I88. A multi-tailed beast.

.11.12.17.21.22.26.27.34.36.37.38.47.58.

A creature with several tails is described.

Sakata, Swahili, Yoruba, Mofu-gudur, Akkad, Kachin, Viets, Khmu, Fox, Vietnam's white tai, Shans, Karen, Ancient China, Koreans, Bulgarians, Tuvans, Central Yakuts, Udege, Orochi, Ancient Japan (Kojiki), Japanese, Chiroki, Warrau.

Bantu-speaking Africa. Sakata: Colldén 1979, No. 35 [a woman fed a hungry leopard; walked with her husband through the forest, a dog appeared, demanded that the woman be eaten; then a dog appeared with two, then with ten tails; they sent her husband to bring leaves so that blood would not drip to the ground when the body was cut; the leopard advised to hide it in a basket under the leaves; jumped out, tore the dogs], 37 [ a pregnant wife wants lions; the husband traps the lion, lets him go at his request; the wife is offended, goes to the mother; the husband accompanies her; the dog comes up, tells him to divide the property; dogs with two come up for him, three, etc. up to ten tails; send her husband to bring leaves to cut a woman; a lion to ask him to hide him in a pile of leaves, tore dogs]: 194-195, 197-198; Swahili [women they persuade Fatima to test her husband Amadi's love by asking her for Pembi Miuri snake fabric; A. comes to an old woman who gives him a cat pointing the way; A. consistently meets a snake with a number of heads and one to six tails; a snake with seven heads and tails - PM; A. cuts off her heads, the cat puts her in a bag; revives A. when poison hits his face; PM A. pulls out cloth from her abdomen; the wife is happy ]: Baker 1927. No. 2:187-190.

West Africa. Yoruba [the king promises to give his daughter to the one who brings a beast with 152 tails; the famous hunter pretends to be dead, all the animals gather for the body; their king comes with 152 tails, hiding from a hunter in an empty mountain; the hunter grabs him, brings him, gets a wife; others brought animals with 10, even 100 tails, but not 152]: Fuja 1969:69-72; mofu-gudur [seven brothers they go to look for brides, leaving the mother pregnant; after two years of pregnancy, the baby from the womb asks how to get out; refuses to go out like everyone else, the mother tells them to go out through her ass; the boy is born young , dressed; catches up with brothers; they do not believe that he is their brother; they stay in a house with eight sisters; the girls' mother asks the boys to lie with their heads against the wall, their daughters to lie head to the door; enters playing the flute, to make sure everyone is sleeping; little brother answers; she goes out, he tells the brothers to lie down with their heads against the door, the girls turn to the wall; the woman comes in, plays, no one answers, she cuts off their heads daughters, thinking that he is cutting off young men; the youngest tells the brothers to run; everyone runs away, but one cannot be woken up; the youngest stays asleep, turns into a bell; seeing that the daughters are still dead, a woman cooks, eats them; makes a sleeping young man a slave; leaves grain to guard from goats; the bell becomes a cow, pretends to butt the boy, carries him away on his back, turns into a young man, both run; woman turns into a beauty, comes to people, promises to marry someone who takes a splinter out of her leg; no one can; against will, Saday {apparently the name of the young man who was the bell} pulls out his knife, this The splinter was immediately removed with a knife; the woman is given to Saday; she turns into fire, but the dogs do not tell her to eat their owner; she is afraid of them, tells her husband's parents that she can make a good sauce by adding he asks the bark of a tree growing far away in the savannah to let their son go with her; the woman hides a cauldron under her clothes, says that she is pregnant with Sadai, gives seven dogs food, locks them, goes with her husband; in the savannah turns into a panther with 30 tails; gnaws on a tree on which S.; S. asks the vulture to bring his horn, he is in the trash, where the chicken and the vulture are driven away; asks for a hawk, there is a white chicken, a hawk brings a horn; if S. catches an abandoned horn, he caught it; S. caught, blew, called dogs by name; dogs broke constipation, ran, tore the witch to pieces; one bone pierced S.'s leg, dogs pulled her out; S. brings dishes taken by the witch and one of the panther's tails; reproaches his parents and chief for telling him to marry a witch; mother breaks his leg, father's arm, chief's neck; other people also have something for themselves break; S. burns the tail]: Sorin-Barreteau 2001, No. 18:126-134.

Western Asia. Akkad [Akkadian (2360-2180 BC) seal depicting gods fighting a seven-headed, six-tailed, four-legged monster]: Gray 1969:78.

Tibet is the Northeast of India. Kachin [Sun Brother is the father of nine Sun Girls, Sister Moon has many star children; when people started stealing rice, the Sun released all daughters as punishment, gave dogs 9 tails each, and field dogs mice (favorite game) 9 holes each; people made a large bow to shoot live snakes at the Sun; then the whole Sun family hid; they sent the Battleship, the daughter of the Sun killed him; then the Rooster; he agreed for the Sun to revive the Battleship, give him sturdy clothes and a long tongue; scatter his daughters, breaking them apart (they also became stars); if the Rooster does not welcome the Sun, the Fox will deal with him; If the Sun doesn't come out, the Toad will swallow it, and if the Moon is a Dog]: Gilhodes 1908, No. 24:691-693.

Burma - Indochina. Vietnam: Knorozova 2000 ["The Amazing Events in Linnam", 15th century; in the western part of Thanglong (now Hanoi), a fox with nine tails lived in a cave; in the form of a god in white clothes she lured young men and women into her lair; by order of the Dragon King, the fox was killed, the people she captured were released, the cave was flooded with water, now it is West Lake]: 17, 80; Mai Thi Tu, Le Thi Nhan Tuyet 1976 [King Hung betrays his youngest daughter; the Spirit of the Mountains and the Spirit of the Waters marry her; the former demonstrates his power by causing a thunderstorm, the second stops it; the king demands that elephants with 9 tusks and roosters be brought to him with 9 scallops, horses with 9 houppe (manes?) ; The Spirit of Horus opens his Book of Wishes, everything appears; receives, takes his wife away; the Spirit of the Waters causes a storm, a flood, but is unable to repel a woman; all this happens every year]: 307-309; ahem [young man- the orphan lived with the old man, hunted birds, saw bird girls coming down to swim, fell in love with the youngest, who was the last to arrive; the old man advised him to hide her wings; he hid them in the quiver; at first he could not defeat the girl, found strength by chewing the old man's bethel, tied this old man with a rope; took the heavenly maiden as his second wife, she gave birth to a child; looking up, she saw her hidden under her wings with a roof, put them on, flew away, returned to the child, invited her aunt to fly, but she just jumped and fell away; she flew away altogether; the pet monkey put a wand in the dog's paw to show the owner which side the wife flew away; the dog had seven tails, it led the owner and the monkey to the river; the young man put his sword in the jets, the river parted, forming two channels; there were seven in total; the dog told me to hold on to her tail, do not laugh, otherwise the tail will come off; the young man and the monkey laugh every time the dog makes an indecent sound, the next tail comes off; when there is only one tail left, the dog went home, and the young man with they remained a monkey; the last stream crossed the body of a river dragon lying across; they came to the foot of Heaven rock, where the door opens and closes; the monkey began to throw fruit from the tree, young man threw them into the hole in the rock, the rock stopped; they climbed the cliff to the banyan (ficus), where the monkey said he did not know beyond the road, returned; the young man saw two big birds, one said to the other that he would fly to peck at the festival in honor of the return of the virgin bird; the young man carved the feather of one bird, hid in the hole with his child, the birds flew to the field where they threw bones buffaloes, the young man went out; there was a river, the women replied that they had come to bathe the bird girl for water; the young man threw bracelets and necklaces into the jug, asked her to pour the jug over the girl's head; she recognized her things; At the festival, the young man pinched the child, the wife recognized his son's cry; all three returned to earth, the house there was overgrown with vines during this time]: Wrigglesworth 1991, No. 8:294-298; the fox [Mr. Heaven was angry with people; gave one person pumpkin seeds, a huge pumpkin grew; during the flood, a man swam in it with his younger sister; the water came down, they went out; to find out if they could get married, brother and sister let them down the mountains were two millstones, they lay on top of each other; nine sons were born; seven became the ancestors of men, and two lived in the mountains; the elder married a monkey, the youngest accidentally killed her; the elder married another monkey, the youngest and killed her; the mountain spirit sent two girls, beautiful and ugly; the younger brother smeared the beauty's face with mud and he chose the ugly one; when he understood the deception, he took the beautiful one, and threw his brother into failure, he I ended up in the lower world; there were tigers, the young man shot them; the flying squirrel agreed to take him to the ground if he didn't laugh at her; she had nine tails; the young man grabbed his tail, laughed, the tail came off; so consistently with all the tails until left alone]: Heine-Geldern 1976:87-88; tai (Vietnam) [after the father's death, two brothers find a huge egg; people roll it into the village, but it goes right to the brothers' house; when the brothers return from the field, the house is tidy and the food is cooked; the elder guards, sees a winged heavenly maiden come out of the egg and five maids with her ; the younger brother is afraid to find himself the next day, grabs the maiden; they have two sons; the mother finds out from them where her father hid her wings, flies away; the father whipped them with a rod, went to look for his wife; left alone, the brothers plant a palm seed with fruits on it at once; the brothers ask the birds to take them to their mother, they fly away; then the rhinoceros bird takes them to the river; there a nine-tailed dog transports them to on the other side; they ask the old woman to drink, throw their mother's gold ring into the vessel; the mother realizes that her sons have come; mother's father Po Then demands that each of the 200 or 300 be tied to the horns buffaloes the rope that is tied to him; the insect tells them to tie to the buffalo it sits on each time; tells them to count the many needles (nieng Khim thinks); tells everyone women stick their hand out, let their sons recognize their mother's hand; an insect sits on her; Po Then lets their sons see their mother; they return home, but a tree trunk blocks the woman's way; sons cut his sabers, blood flowed; mother to sons: you killed your father; left them, telling them not to sit down to eat rice on a crooked stone, not to enter the bubbling stream; the elder does everything wrong, marries different animals; the youngest kills a snake that descends from heaven and devours people and animals, revives the dead, marries a heavenly maiden; comes to the youngest and kills his animals; the elder pushes the youngest into a hole; animals helped him get out; he killed the elder with an arrow while hunting birds]: Degeorge 1924, No. 15:58-68; Vietnam's white thai [poor orphan chops wood for sale; sees how to the lake Seven heavenly maidens descend, take off their clothes and wings, bathe; hides the youngest's wings; takes her as his wife; a year later she gives birth to a son; in the absence of his wife, the father calms the crying child, giving him to play mother's wings; one day the mother was left alone with the child, who cried and pointed to where the woodcutter hid his wings; the mother finds them, after a while flies away, giving her son her ring and telling her father come to her if they want; the husband put his son on his back, went to look for his wife; the way through the mouth in the rock, which closes and then opens; the fox advises throwing acidic fruits there, teeth hurt, movement will stop grazing for a while; father and son pass; on the way a river with nine channels, in which even iron dissolves; a dog with nine tails and nine heads promises to transport if riders do not they will laugh in the middle of the river; in the middle of each channel, the dog makes an indecent sound, the father and son laugh, one head and one tail fall off; before the last crossing, the man blindfolds himself and his son with a handkerchief, they reach the shore; since then, all dogs have the same head and one tail, before they were nine; the phoenix offers to spend the night under his wing, and in the morning he and his mother will bring them to where they celebrate the princess returns from land; the phoenix's mother carried them to the river that borders the sky; the maids collect water to bathe the princess, the husband throws a ring in the kushvin; the wife recognizes him, tells him to call the visitors; her the father suggests 1) tying each of the 300 buffaloes to the pole to which they are always tied; the firefly shows who to tie; 2) sow the grain and harvest it again; the birds have collected it, but the king noticed that several grains were missing; one bird swallowed them, the king twisted her neck, since then birds of this species have goiter on the back of their heads; 3) find a princess in a palace of one hundred thousand rooms overnight; a rat promises to bring a dry leaf under the right door, but halfway it was eaten by a cat; then the firefly leads to the right room; the king arranges a wedding, then sends the young to the ground, where the son-in-law also becomes king]: Wrigglesworth 1991, No. 11:311-316; Shany [younger brother cries; the elder promises to bring an elephant with 7 heads and 7 tails if the younger one stops crying; the king finds out about this, sends the elder behind the elephant; the hermit gives the young man pills to help overcome obstacles; he brings the elephant, then lets go; the brothers take the throne after the death of the tsar]: Kasevich, Osipov 1976, No. 190:513-518 (= Zapadova 1977:299-303); Karen [the orphan boy has only a seven-tailed dog; she barks in a field near the house, the young man finds an egg there, brings it home; someone cooks and cleans; the young man finds the girl, her the name is Egg, she warns that she will disappear if he calls her by that name; the neighbors gave the young man a drink, he let it slip, the wife disappeared; the dog tells her to hold on to her tail, swims across Salwen, warns not exclaim, Great! , having swam to the shore; the young man exclaims, the tail falls off; so when crossing seven rivers; when the last tail has fallen off, the dog dies, telling its head to be cut off; at the crossroads, blood splashes on the right one road; in the village he will drip on the steps of the house where his wife; the young man has found a wife]: Mason 1865:221-222.

China - Korea. Ancient China: Yangshina 1977:45 [Catalog of the Western Mountains; Mount Ivan; an animal that looks like a fox but with one eye and three tails; called huan; a bird that looks like a crow but with three heads and six tails; called a citu], 101 [Catalog of the Overseas of the East; The Lord (Uncle) of the River lives north of the Rainbows; has the appearance of a yellow-green animal with eight heads (y each with a human face), eight legs and eight tails; the kingdom of the Green Hills is north of it; the Fox has four legs and nine tails], 111 [Catalog of the Great Deserts of the East; Country summers and the kingdom of Gayyu; a god with eight human heads and human faces, a tiger's body and ten tails, called Heavenly Wu]; Shaughnessy 2005 [relief brick, Eastern Han , from a burial in Qingbaixiang, Sichuan: Siwanmu ("mistress of the West") on a throne formed by a tiger and a horned dragon, next to a nine-tailed fox, a hare, a toad (an anthropomorphic character resembling a toad?) , three-legged raven]: 42-43; Koreans: Shkurkin 1941 [a revived stone figure brings the young man to the palace, tells the minister's daughter and his friend to cut down the fiancé; it turns out that he killed the dragon snake, nine-tailed fox, venomous snakes]: 15; Choi 1979, No. 106 [a man wrote on a skeleton (human bones) by the road, which chased him; the man hid in a liquor store, slipped through the back door; a few years later, he came back, saw a new shop in front of her, beautiful in it; the man began to talk about his adventure; the beauty turned into a fox with nine tails, said she was the skeleton ate a man (=Ząng 1952, No. 22:38); var.: The man picked up his shoulder blade, said he had one; an old woman in the liquor store; said she was that shovel, ate the man], 134 [9-tailed fox turns into a woman, commits crimes (theft, murder) so that a secret state inspector is accused; he escapes, she runs away like a fox]: 32, 51; Cho 2001, No. 87 [every day, walking past the hill, a young man meets a girl; she brings him into the house, cuddles his face against him, puts a bead in his mouth with her tongue and takes him back; the young man is paler, weaker; the teacher tells him to swallow a bead looking at the sky; a young man swallows but looks at the ground; a girl turns into a fox, dies; with a bead she took the strength of 99 people; if she took the hundredth, she would remain a woman; if the young man looked to the sky, he would know everything about him], 102 [childless spouses find a baby in the forest; he grows up quickly, is extremely strong, he is called Jangsoi ("iron giant"); he goes to war, meets, takes in comrades of the Snoring so much that a tree swayed, the Mountain Mover, the Pee as a river; they easily defeat enemies; cannibals lock them in a closet, they run away, they are put in an iron closet, under it fire; Snoring causes an icy wind; in the morning, the twins kill the servants of the main winged cannibal, play gonoo with their bones; J. and the Winged fight high in the sky; J.'s hand falls; the twins sprinkle it with wheat flour, they throw it back, she grows; they do not allow the Winged's wife to sprinkle ash on her hand; they do not let the Winged's hand sprinkle with flour, sprinkle with ash; the same happens to his head; J. beats the Winged's wife, she turns into nine-tailed fox; sister cities share treasures and supplies, return home]: 146-147, 188-192.

The Balkans. Bulgarians [lamias, chalas - dragons with many heads, sometimes six-winged, twelve-tailed]: Putilov 1971:34.

Southern Siberia - Mongolia. Tuvans [serpentine six-headed, eight-legged and two-eyed image of the Amyrga-Eren dragon, made of felt (130 cm long; collections 1903); five above the main big head small, with open mouths; each head has three eyes made of opaque beads; Amyrga-eren was a family guardian, made by or under the guidance of a shaman and hung from a lattice yurts]: Gorbacheva, Solovyova 2006:84-85.

Eastern Siberia. The Central Yakuts [there is a "special luo fish in the lower world", "a source of death and misfortune that has a head and two tails"]: Ksenofontov 1992:43 (first published in 1928; retelling in Alekseev 1966:25).

Amur - Sakhalin. Udege people: Arsenyev 1995 (1): 117-120 [(=Lebedeva et al. 1998, No. 103:265-467, referring to Arsenyev 1917-1925, No. 1:701-705); old man Kanda hides his daughter in a box; When he asks her for his wife, K. demands bring sunlight from the sky; E. meets a fox with two, then 11 tails; shoots 10, since then the fox has one tail; brings K.; he replies that he does not need fox tails, but sunlight; E. goes again; two birds fight over the nest, E. reconciles them, makes them a second nest; fish in shallow water, E. lets it into the water; meets Brother K.; he promises to help if E. sprinkles a bag of chumiza by the sea, and then he will collect; the birds collect; pour a bag of abdu (coppers) into the sea, collects the fish; Brother K. asks him to give his daughter, but K. demands sunlight again; the old woman gives a small saw; E. will meet a bear, wild boar, elk, lying without moving; then red deer with horns to the sky; the bear's teeth have grown into the ground, E. sawed them off, the bear is grateful; tells the red deer to climb into the sky by the horns, saw off on the way back; the sky must bow to the Month, it will help; E. drank off the boar's fangs, but he left without thanking; in the sky, the old man (obviously the Month) gives a parcel, tells him not to open it along the way; going down to earth, E. saws off the horns with a deer, he is grateful; runs a bundle over the wool, now the raisin's ass is red; E. gave the parcel to K., took the girl; K. and his wife unfolded, burned; after marrying, E. gave the tiger a beautiful shirt (striped ever since), the tiger taught him how to hunt well; the magpie helped E., he also gave her clothes], 124-131 [{probably Udege, but maybe Orochi}; the boy tells his father he will go look for a wife in heaven ( the name of both son and father is Egda); birds fight over the nest, E. makes a second nest, the birds are grateful, since then they have been able to make nests; E. takes stranded fish to the river; measures the boar's fangs lengths (they have grown into the ground); the same goes to the bear; he teaches a red deer whose horns have grown into the sky to rise to heaven; old Kanda, his wife Bolihe and their daughter will be in the sky; K. orders them to pour into the sea chumiza, then the shells, collect back (the fish are collected); catch a 10-tailed fox; the fox teaches you to bring a parcel from the upper sky that will give the Month; E. cut off 10 tails of the fox with an arrow, one remains; K. asks bring a month; in heaven, an old woman tells me where she is; gives a parcel, tells him not to open it on the way; E. gives it to K., he opens it, the flame burned him and his wife; E. measured the right horn with a red deer lengths, drank, red hazel grouse; E. got a wife, goes to get a second; overtakes, kills hazel grouse, black hazel grouse; shoots at someone at night; nuthatch explains that E. killed the monster Amba, which killed everyone, who reached the end of the earth; the old woman praises for this, shows a river that falls into the underworld as a waterfall; there are fish, toads, skeleton, monsters; E. returns, then talks to people about what she saw; an old woman gave seeds, since then berries have been growing on the ground; E. s]; Lebedeva et al. 1998, No. 33 [old man Kandá has a beloved wife Ayaulá, with her daughter Gandusa, and unloved Gaule, Meehi's son from her; K. pulled out his unloved eyes, threw it into the river; M. became a bird, overheard two girls playing overseas through her mother's eyes; he sailed, took it out, returned to his mother; the beautiful father demands for daughter seven identical fox tails; daughter teaches how to find a fox with 8 tails, he cuts off 7, gets a wife; K. tells me to bring a tree with gold and silver leaves, bark in the form of snakeskin; A. finds , leaves him, it grows up outside his house; at night, the storm takes K., his beloved wife and daughter]: 241-251; Lopatin 1933, No. 2 [young Egdy marries a rich girl; father-in-law tells him to collect discarded oats ( birds collect); 2) get a ring thrown into the water (they get the fish); 3) kill a fox with seven tails; foxes with two, three, etc. tails pass by, E. kills the seven-tailed; 4) bring it from the sun constant heat; E. helps a wild boar, elk, bear along the way; an old woman brings him fever wrapped in cloth; animals bring him home; father-in-law unfolds the bundle, burns]: 241-246; Nikolaeva a.o. 2003, No. 11 [old Kanda wants seven-tailed fox tails for his daughter; Merge gets married; they are haunted by evil spirits; his wife gives M. a whetstone, he throws it behind him, the sea freezes behind him, the spirits stop persecution; M. thinks his wife was eaten; comes to a house where a woman who looks like his wife is sitting; they tell each other stories (what happened to them), get to know each other, the wife returns to M.]: 76-77.

Japan. Ancient Japan: Kojiki 1994, ch. 14 [Susa-no-o descended to Torikami in Izumo Country; met Oo-Yama-tsumi-no-kami, his wife and daughter, they cry: Yamata-no Orochi dragon every year one of the daughters comes and swallows; swallowed seven, the last eighth remains; the dragon has 8 heads and 8 tails; moss and cypresses with cryptomeria grow on the body, it is 8 valleys long; S. asked The old man was his daughter and, having received it, turned it into a private comb, stuck it in his hair; S. tells the dragon to leave 8 barrels of sake, he became intoxicated, fell asleep, S. cut it; when he cut the middle tail, the sword broke; inside was another sword, which S. presented to his younger sister, goddess Amaterasu]: 58-60 (Kojiki, I, 14); Toropygina 2010 (Otogi-zoshi Tamamo-no Soshi (Notes on Tamamo), 14th-16th centuries) [the emperor falls ill; the invited fortuneteller realizes that the cause of the illness is Emperor Tamamonomae's favorite servant; it turns out that she is a large century-old fox with two tails, who seeks to seize the throne; the fox hides; two famous warriors are ordered to end her, they kill her; the story about Tamamonomae was popular, based on it, the yokyoku "Sesshoseki", a play" Tamamo-no-mae" for the Kabuki Theater; other versions of the story describe the fox as having nine tails and reaching 800 years of age]; Wikipedia, "Nine-Tailed fox" [The 9-tailed fox is a popular character in Japanese literature using folklore motifs; Tamamo-no-mae written/ collected in the Otogizōshi of the Muromachi period, also mentioned by Toriyama Sekien in Konjaku Hyakki Shūi. Tamamo-no-mae was a courtesan under the Japanese Emperor Konoe, she was praised to be the most beautiful and intelligent woman. She caused the Emperor to be extremely ill and was chased away by Abe no Yasuchika, who was called to diagnose the reason of the Emperor's poor health, and discovered the true nature of Tamamo-no-mae . A few years later, in the area of Nasu, the nine-tailed fox was seen killing and eating women and travelers, Emperor Konoe thus sent Kazusa-no-Suke and Miura-no-Suke along with 80,000 troops to kill the fox. In the plains of Nasu, it was finally killed and became a stone called Sessho-seki that continued to release poisonous gas and kill everything that contacts it. The stone was said to have been destroyed in the Nanboku-chō period by Gennoh Shinshou and the pieces flew away to different parts in Japan]: 272-274; Japanese [boy spent all day drawing cats; his parents kicked him out; he took the best drawing with him; spent the night in the village temple; he was told that the person who stayed in the temple would not live to see morning; something rustled at night and dead on the floor in the morning a rat with several tails, and the cat in the picture has a muzzle covered in blood; the boy became the rector of this temple, and his cat came off the picture and began to live with him; both grew old; the cats had many tails, she sweeps the floor with them; says that she has become a werewolf, will go to the mountains, but help him; the rich man will have a funeral, she will turn into a chariot of fire, let him hit the coffin with his rosary, the chariot will disappear; everything we were convinced of the rector's sanctity and the number of parishioners increased]: Markova 1956:136-139.

Southeast USA. Chirokee [Terrible Flint (UK) took the old woman's child, was about to eat; Tseg'sgin' caught up with him, they spent the night around the fire, the UK promised to eat both; fell asleep; T. prepared a wedge and a wooden hammer, put a wedge against the Criminal Code, hit it with a hammer, the Criminal Code shattered into small pieces; Rabbit was nearby; when the hot fragments flew, he put his head in the hollow, got stuck, the fragments cut off its seven beautiful tails; the back of the skin now shows the places where they were]: Kilpatrick, Kilpatrick 1964:62-64.

Guiana. Varrau [beginning see motif L44, text (185); a shaman climbs a tree in the forest, the spirits gathered began to cut it, their axes and arrows break; they call the spirit Muse ("the one who sees") M. could not climb; then even more powerful Webuoni; a bird sits on his forehead (she eats scorpions); V. held a broken arrow between his heels, climbed his legs forward; the shaman stabbed this arrow in his ass, shouts to the spirits to catch prey, runs away himself; the perfume eats V., then everyone makes excuses as if he did not eat; half-spirit (vertically?) scoops up the river with the skin of his scrotum; the shaman fires an arrow at it, he grabs it, puts it in a hollow; the shaman gives him a cigarette, he lights it with his fiery hand, he likes it, he takes the shaman as a friend; half-spirit roasts a crocodile, a shark, tells me to bring a pot, a plate, the shaman sees only snakes there; half-spirit brought a pot, a plate; two jaguars came at night, half-spirit killed them easily; half-spirit gives the shaman caught fish in a small bag, sent him across the river when the bird sings "dry, dry"; the man sees only a deep river, returns; half-spirit carried it half dry, turned back; the man barely managed to run to the other side, the river was filled with water again; the shaman reached a house, hung up a hammock; the spirit came out, cut off his calf, blew a whistle; did not like it, made the second one out of another caviar ; told the man where to go; on the way he meets jaguars with 1, 2, 3, 4 heads and tails; returned home]: Wilbert 1970, No. 186:418-423.