L7b. Mistakenly rushes after a calebass. .60.-.62.
In pursuit of a person, a spirit, monster, or beast mistakenly rushes after a calebasa launched along the river.
Colorado, Napo, Kofan, Yagua.
Ecuador. Colorado [a man escaped from animal demons, killed a fox; his wife cuts a carcass, a fox's head sticks to her thigh; shamans let calebasa along the river; when a woman dives, head rushes after a calebass; now lives by the sea, produces lightning]: Mix 1982:73-75.
Western Amazon. Napo [the loser hunter got lost, the forest spirit of Kukuyu Kuraga cut off his head; she rolled to the other hunters' hut; they run away in a boat, but his head is also in the boat; alone ran to warn the women, but his head settled on a tree above the path the women were walking; sucked between his wife's legs; when she was swimming, she stuck to her headdress; the woman's daughter runs a calebasa along the river; when a woman dives, her head rushes after a calebasa, swims away; turns into lightning]: Mercier 1979:53-55; cofan [man goes hunting monkeys with his eldest husband sisters; at night he sees him stick his feet into the fire; in the morning he shows that there is only one head left; the head makes a bundle of monkey fried meat small, tells him to carry it home in the same basket; when he comes up his wife, her head sticks her mouth to her vulva; she cannot be ripped off; one day a woman promises to give her head a fish, her head sticks off, a woman rushes into the water, lets a calebass through the water; her head takes her by the head wives, sails away on it; when he gets to people living below the river, he becomes a fat man again; comes with them to his wife's village; the wife comes up, that man kills her; when there is an annual flood on the river, it is the head floats downstream; (Sirius is not visible at this time)]: Borman, Criollo 1990, No. 19:287-317.
NW Amazon. Yagua [see motif K8A; A squirrel lures a person to cross a ravine on a log whose end does not reach the other side; the log is an anaconda; the person jumps, swallows; finds alive inside A deer; they cut the anaconda from the inside with piranha teeth when it comes out in the sun to digest food; the anaconda chases them, they throw it into the calebasa river, the anaconda sinks into the water; the man is bald, birds make new hair out of bast, the monkey dyes it black; after further adventures, the man returns home to his wife and sons]: Powlison 1993:97-118.