Yu.E. Berezkin, E.N. Duvakin

Thematic classification and distribution of folklore and mythological motifs by area

Analytical catalogue translated by Jon F White

Introduction
Bibliography
Ethnicities and habitats

I28A. Animals produce earthquakes .46.63.70.

Large animals that are hunted go underground and cause earthquakes.

Plains. Blackfooted [during a solar eclipse, hunters drive buffalo into a cave; the entrance collapses; the bison multiplies; when hunters chase them, the ground shudders]: Clark 1966:271.

Central Amazon. Munduruku [Karusakaibe sends his son to his sisters for meat; they don't let him; K. tells him to fill their house with feathers; fumigates him, screams, Eat your own food! they hear, Copulate! , turn into wild pigs, kills one at a time; Daira persuades son K. to show where the pigs are, lets everyone out; they chase K.'s son, kill him; K. covers them with a hill (origin earthquakes? cf. kayapo); the rest flee into the forest]: Murphy 1958, No. 1:72-73.

Eastern Brazil. Kayapo [a woman does not feed her children; a shaman burns her and her children into wild boars; locks her in a cave; kills two wild boars as needed; people force the shaman's son to show where the cave is; wild boars rush at people, trample and devour the boy; go to the underworld; when they run, the earth shudders]: Wilbert 1978, No. 32:109-110.