I71. Stars are roots.
(.10.) .19. (.22.23.) .24.35.37.43.52. (.57.61.72.)
Stars are the roots of plants growing in the upper world.
(Bushmen), bukavak, (tai, baiga), bidayu (?) , Clementan, Kayan, Eastern Khanty, Northern Selkups, Kets, Negidals, Orochi, Thompson, Lacandons, (Hoti, Shuar, Mokovi).
(Wed. SW Africa. The Bushmen [the first girl on earth, pretending to be sick, stayed in the hut her mother had made her; angry that her mother had brought her too few edible roots, threw them into the sky; mature roots turned into red stars, young ones turned into white stars; she threw ash into the sky, which became the Milky Way]: Kotlyar 1983, No. 59:106-108 (=Zhukov, Kotlyar 1976, No. 13:57-58).
Melanesia. Bukavak [stars are phosphorescent roots of upper world plants]: Lehner 1931b: 107.
(Wed. Burma - Indochina. The Thais of China [the governor of Heavenly Lord Yanda and younger Yangsan; when enemies attacked, Yandy sat in the sky, Yansan defeated them, became the ruler of Tai; Yandy came with an army, was captured, burned at the stake, turned into the sun; the corpses of his warriors became mosquitoes, flies, leeches, many of them in summer when the sun burns; when Yansan died, people planted flowers on his grave; Yangsan became a month , flowers by stars]: Lin Lin, Ustin 1959:20-21).
(Wed. South Asia. Baiga [1) stars are trees growing on clouds; 2) stars are made of diamonds; 3) stars are children of the moon, whom she spit out of her mouth, go down to earth for food and drink]: Elwin 1939:335) .
Malaysia-Indonesia. Clementan [stars are holes made by the roots of trees growing in the upper world]: Hose 1912:142 (=Hose, MacDougall 1912:142); kayan [stars are holes made by roots plants growing in the upper world]: Hose, MacDougall 1912:214; bidayu ("dayaki sushi", western Sarawak) [people ate fruits and mushrooms that grew on rotten trees; Si Jura with companions went to sea; saw a tree whose roots were in the sky and branches hanging into the water; SJ climbed a tree into the sky; the satellites were tired of waiting and sailed away; having reached the roots, SJ found himself in the Pleiades; Si Kira invited in the house, he treated him to boiled rice, which SJ first mistook for larvae; looking into a large jug, SJ saw his father's house and brothers and sisters below; SK gave him three types of rice seeds, taught him how to process full, lowered back to the ground on a rope; the time of field work is judged by the position of the Pleiades]: St. John 1863:213-214.
Western Siberia. Eastern Khanty: Kulemzin, Lukina 1977 (b. Vah) [stars (braids) - tree roots hanging from the sky]: 122; Shatilov 1931 [stars are the roots of God's garden trees in the sky; or people's souls close to Torum]: 129; northern Selkups: Golovnev 1995 [the Selkups call stars as celestial roots (grass or trees)]: 514; Prokofiev 1935 [stars are the roots of trees growing in the first sky; you can't see them in summer, because it's the top blizzard time]: 102 (quoted in Tuchkov 2004:169-170); Prokofiev 1976 [stars are the roots of trees growing on the first tier of the sky]: 108; Khelimsky 1982 [some groups of Selkups have stars as tree roots, growing on the first tier of the sky]: 399; chum salmon [nameless stars are the roots of trees growing in the other world]: Alekseenko 1976:76-77.
Amur - Sakhalin. Negidals [stars are holes in the sky made by tree roots]: A.M. Pevnov, personal report, field materials from the 1980s; Orochi [the ox tells the owner to go to the sea, 12 swans will arrive, they will take off their clothes, become girls; we must hide the plumage of the youngest; she clapped her hands, created a rich house, fed her, put her to sleep; he woke up - neither at home nor at the girl; the ox reproaches that the young man did not make it wife; you have to sow two sunflower seeds, they will grow to the sky; you have to climb them; stars are the roots of trees in the upper world; the ox also tells him to get into one ear, get out of the other, the young man did a great job and handsome; the young man hit his head against the sky, it parted, he saw houses, one of them was beautiful; her father gives difficult tasks, the girl helps to solve; 1) get to know the bride among three chickens (she will raise her wing, there is a white feather); 2) find and bring three girls with curtained faces in the same dresses (the bride will stick a needle to her clothes); 3) find and bring three in different sides of the arrow; the bride tells you to choose a frozen skate, his hair in the opposite direction; gives a bottle of medicine to heal wounds; the first arrow in the side of the sturgeon; the young man took the arrow, cured the sturgeon; the second brought the mice to their queen; ate the young man's horse; the mouse returned the arrow and revived the horse; the young man helped the weaker army; after the victory he found out that the princess was wounded by an arrow in their city; took out an arrow, put an arrow medicine, the princess recovered; the young man returned to his bride, her father gave it to him; one day a man decided to visit the land; his wife warned not to eat chicken; he was met, given cock meat; he ate and became a rooster, so the rooster greets the morning dawn]: Aurora, Lebedeva 1978, No. 82:133-135.
The coast is the Plateau. Thompson: Boas 1895, No. II.5 (ntlakyapamuk) [=2002:87-88; Coyote's son has two wives, Coyote wants one for himself; sends his son to a tree for a bird; the tree grows; when the son jumps to heaven, The coyote makes the tree low again; the young man wants to pull out the roots; it turns out that these are holes in the sky = stars; turns two old women into birds; spider spouses lower it to the ground in a basket; wife and son meet him; he kills a deer, sends a Coyote after him; a Coyote sinks in the river; turns into a piece of wood; two women make a plate out of it; it eats food; they throw it into the fire; it turns into the baby; they make him a servant; they keep fog and wasps in the vessels; when left alone, the Coyote opens the vessels, releasing fog and wasps into the world]: 17-18; Thompson: Teit, No. 2 [at the beginning of time, Coyote makes a son from clay; he bathes, dissolves in water; from resin he melts in the sun; from white stone he lives, his name is Nlixentem; Loon and Duck marry him, one dark skinned, the other is light; Coyote turns his excrement into eagle chicks, asks his son to climb a tree after them, tells the tree to become tall, comes to his wives in clothes and in the appearance of his son, takes a bright one, drives away a dark-skinned one; N. walks along in the heavenly plain, pulls out large edible rhizomes, the wind blows out of the holes, these rhizomes are stars; he goes into an empty dugout, takes the basket, the baskets attack it; he puts the basket back tells baskets to become servants of men; the same episode in a dugout of mats; awls; ridges, birch bark vessels; N. comes to two blind old women; they eat rotten wood, pass food to each other, N. intercepts her, old women quarrel, accusing each other; feel a man, say he smells bad; N. turns them into two types of hazel grouses; comes to the spider spouses, they call themselves his grandfather and grandmother, lowered to the ground in a basket; N. finds a faithful wife and son; Coyote's people are starving, Raven finds N. returning, gets meat for his children; people force him to confess where the meat comes from; return to N., celebrate, ask him to take his second wife back; N. sends Coyote for the carcass of a dead deer, Coyote falls into the river, swims to the dam, followed by two sisters holding salmon; turns into a wooden plate; eats food, a plate is thrown into the fire, the Coyote turns into a baby, his sisters adopt him; in their absence, he breaks the dam, releasing salmon into rivers; goes downstream; asks three or four girls, do they want salmon, the youngest answers, Yes; he sends his penis to her across the river, the end stays in the vagina, the girl gets sick; the Coyote carries salmon across the rivers; the group the girls say that they want mountain sheep meat, not salmon; in this place, the Coyote creates rapids; under the guise of a shaman, he comes to the sick person, asks everyone to sing loudly, leave him with the girl in the steam room, copulates, removes the end of the penis, the girl recovers; the Coyote creates fake berries on the bushes, negotiates with the Grizzly to eat her supplies first, then him; runs away, the berries dry up; (translated to French. in Lévi-Strauss 1971, No. 667a: 329-333)]: 21-29; 1917b, No. 14 [The Coyote is digging edible rhizomes; the wind breaks out of the holes, he sticks the rhizomes back; he has hit the sky, and the rhizomes were stars]: 7.
Mesoamerica Lacandons [Hachakyom sowed stars with sand scattered; the roots of the upper world trees are now visible as stars; when a tree falls, you can see a shooting star]: Bierhorst 1990:153-154.
(Wed. Southern Venezuela. Hoti [stars are classified as plants (no details)]: Storrie 2003:423).
(Wed. Western Amazon. Shuar [the sky was as hard as the earth, there were lots of rocks; Atsúta lived there, she had all kinds of beans, she sowed them in the sky, they became stars]: Karsten 1919:337-338; 1935, No. 8:523-524).
(Wed. Chaco. Mocovi [Padre Gevara: stars are trees with sparkling branches; obviously the mistake is not trees, but branches of one big tree or its flowers]: Lehmann-Nitsche 1927:157 (see G6 guarazu motif).