K51. The deceived wife. .20.37.39.-.44.46.48. (.50.)

The husband feigns death, disappears or leaves home for a long time. The wife finds out that he has married another, finds and, as a rule, kills her husband and/or rival, who is often a creature of an inhuman nature.

Tuvalu, Nanai (Garin), Nivkhs, Chukchi, reindeer (?) and coastal Koryaks, Itelmen, Asian Eskimos, (St. Lawrence), Aleuts (Unalashka, Unga), (Fr. St. Lawrence), Chugach, Kodiak, Nuniwak, Central Yupik, Bering Strait Inupiate (Kingitmiut) and Northern Alaska (Selawik, Noatak), Mackenzie Estuary, Copper, Polar, Koyukon, Inhalic, Tanaina, Atna, Helmet, taltan, eyak, tlingits, yakima, algonquins actually, menominee, osage, chumash, (Cochiti).

Micronesia-Polynesia. Tuvalu (Waitupu) [daughter of Queen Tui Tonga married Kaulialia in Samoa; surprised that her husband often disappears for two months; while he sleeps, puts his skirt under his head; returns; secretly follows him to a hole in the ground; goes down, the old woman shows where the house is where K. is; the wife turns into a rat, enters the house, sees her husband in the arms of a local taupou (a ritual virgin); he tells me to throw something into the rat; when she returns home, the wife takes her two sons, returns to Tonga; her mother is sick; recovers when her grandchildren reach her hand; holiday]: Kennedt 1931:164- 165.

Amur - Sakhalin. Nanai (Garin) [an old man climbs a tree to get tinder, it breaks, he and his wife become young (mergen and pudi); one day Mergen says he is about to die, tells him to put him in a coffin without things, throw it outside; an old man makes a coffin, drags it with a pudi; a dove, a mouse say they have come to cry; two pudis (some birds) ask to heal their broken legs and wings, they say that the coffin is empty and Mergen lives in the king's son's house {with his new wife?} ; pudi recognizes her husband there, comes back, manages four women (pigeon, mouse and those two); mergen returns, pudi tells me to hide, but the mouse laughs; pudi takes mergen back]: Aurora 1986, No. 1:26-28; nivhi [when the father returned from hunting, the little son said that his mother had changed into her husband's clothes, came to the shore, a seal came there, her mother put a spear into her, the seal with difficulty escaped and swam away; the husband killed his wife, threw his head into the fire, turned into a crow himself, made his son a Mawzur bird (the size of a jay, screams at night and frightens people), flew to a house, became a human food again, a wounded woman in the house, who turned into a seal (the wife found out about her mistress, tried to kill her); the man cured her, made her a wife; the murdered wife became the mistress of the fire; secrets are not told in a house where a fire is burning, because smoke will come out and spread the news everywhere]: Ulita 2011:36-37.

SV Asia. Chukchi: Belikov 1982 [husband leaves his wife for a long time, marries a seal, hunters kill her; next time he meets a big hairy woman in the tundra, lives with her; his wife goes looking for him, puts that woman to sleep in her head, pours boiling fat on her face, leaves her to sit as if she were laughing; the returning hunter, angry that she did not answer, pierces her with a spear; then sees that she boiled; comes to his wife; at night she cuts his throat with a knife; leaves with her son, who becomes a good hunter]: 73-77; Bogoras [a man has a wife and five children; he comes to a distant shore, stays live with Mountain Echo; she is young and beautiful; the first wife comes to her, lulls her to sleep, kills her by pouring boiling broth into her ear; puts her body as if she is scratching her skin and smiling; the husband comes to her first wife kill; she turns into a bear, kills him; her children run away from her, turn into wagtail, silly, awl tail, wolf, wolverine; the bear has been wandering in the tundra ever since] 1902:624-625; 1928, No. 32: 392-394; coastal Koryaks (Palana) [two brothers find a doll in their yukolnik, bring it home, she turns into a girl, marries his older brother; he comes back late, says that harvested firewood; she watches him; by the tree he calls, Fly, come down, honey, I've come; the fly comes down, turns into a girl, they make love; the next day the wife goes to the tree, calls a fly , presses her; the husband returns depressed; the wife leaves; the husband grieves; the old man gives him a knife, a sheath, a wooden comb; we must leave them, if the wife picks them up, she will return; the husband follows in the footsteps, comes to the house; the wife throws away the knife, the sheath; her brother picks up the comb; the parents persuaded his wife to return]: Zhukova 1980, No. 16:186-189; reindeer (?) Koryaks [Ememkut marries Kila; comes to the Bumblebee Men, takes his wife there; K. finds them, tramples on her rival, her eggs turn into bumblebees; E. returns home]: Bogoras 1917, No. 6 : 43-45; Itelmen: Jochelson 1961, No. 37 [Kuth meets the fox Tatol, marries her; his ex-wife Miti is afraid that he is dead; Spider tells her the truth; M. comes to sleeping lovers, puts a stick in the fox's ass; lets her run away; agrees to take her husband back]: 243; Menovshchikov 1974, No. 172 [(zap. Jochelson); Peteng's fox seduced Kuth; he gives her fish heads every time, Mitty tells her at home that bears spoiled the fish; M. suspects deception, finds K. in P.'s arms, sticks her in the ass a stake attached to it (fish?) spine; P. runs away, dragging a stake, M. takes K. back]: 515-516.

The Arctic. Asian Eskimos [Sikulrutak (Needle) saw a girl on the rock, began to bring a seal to her, not her family; pretends to be dying; the first wife leaves a corpse with a kayak and others property in the tundra; Lisa tells her that her husband did not die, but went to his mistress; the wife comes to her mistress, who replies that she is scraping her skin to make pants for S.; the wife suggests looking in her head pours boiling fat into her ear, she dies; the wife leaves the corpse sit; S. is angry that the woman does not fit, kicks her, realizes that she is dead; the husband comes to his first wife, she kills him]: Bogoraz 1949, No. 3:135-138; (cf. St. Lawrence [husband fell in love with another; placed his wife in the aisle into the house, forbid the children to give her food, the children secretly feed their mother; the husband killed a whale, people gathered for a party, his lover ran for tendons; the wife at that time killed the puppy and began to cook it; the brew spilled out and fell into the mistress's ear, she died; the wife left her outside the dugout as if she was standing and smiling; ran away herself; some the creatures called her into the boat, promised to take her away from her abusive husband; took her; she looked and saw seagulls flying away; the man on the shore blows the wind four times from under his inflated clothes; each time her takes her to sea, but she goes ashore; the man says he only wanted to clean her of dirt; he brought her to his house, they have three sons; he forbid her to look into the small compartment inside the house; she I looked in, there was a woman making threads out of her tendons; the peeker spat down; she raised her head - she had only half her face and began to fall on her back; her husband came in, lifted the stone that covered hole; below you can see land and villages; she guessed that her husband was the Creator and the woman was the moon, and when she lost consciousness, an eclipse occurred; when she saw her children, she came to cry, went to earth rain; old people sang to bring back the moon; husband sent his wife and children to the ground with the house and boat; her sons caught a whale; and the ex-husband tried to find an entrance to the house, but did not find it; tried to climb roof, scratched, died]: Slwooko 1977:74-79); Aleuts: Golder 1909, No. 4 (Unalashka) [husband brings less and less meat; tells him to leave his corpse by the boat, put onions next to him; disappears; first wife finds a new one; this is a beautiful woman without a nose; cuts off her head with a knife; the husband swims away in a kayak, drowns], 5 (Unga) [the husband tells two wives to leave him dead near the kayak without burying him; they drop the kayak, alone notices that the corpse is smiling; the other does not believe; at night, the husband goes to a woman with one eye in her forehead; wives come to her in the absence of her husband, she shows them how to eat soup without a spoon, wives shove her into boiling pot; husband is drowned in his kayak]: 15-17; Lavrischev 1928 [the shaman pretends to be dead; his wife buries him in a cave, puts a bow and kayak next to him; on the fourth day he finds the cave empty; the bird speaks to her that her husband lives with two new wives, takes her there; the woman promises to show her how to eat soup, knocks a boiling pot over her rivals; puts the corpses as if one is swearing and the other laughing; the husband who arrives shouts to the women not to quarrel; the wife turns into a bear, eats him with the kayak]: 121-122; chugach: Birket-Smith 1953 [(=Johnson 1984:48-49; =Norman 1990:162-164; Aktyingkuq pretends to be dying, tells him to leave his property on the grave; one day his wife finds the grave empty, the property is missing, cries; hears from a bird that her husband is behind Mount Qilagat with his new wife, goes picking up a bird, sees her husband bringing prey to two wives; comes when her husband is gone, asks women to cook sea grass for her, shoves their heads into boiling water; puts the corpses on skewers as if alone dissatisfied, and the other laughs; the husband sails, tells his wives not to quarrel; the former wife puts a bearskin sewing bag to her face, turns into a bear, eats her husband with the boat; four The seal is taken to the sea; she turns floating seaweed into Middleton Island, reaches Montague Island; therefore, brown bears are especially ferocious there]: 154-155; Doroshin 1866 [Akchimguk is increasingly common goes to a village beyond the mountain, explains to his wife that they are good food there; pretends to be dying, telling him not to burn or bury him, but to throw firewood, leaving his property nearby; on the third day, his wife discovers that the deceased is missing, thinks he was taken away by a bear; Magpie says that A. is with new wives; the former comes to two new ones while A. is at sea; says that it tastes best to sip a brew from cauldron, shoves both heads into boiling water; leaves one standing as if she laughs and the other as if she is smiling; accuses A. who comes, turns into a bear, kills him]: 371-373; Kodiak [husband pretends to be dying, telling him to leave him on the seashore with all his possessions; marries in another village; the first wife comes to a new one, advises the new one to keep her face above the boiling pot to make it red pushes a woman into a cauldron; turns into a bear, kills her husband; goes to the bears]: Golder 1909, No. 1:10-11; Nunivak Island [two sisters married to a hunter, the youngest has a small child; husband says she is dying, asking him to be left on the ground in a kayak; a bird (Schneeammer) tells his younger sister that her husband has two wives again; the eldest walks, notices smoke in the distance, comes to the house, where she supposedly sees deceased husband with two women; returns, asks her sister to paint her face, comes to those women; replies that she has become beautiful by dipping her face in boiling blood with water; they dip, die; she has come puts one corpse on the roof, as if the victim leaned to lift the blanket from the smoke hole, the other at the door; puts a wooden plate to her ass, inserts sticks into her nostrils, turns into a bear; kills her husband who has come, destroys a house; kills his younger sister at home, leaves; once people killed a bear, in whose body they found a wooden plate and sticks]: Himmelheber 1951:95-99; central yupik: Fienup-Riordan 1983, No. 5 [husband disappears; wife takes bear skin, comes to the house where two sisters live, her husband's new wives; advises them to drink boiling water to become beautiful; they die; she puts on her skin, tears her husband to pieces; she can no longer take off her skin, remains a bear]: 239-240; Kawagley 1995 [(the author heard from her grandmother); in an empty village, a boy and a girl; married, they are a child; the husband is missing; the bird tells his wife that he is married to two women across the mountain; she took a bear skin, came to those women when her husband was not at home, said that she became beautiful after drinking boiling broth; women leaned over the cauldron, died; the wife put their corpses outside the house as if they were dancing; became a bear, tore her husband; when she returned to her son, she could not take off her bear skin; the son became a bird]: 24-31; Nelson 1899 (Norton Bay) [husband pretends to be dying, asking for kayak, weapons, and food to be left on his grave; one day a widow notices smoke in the distance; comes quietly and sees her husband with three new wives; when the husband leaves, he offers to make them beautiful like her; to do this, lean over the boiling fat; pushes his face into the cauldron; makes their clothes stuffed on the shore; turns into a brown bear, with flat stones on his sides; her husband's arrows break, the bear kills him; returns home, kills her children; once killed by another hunter; brown bears have been dangerous ever since]: 467-470; Tennant, Bitar 1981 [A man meets and marries a single girl; they have a child; he often leaves for a long time, she notices someone else repairing his clothes; he disappears altogether; she takes the child, goes looking for him; at night she accidentally strangled a baby; she comes to the village, stays with an old woman with a grandson; she says that her husband lives with another woman; she enters the man`s house, sees her husband, and her dance makes her home begins to tremble; by morning the whole village is destroyed, the old woman and grandson remain, the woman takes him as her husband]: 221-233; the Bering Strait inupiate (kingikmiut) [Pisixohol pretends to be dying; his wife buries him under a kayak; a bird tells her that P. lives with another woman; she discovers that the grave is empty; puts on bear skin, makes ribs out of twigs, turns into a bear; killing her husband, reveals his human face to him for a moment]: Lucier 1954:217-218; Northern Alaska Inupiate: Curtis 1976 (20) (Selawik) [Pisiksolik hunter's wife and two children did not see any other people; he died, his wife buried him, putting his equipment on the grave; the bird says that P. is remarried; the wife finds an empty grave that leads into the distance; puts bear and bear skins on herself and her children, comes to home where P. lives with his new wife; kills both easily, remains a bear]: 261-262; Hall 1975, No. PM122 (noatagmiut) [the husband always brings two seals to his wife and two sons; then begins to return with empty-handed; the wife finds a home, sees her husband swim up there with prey; next time she comes in her husband's absence, shoves her rival's head into a boiling pot; turns herself and her sons into brown bears; people kill them, find sewing supplies under the bear's skin]: 351-352; Lucier 1958, No. 10 (noatagmiut) [the husband pretends to be dying; the wife buries him, is in need with her two children; the bird says that the husband lives with two women; the wife finds an empty grave; puts bear skins on her sons, who turn into bears, kill their father; show him their faces for a minute]: 94-96; Ostermann 1952 [the husband pretends to be dying, tells him to be buried with all his possessions; marries the daughter of a faraway village chief; a bird reports this to his two children; his wife and children wear bear skins, they come to that village; arrows do not harm them; the wife meets her ex-husband, takes off her skin for a minute, then kills him; since then, brown bears have been dangerous]: 185-187; McKenzie estuary [ Pitigtorlek pretends to be dying, asks two wives to put his jewelry and other things with him; the bird tells his two children that their father is in another village with his new wife; one of his former wives puts on a seal skin, sails for reconnaissance; P. chases the seal but cannot injure it; both wives and children wear bear skins, come to the village, show P. their faces, then kill; stay bears]: Ostermann 1942:95-99; brass [1) the husband disappears; the bullfinch tells his two wives that their husband has found a new one; wives become seals, sail to the place where the husband settled; he realizes that he has been exposed; seals turn into bears, kill him; his new wife has not been touched; becoming women again, returned home; 2) the man pretends to be dead; his two wives leave him on the ground with kayak and gun; he crosses the lake, takes a new wife; the old ones were shamans, became bears, killed a traitor; becoming women again, found new husbands]: Jenness 1924, No. 90:87; polar [mother lives with two daughters, all three are abandoned by their husbands; they pick up scraps of bear skins in old camps, sew bear clothes; come to the village, ask if their exes are here husbands; put on skins, kill everyone]: Holtved 1951b, No. 126:127-128.

Subarctic. Koyukon: Attla 1983 [the husband is a good hunter; disappears; in the spring a seagull asks whose husband and two wives it is up the river; the wife leaves the children, goes up the river to the house where the two women are; praise her husband; the person who comes invites them to lean over the boiling broth, supposedly it will taste better, pushes them into boiling water; puts one as if she is smiling, the other as if frowning; the husband comes, touches the corpses, they fall ; the wife runs to her house, heats the stone, then pushes it out of the fire; tells the husband who has come running to kill her with this stone; he grabs the stone with his hands, they wrinkle; kicks - legs they wrinkle, kicks his nose - his face; he turns into a lynx; she throws coal after him, the coal has become his tail]: 79-95; (cf. Attla 1989 [husband always comes back later than other hunters; wife watches him, hears his voice in another house, where a girl giggles with him; drags his hair and hits him, tells him to bring the girl to house; throws a stone on her and her husband, but they remain alive; the husband and young wife and all the villagers run away, only the jealous woman and her son remain; when they return, the wife drags her husband by the hair again; he dies, turns into a kingfisher, his rearing hair turns into a tuft]: 215-225); Jette 1908-1909 [the husband pretends to be dying, asks to be left in a tree boat; the bird tells the widow that he lives in another village with two new wives; the first wife puts on bear skin with flat stones on her sides; comes to the village; in the guise of a man asks new wives to bend over the cauldrons, pushes both in boiling water, puts the corpses at the entrance to the house; the husband returns, is angry that the wives do not answer him; the first wife is a bear again, shows his face for a moment; kills; invulnerable, kills others; she and her two sons become brown bears forever]: 341-342; the inhalic [the husband goes hunting and fishing farther and longer, for a longer period, brings less and less prey to his wife and two sons; says , who dies, tells him to leave the boat and the best skins on his funeral platform; the bird tells the widow that her husband lives in another village; she finds the platform empty; puts on bear skin, turns into a bear; in the form of a woman comes to the village, asks her husband's two new wives to bend over a boiling pot, shoves them with their heads into it; puts the corpses as if they are smiling; the husband finds them dead; the wife turns into a bear, kills her husband and all the villagers; comes to his sons, all three become bears]: Chapman 1914, No. 6:42-49; Tanaina [man asks his two wives to bury him with all his possessions, don't throw land on the grave; Chickady tells the women that their husband lives in the village with his new wife; those in the form of Brown Bears kill her husband and all the villagers]: Tenenbaum 1984 [one turns brown, the other turns into a white bear]: 23-33; Vaudrin 1969:49-51; atna [the hunter has two wives; he met a mouse woman, hid from her that he is married; he brings her the best meat, and old wives are worse; one of the wives followed him; finding the Mouse in the absence of her husband, told her that if you lean over on a boiling pot and say "my husband", more fat would be drowned; shoves her head into boiling fat; put the victim, backed up with a stick as if she was smiling; the husband touches her, she falls; after that, the hunter brought the wives fatty meat, they pretended that nothing had happened]: Billum 1979:59-61; helmet: Moore 1999 [the hunter tells his wife and children that he did not get anything; he lives with his own sister, and brings meat to her; the wife comes to her sister and offers to look in her hair, stabs an awl in her ear; fills her mouth with meat to make her husband think that she is choking; finds the dismembered corpse of a brother who was killed by her husband and his sister mistress; the husband comes, cries, falls asleep; the wife has crushed his head is a stone]: 126-133; Teit 1917a, No. 14 [a man has two wives; his sister is married to their brother, lives far from them; a man takes his sister as a mistress, kills her husband, defecates on his corpse; pretends that he is no longer lucky to hunt, brings all the meat to his sister and wife; one of the wives watches him, sees her husband dressed well, not in rags, finds his brother's corpse; comes to his sister-wife, offers to take out her insects, pierces two shell scrapers into her ears; she dies; her husband cries, falls asleep; wives kill him with clubs; marry his brother]: 459-460; taltan [like a helmet; one wife, not sisters; kills her husband by stabbing an arrow in his ass when he goes to relieve himself; then kills his sister-wife]: Teit 1921a, No. 44:238-239.

NW Coast. Eyak [the husband pretends to be dying, tells him to leave him on the seashore with all his possessions; marries his mistress; the first wife finds them in the village, kills them both]: Birket-Smith, Laguna 1938, No. 29: 321; Tlingit [the hunter met another woman, rarely returns to his wife and son, brings less and less meat; the wife followed, killed her rival with a knife, took food supplies, set fire to the house; the husband found ashes, came to my first wife, she refused to accept him, returned with her son to her father; he turned her husband into an elk]: Krause 1889:191.

The coast is the Plateau. Yakima [a woman learns that when she went to the other side of Colombia, her husband found another wife; tells her daughter to bring a bone wedge from her grandfather to dig for her; she makes her teeth out of the wedge herself and the grizzly claws turn into a Grizzly; the daughter and her younger brother run away, leaving four dogs one by one, the Coyote; they point the stalker mother in the wrong direction (west), that tries every time, then finds the right trail; brother and sister marry each other; sister/wife gives birth to a son, does not tell her husband to go south; he goes, the mother meets him, looks in his head, kills him; the daughter invites her to lean over the pond, she falls, drowns; the daughter rushes into the fire, putting the child next to her; he is picked up by the Coyote; he grows up, rises to the sky to the Thunder, becomes another Thunder himself]: Hines 1992, No. 60:196-206.

The Midwest. The Algonquins [Toadstool tells his wife she can stay under the ice for months; actually takes another wife in a neighboring village; his first mother-in-law calls him to drink an intoxicating drink; puts him in bed log with ants; drunken Toadstool takes him for his wife, bitten heavily]: Speck 1915d, No. 7:17-19; menominee [the chief's daughter refuses everyone; the young man plays the flute, the girl agrees for him go out; a year later they move in with his parents; he has a mistress; spreads a rumor that he was killed in the war, marries his mistress; the first wife recognizes the voice of his flute; wants to kill a mouse; she says that the death of her husband in a bundle of dry bones; the wife opens the bundle, the bones crumble; turns into a Marten (Fisher), who drives her husband, his new wife and her relatives all over the world, bites to death; rises to the sky, becomes Ursa Major = Mustess Star]: Skinner, Satterlee 1915, No. 39:471-474.

Plains. Osage [a young man marries; goes to war, takes a new wife in another village; tells friends to say he was killed; the first wife cuts off her ears and hair as a sign of mourning; the woodpecker tells her the truth; she comes to her husband; the new wife's father recognizes the former as his eldest daughter; she jumps into the river, leaving only one head; The head tells the new wife's younger sister to wear her in a bundle; devours her husband, new wife and her parents; tells the girl to throw her into the hollow, she will get a raccoon; the girl leaves the excrement responsible for herself, runs away; throws fat behind, the head spends time eating it; two old women on the river bank they hide it; they throw their Head into a boiling pot, it dies]: Dorsey 1904c, No. 17:21-23.

California. Chumash [the hunter falls in love with another woman, brings less and less meat to his former wife Pului (Heron) and two sons; stays with the new one; P. sends his eldest son to his father; he does not give him meat, wipes his greasy hands on it after eating; P. turns into a heron, pecks out her husband's eyes, brings the ducks he has caught to the children; the husband dies]: Blackburn 1975, No. 56:244-245.

(Wed. The Great Southwest. Oriental keres (Cochiti) [wife notices her unmarried sister beating her husband off her husband; sees her husband and sister on his lap in a water vessel; puts a large basket in the house, climbs there, turns into a spotted snake; these snakes have tears under their eyes; when their husband and sister return, they bite them, they die; the snake tells them to take it to a place where it can live; therefore, on a certain Woe is a lot of snakes; offerings are left to them]: Benedict 1931:115-116).