H9A. Who will give birth sooner .19.25.38.41.42.
Of the two women, one associated with a stone and the other with a plant, only a plant woman leaves offspring, so humans are what they are (mortal, capable talk, etc.). Or children born to two women have opposite properties (skillful and inept, etc.).
Papua Valley river Japna, Apayao, (tboli), Yami, Ancient Japan (Kojiki and Nihon-Shoki), Taltan, Tsimshian.
Melanesia. Papua Valley river Japna (Jupna, NW Huon Peninsula) [a stone was the first to become pregnant but was unable to give birth; then bamboo gave birth to the first humans; if humans were born from stone, they would live forever]: Carl Schmitz, 1960:241-243 in Yamada 2002: 69.
Taiwan - Philippines. Apayao [Stone and Wild Banana are both pregnant, Stone is going to give birth earlier; Banana replies that in this case people will be unable to speak; Banana gave birth earlier, Stone could not give birth, the embryo is still visible in the Macaltog area]: Wilson 1947b:87 (narrated in Eugenio 1994, No. 165:282); (cf. tboli [the supreme god d'Wata and his sons dug holes for the pillars of the house; from the excavated land, his wife Hyu We and Sedek We sculpted human figures; H. did the right thing, and S.'s nostrils were open upwards, and genitals on her knees; S. began to destroy rice, hit the sky with a pestle, it moved away from the ground; S. and H. quarreled, H. hit the figures sculpted by S., their noses and genitals got to where they are now; H. wanted place the figures on the moon so that they would always remain children; S. wanted to place them on a stone to be hard as stone; H. did not agree, turned away, then S. put them on a banana; so people multiply how bananas die; D. revived figures by blowing on them]: Eugenio 1994, No. 182:307-308); yami ["the main anthropogenetic myth is based on the story of origin from stone and bamboo"; stone fell from the sky to Ipaptok; another ancestor came out of grown bamboo; a stone ancestor went to Iratay, a bamboo ancestor to Ivarino; they began to make boats; a man who came out of bamboo put the boat's ribs outside, she fell apart; the one who came out of the stone placed it inside, it swam]: Benedek 1991.
Japan. Ancient Japan: Kojiki 1994 ch. 32 [god Amatsuhiko-hikoho no ninigi-no mikoto asks Ooyama-tsumi no kami for his youngest daughter, the Virgin of Flower Blossoms on Trees; he sends her with her the older sister of the Virgin of the Longevity of the Rocks; the latter is ugly, so A. refuses her; father-in-law says that this will make people's lives short-lived like flowers on trees]: 88-89; Nihon shoki 1997, scroll 2:158-159 [goddess Amatherasu's grandson descends from heaven; chooses the Virgin of Flower Blossoms on Trees as his wife; rejects her ugly older sister, the Eternal Rock; if he chose otherwise, people would live forever].
Subarctic. Taltan [The Tree Woman and the Stone Woman give birth; the Raven is late and does not have time to help them; the son of the Stone dies; if it were the other way around, people would live forever; like trees, some people age faster than others]: Teit 1919, No. 1. 21:216.
NW Coast. Tsimshian [The raven copulates with stone and elderberry; if the Stone gave birth first, people would be covered with hard scales and would not die; Elderberry gives birth first, so people are mortal, and strong coating only on fingers (nails)]: Boas 1895, No. XXIII/2:278; 1902:72; Deans 1891:34.
(Wed. The coast is the Plateau. Quarry [see motive B6, L1; brother and sister stay alone, get married; their young son kills people by taking their tongues out to sleep; two girls were in ritual isolation, escaping; pushing a child into fire, his ashes turn into mosquitoes; one conceives from a stone; dies because her child is too heavy and hard; the other conceives from a pen, gives birth to Ahlnuk and his three brothers ( Ahlnuk, Tachandalkan, Taslas and one more); they kill a big snake that drowned people; kill two grizzlies that did not give people water; A. asks the person what he is doing; I'm carving a club to kill A. ; A. touches his lips with his finger, he falls dead; brothers come to people who are going to cut a woman to extract a child; A. teaches childbirth; a man harpoons fish with his pointed tibia bone; A. turns into salmon, the person misses, breaks the bone against the stone; sharpens it again; A. makes him a normal leg, gives him a jail (the origin of the jail)]: Jenness 1934, No. 6:129-136).