H14. A woman flies back. (.44.) .47.48.50.51.65.66.
A woman who has returned from the world of the dead flies back, becoming a bird or a fly.
(Wed. The Midwest. Ojibwa (southern Ontario)] [four people walked two years and came to Nanabush; he tells his daughter to cook meat with blueberries; one of the visitors thinks he can eat this amount of food swallow in one gulp; but they eat, and there is no less food in the pot; N. promises to fulfill the wishes of those who come; one wants to be a lucky warrior so that bullets do not harm him; the second wants the game to always be on its own went out to him; the third was his wife (N. gives him a daughter); the fourth wants to live forever, N. turned him into a block of granite; N. tells the woman who received his wife not to talk to her until they reach home; the last that day violated the ban and his wife was missing]: Laidlaw 1915, No. 17:15-16).
Southeast USA. Chirokee: Kilpatrick, Kilpatrick 1966, No. 3 [the daughter of a Sunwoman dies; people come for her to the land of the dead, get a girl's box; the girl becomes a bird and flies away; death becomes final]: 388; Mooney 1900, No. 4 [The sun lived on the other side of the sky, and her daughter was in the middle of the sky above the earth; every day the Sun stopped at her place for lunch; the Sun did not like people for the fact that they frowned when they looked at her; the Sun's brother Months loved because they smiled at him; the Sun sent a fever with its rays, almost everyone died; Tiny People advised me to kill the Sun; turned two people in Spreading-adder snakes and Copperhead, placed them at the door of the Sun's daughter's house, but they could not bite; then the Tiny Men turned the other two people into the horned serpent Uktena and the Rattlesnake; The Rattlesnake bit the Sun's daughter to death and crawled away, U. followed him; since then, humans have not killed rattlesnakes; U. became so dangerous that he was sent to the upper world; the Sun disappeared from grief, people They did not die anymore, but it became dark; Tiny People ordered the soul of the daughter of the Sun to be brought in the box; on the way back, she asked to open the box, flew away as a Redbird bird; the Sun flooded the earth with a flood of its grief tears; then the boys and girls began to sing and dance, the Sun opened their faces slightly, smiled, and the disasters were over].
The Great Southwest. Zunyi: Cushing 1901 [a young man accidentally kills his wife; waits three nights at her grave; on the fourth they go west together; during the day the girl is invisible; she descends into the lake; the owl agrees to revive her to life, tells her husband not to agree with his wife until he returns home; on the fourth day he kisses his wife who falls asleep; she turns into an owl, flies west; people become mortal]: 1-33; Quam 1972 [young a married hunter rejects the witch girl's love; she tries to lime him, but a friend helps neutralize her witchcraft; then she wants to kill the hunter's wife as soon as she falls asleep; a hunter before dawn He falls asleep and lets go of his wife's hand; she dies; at night he sees the light in her grave, goes down to her, wants to go with her to another world; she tells her to take four pairs of shoes and food with him; following her, the hunter sees only a white feather moving; cannot go down into the abyss; a chipmunk plants a juniper, a hunter descends on it; the wife creates thickets of cacti, placers of stones, a grove of stunted trees; the husband puts on the prepared shoes, passes; the wife greets her parents (ancestors), who do not greet her husband; the husband wants to follow her into the kivu and dance, but he is stopped who was her first lover; The owl gives her husband an arrow with a jay pen, tells him to shoot at the priest; then the wife returns to her husband; the owl allows him to take his wife; in four days they will be at home, but must ways to abstain from sex; at the last moment, the husband tries to break the ban; the woman turns into an owl; Now she is mine, says Owl; the owl takes her to the west, their owl descendants live there now] : 146-179.
California. Luiseño [man beats his wife; she dies; returns to his crying child; agrees to stay if her husband no longer beats her; cooks liquid porridge, her husband beats her, she flies away with her throat ]: DuBois 1908:153-154.
NW Mexico. Huichol [Tumusaúwi shaman and his wife must abstain for five years; after the fourth year, the wife got drunk, got together with Mexicans; their child fell ill, T. began to beat his wife, then the child died; Kauymáli asked her to marry him, but she died; K. came to the world of the dead, the gods of the sea gave him a bamboo jar with a cotton cork, told him not to open it on the way; letting his wife in the heel a magic arrow thorn, K. turned his wife into a fly, put it in a vessel; hears his wife asking to open it; on the fifth night, K. opens the vessel, the wife turns into a fly, flies away; K. comes to the gods again, but those they only teach him funeral rituals; other dead people beat the deceased to blood because she wasted corn; as a child she broke an oak branch; now the lice that bit her have descended from the broken place, and a branch grabbed her, pulled her away; the woman was grabbed and raped by an animal she had once trapped; the path was guarded by a larva, and on both sides were two dogs she had once held starved; now they bit her; the turtledove wanted to give her a tortilla, but the crow did not allow her, for she teased the crow because of its long beak; when K. returned, released the birds caught for his wife; therefore there are a lot of beautiful birds in the mountains]: Zingg 1938, No. 4b: 544-546 (=1982:235-236).
The Central Andes. Pukio (dep. Ayacucho) [after his wife's death, her husband follows her to Qoropuna (mountain to the dep. Arequipa); the owner of the dead San Francisco agrees to return the deceased by placing her in a bamboo vessel and telling her not to open it ahead of time; the husband opens on the way, the wife flies away]: Arguedas 1975:73f in Cipolletti 1980:36.
Bolivia - Guaporé. Chiriguano [wife dies; an eagle or two men (dos muchachos) take her husband to Iwóka (the world of the dead); the bench is made of stone, the house is a hut; the husband is told that his wife Aña is going marry Aña; a local man helps bring his wife back, but she is only a shadow; he tells her husband not to touch his wife for 20 days; the husband hugs her ahead of time, the wife turns into a green fly, returns to Iwóka]: Cipolletti 1978:58 (=1980:36-37).