E8A. Coconut women. (.13.) .19.20.25.

Coconuts picked from a tree or fallen to the ground, or (rarely) leaves, turn into women or people in general.

(Zande), susure, chimbu, viram, vatut, kai, bukavak, tolai, bining, Admiralty Islands (leaves), Nukuria, tsou.

(Wed. Sudan - East Africa. Zande [the young man shot the guinea fowl; she fluttered and fell on the old woman's site; she hid it under the leaves; young man: if you don't return it, it will be bad; the old woman took out a guinea fowl, called the young man; he ate manioc leaves, and she was a porridge with guinea fowl meat; when she went home, ordered to pick a small fruit and throw it on the ground at a fork in the road; a girl was in the fetus; called herself the daughter of an old woman and the young man's wife; after learning about Thus, Thur (spider trickster) did the same thing, but ate meat and porridge himself, and the old woman ate manioc leaves; she ordered a large fruit to be picked; an old woman jumped out of it with a knife, chased Thur; Thur ran to The man who was making the drum asked him to cover it; he told him to go into the hut inside the lion; an old woman came running, he sent her to the hut, the lions tore her to pieces; Thur went out]: Evans-Pritchard 1966:273-276).

Melanesia. Susure [Suburten sent his wife Mamilup to the garden with his nephew Teome; M. could not seduce T.; T. hears coconuts coming down at night, becoming girls, singing; When sending T. home, S. tells him to take two green coconuts into the boat; along the way they turn into a good wife and a bad wife; the bad one, Mehue, T. tries to kill; nailed her with pegs under a tree, piercing her limbs and chest; her stomach is swollen, T. is preparing to pick up her son, but son Kuluhob and the snake Dolak were born in his absence; K. freed his mother, they left; D. sailed away on the ship, gave birth to many snakes, they became Europeans; a good wife gave birth to a son Manup; K. and M. meet each other in the forest, shooting at one bird; T. asks M. to bring K. to the village; he runs away every time; men can't catch him, catches him old woman; K. is brought into the house for initiations, along with other boys he receives a loincloth; girls choose husbands; K. is the last to come out, all the girls leave the chosen ones, choose K.; other boys jealous, they do nasty things to him; jumping from palm tree to palm tree, K. went to his mother M.; she gave him food in a red bowl, he became a cassowary, the bowl was a red throat; (then K. again a man, swims away to white, brings cargo goods)]: Lehner 1975, No. 3:746-752; chimbu [brothers Mondo and Gande hunted birds; G.'s arrow hit a bird and flew away with it; old Mukatakera took the arrow; fed and left her brothers to spend the night; G. sees that beautiful girls come to the old woman at night; the old woman gave her brothers a pandanus fruit; they turned into girls; G.'s girlfriend with worn skin, because M. is her fetus dropped it; he wants to take M.'s wife; to do this, he adjusts M. to go down into the cave to hunt bats and cut off the stairs; the ant helps M. get out; he killed G. by firing two arrows at him , and burned down the house]: Sterly 1977:50; Viram [Sami and Gwavi cut down a large tree to make a boat; when it falls, reservoirs form at the place where the branches fall; S. and G. do not know about this, they are thirsty; Diari, S.'s dog, comes back with a wet face; S. hits D. (he is offended that the dog is drunk, but he is not); D. runs to the left bank of Fly in the village of Wimkungiu (enemies of the Viram); they return one by one from the hunt; D. rushes to the last one from the tree, bites off his head, brings home, buries, and the first coconut palm grows out of it; D. shows S. how to eat coconuts; when S. cuts down the hollow, G. sits with his knees spread; S.'s ax flies off G. between his legs, gets stuck there; S. gives G. coconut to eat, G. gets breasts, the ax disappears, G. turns into a woman; S. cannot turn the boat over alone, calls men for help; fallen coconuts turn into multitudes men, women and children; the boat is dragged to the river; D. sits in it, gives a voice, people howl back, the boat rises to the sky, S., G. and some others fly away on it; after them, those who remain on the ground are thrown clouds of dust and smoke; now the boat stretches across the sky from west to east, dog D. sits at its zenith; informants denied it was the Milky Way, the boat was invisible]: Williams 1969:386-389; cotton wool [two cousins ambush birds; one's arrow flies far away, he finds it in the presence of an old woman, who says that she baked and ate the dead bird; at night, coconuts came down from the tree, steel people, danced, returned to the tree; the old woman tells the young man to remove the nut from the tree, not to throw it, but carefully lower it; the nut turns into a beautiful woman; the cousin wants the same for himself; everything repeats himself, but he throws a nut on the ground, gets an ugly girl with a crooked mouth; she drags him to the village; the young man decides to take possession of his brother's wife; invites him to climb a vine on a tree for with chicks of a rhino bird, pulls off the vine, says why he did it, leaves; the person left in the tree asks various birds for help; each refuses because he hunted it, defecates on his head; momoro birds first train by lifting a stone, then grabbing the young man with their beaks, lowering him into his field, cleaning him from bowel movements; his wife finds him, he tells him to bring his bow and arrows, do it in the wall of the house hole; when he came at night, he shot his brother, burned down his house, took his wife, organized a party in honor of the birds, gave them jewelry]: Fischer 1953, No. 21:162-166; kai [the hunter met the old woman, she gave him coconuts; when he smashed them to the ground, women came out; then with his brother]: Keysser 1911 in Stagl 191:58; bukavak [the eldest of four brothers goes hunting, his dog chases a pig, the old woman says that the pig is not wild, but tells her to come to her; asks her to carefully get the coconut from the palm tree; gives it with her; if the dog chases the beast, put the coconut in a clean place, only then run after the dog; the dog drove the iguana, the man threw the coconut; when he returned, a woman instead of him, but ugly; the same with two other brothers; the youngest puts the coconut carefully, his wife is beautiful; the brothers decide it kill; when fishing, they drain the water from the dam, pile it on the youngest branch; at home, the youngest's wife turns into a wooden stick, which they take out the tarot, the brothers do not find it; the rat drinks water, helps the youngest to free himself; the youngest and his wife pretend to forgive the brothers; one day the younger one calls the elders to the male house, throws soot from the baked tarot into their eyes; they turn into crows, fly away; the youngest takes their wives]: Lehner 1931a, No. 6:48-52; Tolay: Janssen et al. 2012, No. 2 [Kaia drew two human figures on the ground, rubbed his skin, sprinkled blood on the figures, covered them with leaves, To Kabinana (TA) and To Karvuvu (TU) appeared; TA climbed a coconut tree, threw two unripe yellowish coconuts on the ground, they turned into two women; KU did the same, but his nuts stuck in the ground, so his women have flattened noses], 4 [mother To Kabinana and To Purgu, they buried her and a palm tree grew out of her head, brought coconuts; TC threw off one, he crashed, there was a girl inside, he raised her, married; TP got along with her and became pregnant; TC was furious, so people split into two exogamous groups], 7 [To Kabinana told To Karvuvu to pick two unripe light yellow coconuts from the palm tree, hide one, bring the other; put the coconut aft, swam on the bow of the boat himself; the coconut turned into a fair-skinned woman; That Karvuva wanted her to belong to both of them, but To Kabinana told him take his coconut; but To Karvuvu tore it off another palm tree and the woman turned out to be dark; since then, two exogamous halves: the blond ones marry the dark ones and vice versa; if people were the same color, they would not died]: 1, 16-17, 18-19; Bining (Gazelle Peninsulas, Hinterland): Meier 1909, No. 1 [in Janssen et al. 2012, No. 2:1 the same text is attributed to the tolai; at first someone drew two figures on the ground sprinkled it with his blood, covered it with leaves, the figures turned into To Kabinana and To Karvuvu; Then Cabinana climbed onto a palm tree, threw off two unripe coconuts, they burst, turned into two women; That Karvuva too dropped two nuts, they fell flat, the women had their noses broken; he rejected them, got his brother to give him one of his women], 2 [(quoted in Dixon 1916:108); To Kabinana ordered To Karvuvu get two nuts from a palm tree that brings light coconuts, put one aside, bring the other; he brought a light coconut, and took the other nut from a palm tree that brought dark coconuts; That Cabinana tied it to the feed boats, sailed without paying attention to the noise of walnut or looking back at it; the walnut turned into a beautiful woman; That Karvuva wanted her, but To Kabinana told me to bring the laid nut; seeing that it was dark , said that people will now be mortal and will be divided into two classes: bright men will marry dark women and vice versa]: 15-16, 21-23; Admiralty Islands [Kosa young man sailed to a country whose inhabitants were women at night, the leaves of the Ndrilis tree during the day; Ndrilis's mother offered K. fish, who took the little ones, gave her the big ones; once asked if he wanted to go home, he replied whatever he wanted; she told him to climb the Ndrilis tree, pick two leaves from the young shoots at the top, put one on the stern of the boat, the other on the bow, go to bed in the boat; the leaves turned into two young women, brought K. home; when he found out about this, his brother sailed to the same country; gave his mother Ndrilis little fish, took the big ones for himself; she ordered to pick two leaves from the lower branches, and in the boat they turned into women; the boat on its bow had ulcers on its legs, the aft nose was worn; the young man threw them into the sea; if this young man did the right thing, we would still be picking up women in country Ndrilis]: Meier 1908, No. VI.2:656-657

Micronesia-Polynesia. Nukuria [recorded Feb 2013; two brothers sail to an old woman to find wives; she tells everyone to get coconut from a palm tree without dropping it; then put the coconut in the boat and sail away from islands without turning around; the eldest turns around, sees an old woman in his boat; the youngest does not turn around, brings a young wife; these coconuts have become women]: Davletshin, personal message 02.05.2013.

Taiwan - Philippines. Tsou [the creator of Ninewu shook the tree, the leaves fell down, he collected them, brought them, they turned into women; men were before; N. wanted men and women to drink together, but women didn't wanted; N. made men and women marry (the end was crumpled); var.: Ninewu father told his son, also N., to shake the tree; leaves fell down, but there were few of them, so the tsou were few]: Tu 1959, No. 1:536-537.