K23. Fighting with birds. 11.21.26.27.29.31.26.36.37.39.
.40. (.41.) .42.-.44.46.47.50.51.53.68.
Birds attack people in another world or a person who is trapped in another world. See motif K22.
Chagga, Sema, Ancient Chinese, Ancient Greece, Georgians, Scandinavians, Finns, Sami, Evenks of China, Nanai, Chukchi, Bering Strait Inupiat, Polar, (helmet, Tagish, Taltan), Tlingit, Tsimshian, Bellacula, Comox, Snohomish, Skagit, Niscualli, Yakima, Fox, Sarsi, Blackfoots, Grovantre, Crowe, Natchez, Alabama, Chiroki, Zunyi, Lipan, Tarahumara, Kuna, Kuikuro, Kamayura
Bantu-speaking Africa. Chagga 1965 [at sunset, the Sun gives its shield to Geneva Moon, just as a tired warrior does in the evening; at noon, the Sun goes to rest like a tired porter; far in the east they live people who don't know about sleep; at sunrise, when the Sun is small, it is attacked by birds that may mistake it for grain, and humans protect the Sun from it]: Gutmann, p. 177-178 in Millroth: 25-26.
Tibet is the Northeast of India. Sema.
China - Korea. The ancient Chinese.
The Balkans. Ancient Greece.
Caucasus - Asia Minor. Georgians.
Baltoscandia. Scandinavians; Finns; Sami.
Eastern Siberia. The Evenks of China [husband and wife with three children migrated; met family: parents, their adult son and daughter-in-law; they offered to live near them; in fact they were mangiä; the father sent the children to them behind the fire; the old woman pinched their face, said: how fat; the children ran away; the family secretly withdrew from the camp; M. followed the dog, the bear; the man killed the bear first with an arrow, then the old man, then the old woman, then the young; the runners each time think that the victim has already begun to eat; the family goes on, they meet little tailed people; they ask them to stay with them: they are attacked scary birds and predators; it turned out that they were geese and badgers; people shot a lot of geese and badgers, were happy with the prey, moved on]: Bäcker 1988, No. 27:198-201.
Amur - Sakhalin. Nanais.
SV Asia. Chukchi: Anonymous 1958 [written in 1955 in Uelen; while husband is hunting and daughter is at home, wife goes swimming in the lagoon with other women; two men take her clothes away; she follows, they change in seagulls, along with other seagulls, they take her away; in spring, the husband and daughter go to look for bird eggs; they see yaranga, come in, there is his wife, a big skimmer seagull; she tells the seagulls to attack the hunter, he successfully fights off with a stick; hits the skimmer himself on the wings; other seagulls are happy because their head forced them to carry his prey; after killing the skimmer, the husband returns home with his wife]: 70; Baboshina 1958, No. 33 [ Ememkut takes the clothes of ten Ducks swimming in Lake, returns nine, marries the youngest; she flies away with the Ducks with her daughter and son (the son has no wings, his mother makes them out of branches); E. goes look for a wife and children; the old man gives him arrows that freeze the sea; overseas, E. meets his children first; Duck is married to Drake; E. easily whips flocks of attacking birds, brings his wife and children back]: 90-92; Bogoras 1928, No. 48 (reindeer) [two options; 1) girls Geese and Seagulls take off their feather clothes, swim in the lake; man steals clothes; returns them to everyone but the most beautiful Seagull; beret her wife; they have two sons; instead of edible roots, she collects unnecessary herbs, her mother-in-law scolds her; when the birds fly south, she asks them to throw her feathers; flies away with the children; the husband goes to searching; the Eagle sends him to an old woodcutter; a country of birds can be seen through his anus; an old man sends a man there in a self-propelled boat; a man comes to his wife; she has a new husband, the Burgmeister seagull; birds they attack him, firing feathers instead of arrows; a man maims and kills birds with a club; splashes water, birds freeze to the ground; a man brings his wife and children home; 2) as in (1); wife - Goose; sunny rays penetrate the old man's mouth, shine from his ass; a man penetrates his ass, jumps out of his mouth; an old man makes a boat out of a log, it rushes across the sea like a fish; the son of a man in the land of birds catches it on a hook; a person kills the Mayor with a club, the rest of the birds flee]: 429-432.
The Arctic. Bering Strait Inupiat [the young man does not want to marry; one day he sees naked girls playing, hides, grabs one; she gives birth to him a son and daughter; eats grass, not seal meat; his mother Reproaches her for this, calls her a duck; the offended wife takes the children and leaves; the husband goes to look for her; one, then the other old man, shows the way; the fox transports him across the lake, says that the dead live here; He tells you to go up the mountain, from there you can see the village of Ducks; the man's son and daughter are already adults, the son greets him; the wife at first does not believe it is him; he drives her new husband away; other ducks attack the village; a person kills a lot, tells his mother-in-law to cook them, she does it reluctantly; the wife gives birth to another child; the spouses return to people with him; the eldest son and daughter stay with the Ducks]: Jenness 1924, No. 23 : 49-52; polar [goose girls bathe with their feathers off; a man hides them, returns them, does not give them alone, takes her as a wife; she gives birth to two eggs, twins hatch from them; they collect feathers, fly away with his mother; a man asks his mother to make him shoes with several soles; goes to look for his wife, bypassing the monsters sent by the Geese; meets a giant chopping willow; the chips turn into salmon and trout; a man lies that he came up to him from the front (which means he did not see his huge testicles); a giant turns his testicles into a boat, takes a man to the country of Geese; two sons recognize their father; he drives his wife's new husband away, lives with her; she gives birth to two eggs, dies; he buries him; a giant gives him a whip; with them, a man kills many Geese attacking him; few are saved]: Holtved 1951a , No. 36:55-59 (=1951b: 140-152).
(Wed. Subarctic. Helmet [the leader of the Swans kidnaps a man's wife; the husband leads the warriors to a high cold country; they reach a place where the sky beats on the ground; they slip through, one of them is touched by the sky; he is sent away in the boat back; the wife helps her husband by putting the Swan to sleep; all Swans are killed, one Swan Hunter escapes; on the way back it turns out that the sky has frozen to the water; shamans and animals try to punch a hole; Lynx breaks his nose, he's been dumb ever since; Laska makes a small hole, others widen it; the expedition returns home]: Teit 1917a, No. 11:453-455; tagish [someone kidnaps the hunter's wife, that breaks branches along the way, then throws pieces of his fur coat; the husband follows these tracks; on the lake, the kidnapper takes the woman in a boat, the husband follows the shore; they reach the place where the sky beats against the water; the kidnapper with the woman slips, the husband returns home, gathers a detachment, they sail in a boat, they also slip to the other side of the horizon; they come to two old women, who say that a strange woman passed by, who has a femur (local people are deprived of this bone); these women are mothers of two (sic!) kidnappers; one says that her son leaves before dawn, the other says that she is after dawn; the kidnapped woman secretly brings people food (pretends that the rope on her axe has broken, goes to the sleigh to get another, there is dried meat there); the kidnappers do not believe that something is wrong; at dawn, people kill everyone from the earth and return home]: McClelland 2007, No. 93:423-426; taltan [The swan takes a woman; her husband with friends come to the land where the sky hits the ground; one of the participants magically slows down, people pass; go through the country of Ducks, then Geese; the weather gets warmer as you approach Swan Land on the other side of the sky; a woman runs away with people; Swans stop chasing to the edge of the sky because it's getting too cold for them; people are returning home]: Teit 1921a, No. 58:336- 337).
NW Coast. Tlingites; Tsimshian [people from the Wolf, Raven, Eagle families catch many sea lions; a Bear man only two; steals Wolf lions; he carves a wooden lion; Bear He harpoons him, the tench sticks to his hand, the lion drags his boat to the open sea; he has three companions in the boat; they sail to the dwarfs; they fight ducks, geese, swans, cormorants, cranes; Many die because feathers clog their mouths and noses; people easily curl birds' necks; grateful dwarfs take them home]: Boas 1902:108-115; bellacula.
The coast is the Plateau. Comox (chatloltk); snohomish; Skagit; Puget Sound [resume; Pheasant's wife's brothers hunt; gave her food and asked her to feed her husband; but she ate everything herself with her children ; deciding that they have not shared food with them, Pheasant carves and revives the seal on the fourth attempt; his wife's brothers follow him, fall into the fog, to the end of the world; a dwarf appears, he is incredibly strong; He brings the brothers to the village; where all the inhabitants are old dwarfs; they eat raw food, they have mountains of detailing shells; dwarfs are attacked by ducks; brothers easily kill them and show that meat should be cooked; dwarfs take their brothers home on a whale, giving them dentium shells; brothers return home]: Bierwert 1990, No. 7:233-237; Niscualli; yakima.
The Midwest. Fox.
The Great Plains. Sarsi; blacklegs; grovantre; crowe; crowe [see motif K27]: Lowie 1918:74-85 [The Red Woman comes to the hunter's wife; she forgets to talk about her husband; mice raise the Domestic Boy before his father finds him; River Boy's sharp teeth are filed; brothers kill and burn the Red Woman; the snake crawls through the anus into the brain of the River, that tells the sun to shine hot, his brains boil, he pulls out the snake, makes it less dangerous, but remains brainless; Homemade puts pebbles in his skull, now his name is Rattle Head; Long arm drags Domashny to heaven; Old Coyote gathers birds, but none knows where Domashny has gone; Riverside notices a hole in the sky; fires yellow, black, blue, green arrows, the last one takes off to heaven, he himself is each of these arrows; the old woman replies that Domashny is going to be eaten; this is how he passes through the villages of Cranes, Orlov; he is told that such a poor man is unlikely to be given a piece; at the Black Eagles Chief Long Arm; River kills him with an arrow, tells him to burn the corpse, tells all birds to go to live on earth; returns with his brother; mother turns into the Moon, father into the Morning Star, Domestic Boy in the last star of the Ursa Major, the River Star to the Evening Star], 94-98 [same; the witch comes (as on pp.74-85); the River Boy gives his teeth (as in pp.85-94); the snake episode; with the Long Arm, pp.96-98: the father told the brothers not to separate, for all the animals were against them; the brothers always did the opposite; the river sat alone in the steppe, the Long Hand pulled him from the sky; the Home found a trail, saw a hole in the sky, shot, found himself in the sky with an arrow; came to the village of Voronov, where everyone is black; the old woman, not recognizing Domashny, says that there are two brothers on earth, they are ugly, Long Hand I got one, in 4 days it will be eaten; the same in the village of Cranes (in 3 days), White Hawks, Eagles (all the smoke in their village is black, their tipi are black and white); the last old woman agrees to bring Domashny (he became small) to where the River will eat; he sees his brother, who opens his eyes; the Long Hand says they will now eat both, but Domashny breaks a round potion stone with an arrow says that the eagle people are weak, cuts off the Long Hand's hands with a knife, who asks for mercy, but Domashny cuts him into pieces, knocks the birds off their feet, says they are just birds; on the way back, all the villages are empty; the brothers return to the ground with an arrow, the hole in the sky closes].
Southeast USA. Natchez; alabama; chirokee.
The Great Southwest. Zunyi: Parsons 1936b [old Crook prayer-stick and old woman Wrinkled Corn have two daughters, Blue Corn Girls; an old man tells Crook prayer-stick that there will be a flood in 4 days ; sign - leaves will bloom on the branches; it is clear that 4 days are 4 years; parents put their daughters in a basket, began to rattle in rattles, the basket rose to the sky {it is not clear whether in the air or with water; the girls went to heaven, came to see a spider woman; her brother is a spider boy hunting; he hunts birds, but they are both terribly afraid of jays, considering them Navajo; the next day, the girls also go hunting themselves; they easily kill, and then cook and eat jays; the Spider is grateful; she collects webs in her village (makes a rope out of it) and lowers the girls to the ground in an acorn shell; tells them not to look up; but they looked, the basket fell (but nothing happened); everyone died on the ground}; the girls collected stones (apparently drowned), put them in a hole; all the people came to life, and the next morning the village was full again people; nambe are the children of the Corn Girls]: 284-289; lipan [seven warriors travel to remote places; come to a dwarf village and a women's village; both constantly fight with geese coming from the north; warriors easily beat geese, they stop their attacks]: Opler 1940, No. 4-6:46-47.
NW Mexico. Tarahumara [little men lived far away, they ate air; they were attacked by Goló birds, eaten; they fly east in November and back west in March, always at night]: Olmos Aguilara 2005:268.
Honduras-Panama. Kuna [vultures fly east; the hunter overgrows feathers and flies with them; vultures, pigeons, falcons, pheasants, turkeys, etc. fight herons, cranes, pelicans, crows, etc.; win; return to the west; the hunter's relatives snatch his feathers, restoring his human appearance]: Wassen 1934b, No. 7:14-15.
The Northern Andes. Yupa [swallows attack the dead, hitting them with their beaks]: Villamañan 1982, No. 6:21
Southern Amazon. Kuikuro; kamayura.