K27o1. The ball is a human head .17.36.40.44.50.
The character plays with a severed human head like a ball.
Ugarit, Sumer, Arabic written tradition, Far Eastern Evenks, Northern Alaska Inupiate, Winnebago, Tiwa (Picuris).
Western Asia. Ugarit [The motif is reliably attested in the description of Anat's battle in 1.3 ii 9-11 (Pardee 1997:250): tth k kdrt riš || lh k irbym kp || k ệm rmn kp mhr 'Under her are heads like balls || Above her are hands like locusts || Heaps of fighters' hands are like (heaps of) grasshoppers']; Sumer [bilateral balag -composition: aadāti kīma pukki kubbuti uštanagrar (= Sum. sa-du išellag gur4-ra-àm mi-ni-íb-gur4-gur4-re-e-en) 'Köpfe, die (wie) schwere (Holz-) Kugeln sind, lasse ich rollen']: Volk 1989:200, l.74; Arabic writing tradition [the Pre-Islamic Arabic Muallaqa of 'Amr ibn Kulthum, v. 94: yudahdūna r-ruūsa kamā tudahdī * azāwiratun biabtaihā l-kurīna 'Die machen die Köpfe herabrollen, wie grosse Jungen in ihrer Niederung die Kugeln rollen lassen']: Nö ldeke 1889:31).
Eastern Siberia. Far Eastern Evenks (Uchursky: Aldan District of Yakutia) [episode in a long epic story: the leader of the Avakhs (residents of the lower land), Selergun-Seveendya, came to the middle land, killed the beautiful girl Darpek and began to marry Sekak the beautiful; first Chagilgan the hero came out to fight him with his bare hands, and then the son of the sun Dergaldin; both C. and D. could not defeat S.-S.; fight him Brother C., Cocoldokon, came out, who was a little man with a mitten; K. reproached C. and D. for being unsmart and said that he would have fun with S.-S. with a ball; the beautiful Sekak found an old Father's 100-pound cast-iron ball; the battlefield was a huge copper field; K. invited S.-S. to try to catch the ball with his mouth and threw; S.-S. caught the ball with his mouth and lost his iron teeth; then the ball threw S.-S., K. caught it with his hands and made a new throw; S.-S. caught the ball with his hands, but he jumped out and, hitting his liver, tore it; K. ran up to the wounded opponent, began to hit him; K. was so nimble that S.-S. could not hit him in any way; as a result, K. tore off S.-S.'s head and began to throw it up playfully]: Romanova, Myreeva 1971, No. 19:219-224 (retelling to Kurilov, Varlamova 1986:50-55).
The Arctic. Northern Alaska Inupiate: Hall 1975, No. 114 [the poor boy lives with his grandmother; the rich man has a pole with a ball at the top; whoever climbs and removes the ball gets the rich man's daughter; the poor boy does the task; the ball there is a human head; a rich man tells her to roll to whoever took the ball; she rolls up to the young man; he gets a wife; in the boy's house, the wife finds a lot of meat; in fact, the young man was rich]: 343-345; Spencer 1959 [a man marries a woman Polar Bear; mother-in-law does not like that his daughter-in-law eats a lot of fat; she goes to her own; in her village, Angusiliuk kills strangers, inviting them to compete takes the wives of the dead; the man's father-in-law and brothers help him; 1) play with a heavy ball of bone and ice (the man breaks it); 2) catch seals (the man is the first to pull the seal out); 3) A. turns into a walrus, the dugout is filled with water; a man harpoons a walrus; heals the enemy; 4) dive for a long time (the person breathes through the tube; A. is barely alive); the man with his wife and son returns to their own parents]: 419-425.
The Midwest. Winnebago [zap. Louis L. Meeker; having created the earth, Ma-ona created a man in the sky Wah-reh-ksan-ke-ka ("man with one leg"; M.); he dried by the fire (it was the sun), his leg cracked, M. threw him to the ground; created another Koo-noo-ha ("first young man"; K.); together with seven other people, they are ancestors of eight families (apparently they were lowered to earth); brothers take turns chasing the beast, disappear; seventh brother Nah-ghee-gho-no-neenk (N.) comes to a hollow tree; six pairs of skis nearby; M. descends from the sky, N. wounds him with an arrow, he hits him, takes him to heaven; K. hears his screams, comes to heaven to M.; he took off his skins from six brothers, prepared their meat for food, N. hung up to suffer, avenging the wound, and he is small for food; M. and K. compete in a ball game (the ball must be handed over with a club); each hits the other's head, the head takes off, returns to the neck; for the fourth time, Ma-ona agrees that N.'s head does not return; she turns into the Morning Star, the murdered brothers into the clouds; each brother married the sister of another but N. who was single]: Smith 1997:105-110.
The Great Southwest. Tiwa (Picouris) [the deer warns the hunter that the Sun will fight him; the Sun cuts off a person's head, takes him to heaven, takes the victim's wife; his two sons run to their father's parents; grandfather reports who killed their father; tells them to cut willow twigs, makes grandchildren ball sticks; a pair of Rats (Woodrat) gives brothers sticks to put the Sun to sleep; four butterflies give white, black, yellow, blue paints; brothers paint a black bird to make it an Eagle; he brings it to heaven, teaches them how to play ball with the Morning Star; he plays with their father's head; brothers break all the Morning Star's sticks, he dies; the eagle brings the brothers and their mother down to the ground; the father's head is put in a dark closet, the father comes to life]: Harrington 1928:313-323.