed. Central Amazon. Tupi (the exact place of recording is not known): Baldus 1946:11-12, 83; Couto de Magalhaes 1882 [it was not at night; the daughter of the Great Serpent married a man; does not want to sleep with him in the daylight; asked to send his three servants to bring the night to her father; he gave them a nut, told them not to open it; the sounds of night crickets and frogs can be heard from the nut; in the middle of the journey, the servants discovered a nut; all the things in the forest turned into birds and the animals that were in the river into ducks and fish; the basket became a jaguar, the fisherman and the boat became a duck (head was beak, the boat was the body, the oars became paws); the morning star rose, the daughter of the Snake decided to separate night from day; turned two balls of threads in kuzhubim and inambu birds singing at regular intervals at night and dawn; turned naughty servants into monkeys]: 5-9).

Montagna - Jurua. Shipibo [before the flood, people did not know the fire, they cooked in the sun because the sun was closer to the ground; Ucayali flowed in both directions until a person decided that it should only flow down; people they rowed with a handle, not a blade; the dove shouted to them how to hold the paddle, they tried it and learned; people were stupid and shy; frightened by the voice of a forest chicken, they jumped into the water and drowned]: Gebhaert-Sayer 1987, No. 24:372.

Southern Brazil. Kalapalo [Taugi made a boat out of clay, learned to make bark from ducks; pretended to be dead, grabbed a vulture, received fire from vultures, dawn, day, wives; satisfied wives with his finger; dicks were hanging in the Lizard's house, his wife masturbated with them; the lizard came and gave T.'s dick, but he copulated without attack, T. got thin; took the cock back, he gave a smaller one; now it's fine]: Basso 1987:124-138; kuikuro [there was no fire, Kanassa is looking for it while carrying firefly; the curasso bird (Crax daubentoni) made feather jewelry; K. offered to try it on, it grew, now curasso is always in this outfit; met a little caiman (the same, the cassava brazier grew to the tail); his relative, the bird Sarakura, made a boat and oars out of clay; the Duck has a bark boat; K. offers change, assures that the corn boat is fragile; K. and saracura sail away in a coryja boat; clay sinks; Duck floundering, learning to swim; Sarakura says that Urubu-ray owns the fire with two with his heads; K. drew a deer in the sand, hid under it; Urubu-ray told the vultures to lift the carcass to his tree, K. ordered him to leave it in place and remain silent; Urubu-ray came down with the light with him; K. caught him, ordered to bring fire; he told his son (a small black bird) to bring coal; a fire was fanned out of it; frogs came out of the water, filled the fire with water they held in their mouth; a little remained, K. fanned again; flying away, Urubu-ray taught me to get fire by friction, make torches; to transport fire across the lake, K. gave it to various snakes; they were tired, they lost fire in the middle of the lake; only Itóto endured ; K. gave her a cassava drink and manioc tortillas]: Villas Boas, Villas Boas 1973:105-110.

Araguaia. Karazha [Idianakatu and his brother marry the daughters of the Sun; he inserts them into the bosom of piranhas; brother is bitten; I. asks the Monkey to have sex first; since then, monkeys have a red penis and the testicles are half bitten off; I. asks Ghabir for a branch of the timbo vine, inserts it into vaginas, piranhas die; one remains, causes women to menstruate; wives tell their husbands that the trees are more beautiful than them; the insulted brothers leave; the bird Sarakura invented the boat, the brothers asked for it to be given to them; they row with an oar handle; Miriti's pigeon explains to row with an oar; I. kills trees with arrows; brothers turn into pirarucu fish (the origin of these fish)]: Baldus 1952-1953:214-215.

Eastern Brazil. Sherente [Venus man lived on earth, was covered with ulcers, everyone drove him away; only Vaikaura (V.) invited him to his house, put his virgin daughter on his knees, washed him in this position, having cured ulcers; Venus deflorized the girl, but V. did not want compensation; warned that Vaptokva would destroy people with a flood; cut the pigeon's carcass, crucified it with chopsticks, turned it into a boat; during the flood, only V. and his family escaped in this boat]: Nimuendaju 1942:91-92.