L8. Feet and heads left behind.

(.19.22.24.-.26.28.33.38.50.52.53.59.62.64.65.70.74.)

The character leaves parts of his body for a while. Usually, the marital partner makes it impossible to connect the departed part with the rest. See motif L5. (For the Greater Southwest, Mesoamerica, and the Central Andes, it is possible to borrow from the Spaniards or to impose a borrowed motive on what was known before Columbus. European-born stories of witches leaving their body parts are common among Spanish-speaking Caribbean people).

Melanesia. Saibai [the man cut off his head, she played and bathed in the waves, the body remained on land; fish once ate his head]: Laade 1971, No. 30:52-53.

Burma - Indochina. Zyaray (Eastern Indochina) [Young sorcerers come from the dog Coduan and Princess Yamo, who know how to separate their head, which flies and devours the liver of enemies]: Nebeski-Wojkowitz 1956:370 in Chesnov 1978:164; Viets [in the land of conquered cramps, the head can separate from a sleeping person, fly; if it finds nail scraps, hair, bowel movements, etc. of a person and takes possession of them, a person dies]: Nevermann 1952:21-22.

Malaysia-Indonesia. Nevermann 1952 [(due to the Viets) in the land of conquered cramps, the head can separate from a sleeping person, fly; if it finds and takes possession of a person's nail scraps, hair, bowel movements, etc. a person dies; a similar image among Chinese, Japanese and across Indonesia]: 21-22; ngaju [Antang Taui and his people are paving a forest road; someone in a forest hut eats cooked rice twice; the third time AT waited for the boy, who explains that the road route was wrong; the road was completed, the boy Ake (he is not human) stayed in the village; AT people threw net, caught Tahuman fish; the next net was a lot of fish; T. was forgotten, there was a girl in the boat instead of her in the morning; A. and T. grew up and got married; AT Tapih's wife gave birth to a girl, Tahuman gave birth to a boy, both died soon; when the remains were dug up for burning, instead of Tahuman's son's human bones, there were fish and animals; A. and Tahuman were sent to live in an uninhabited place on the Rasen River; A. grew a lot of rice, Tahuman collected golden sand; Tapih gave birth to a son Rason, Tahuman was a daughter of Rusuh; AT did not tell her son to swim to the Rasen River, he swam and married Rusukh; AT explained that her parents were not people, Rason left Rusukh, married a rich girl; at night, Rusukh's head with entrails separated from her body (so all witches, if you put a stick in their neck, their heads will not be able to return, the witch will die), flew to Rasen, sat on his shoulder refused to get down; he persuaded her to let him climb the tree for fruit; began to throw fruits, aiming at Rusukh's head; the last three knocked her down; when she died, she told her to come three days later; there she grew up on the right poison plant, antidote on the left]: Schärer 1966:55-62.

Taiwan - Philippines. Tagaly [in 1992, rumors were circulating on the outskirts of Manila about the appearance of manananggal, a woman whose upper body separates from the bottom at night, flies, devours babies; must before dawn return]: Tobin 2002:188.

China - Korea. Lisa [a man married a girl from a distant village, not knowing that she was a spirit; at night her head left her body to devour the dead; her husband covered her neck with a cloth, her head screams, he threw off the cloth, her head grew up, the wife woke up; the husband told his parents about this; they told him to leave his wife: if he lived with her for three years, he would become a spirit; the husband returned for his things; the wife's relatives chased him; he climbed a tree with small leaves; by the end of the day, the spirits cut him down, he climbed onto a banana; the spirits decided that it would be more difficult to cut down a tree with large leaves than with small leaves, left; the man hid in porcupine burrow; spirits began to poke a vine to find out if the hole was deep; the man wrapped the vine into a ball; the spirits thought the hole was deep; they set a trap at the entrance, left their boy as a watchman; man offered him honey; the boy came up and fell into the trap; the man went out and climbed the tree again; each of the spirits came up screams which part of the victim's body he would eat; ate his own; the man screamed in a voice birds that spirits fear; they choked on their bones in fear, all died]: Dessaint, Ngwâma 1994:615-617; Ancient China: Luomala 1973 [(P'u Sung-ling, Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio) ; there is a village where people's heads separate from their bodies at night, fly to the swamp to eat worms and crabs; they come back at dawn; some say that the head uses their ears like wings; the night before this red ring becomes noticeable around the neck]: 263; Nevermann 1952 [(due to the Viets) in the country of conquered cramps, the head can separate from the sleeping person, fly; if it finds nail scraps, a person's hair, bowel movements, etc. and takes possession of them, a person dies; a similar image among Chinese, Japanese and throughout Indonesia]: 21-22; Chinese [say that some people can let their heads and hands fly; hands fly and steal; these beliefs are related to ideas about turning sorcerers into cats, dogs, tigers; Hainan {i.e. Guangdong}, Miao Guangxi, the northernmost district is Fujian]: Eberhard 1968:447.

Central Europe. Russians [about Moscow witches: leaves the body without a head under a trough, turns into forty itself, flies into a chimney (according to Zhivaya Starina, 1896, vol.6, vol. 3-4:124)]: Nazarenko 1996:77.

Turkestan. Dungans [Susar falls to demons, is forced to marry the daughter of their lord; his wife brings good luck at home; they come to visit S.'s brothers; there the lama tells S. to spy on his wife; at night her head separates and returns by morning through the chimney; the wife says she is ready to give birth, asks to raise a son; after giving birth, she kills a llama, hides in the grave; when her son is 18, he comes to the grave, his mother comes to him as a 17-year-old woman, not in spirit]: Riftin et al. 1977, No. 35:188-194.

Japan. Nevermann 1952 [(due to the Viets) in the land of conquered cramps, the head can separate from a sleeping person, fly; if it finds and takes possession of a person's nail scraps, hair, bowel movements, etc. a person dies; Chinese, Japanese and all over Indonesia have a similar image]: 21-22.

The Great Southwest. Tiva (Picuris) [Yellow Corn goes to sorcerers at night; her husband Magpie's Tail watches her; sorcerers take out their eyes, separate their noses, ears, legs, cut themselves in half; then climb the rainbow; An owl finds Corn's hidden husband; sorcerers leave him on the cliff cornice; see motif K1]: Harrington 1928:297-313; oriental ceres (Cochiti) [spouse puts his wife/husband's eyes in the urine; ta/that becomes an owl]: Benedict 1931:90-92 [wife turns into owl], 93 [husband turns into owl]

Mesoamerica Otomi [leave eyes and legs]: Manrique 1969:716; Nahuat Morelosa [wife and daughter give a man blood for breakfast; he spies on them leave their legs and go to suck blood; village authorities execute them]: Horcasitas 1978, No. D-3:190; mountain guards [husband, like other sorcerers, leaves his leg at home and goes to eat people; wife sprinkles pepper and tobacco on the stump; husband begs to wash off the peppers, the wife refuses; the sorcerer is burned]: Foster 1945a, No. 14:205-206; Veracruz Nahuatl, half [the sorcerer leaves at night, leaving his leg below the knee; wife and son fall on she has salt, pepper, tobacco; the sorcerer cannot get his leg back; he is burned; there have been no sorcerers since then]: Munch 1983a: 172-173; mixteks [the heads of both husband and wife leave their bodies and change places accidentally ]: Dyk 1959:100-104; tsotsil [wife/husband's head goes to nibble on coals from the hearth; husband (wife) rubs his neck with pepper]: Gossen 1974, No. 14:261-262; Laughlin 1977, No. 12 [wives]. 60 [husband], 81-82 and 175 [wives]: 65, 179-182, 301-305, 333-334, 372-373; Laughlin, Karasik 1988:224-225; Vogt 1969:332-340; chol [at night, the wife's head separates from the body, flies in search of a man; the husband sprinkles his neck pepper; when he returns, his head sticks to her husband's shoulder; lets him go while he climbs a tree for fruit; jumps on the back of a deer running past; a deer throws it into the water]: García 1988:73-74; Micah [like tsotsil?] : Radin, Espinosa 1917:151 in Laughlin 197:66; see motif L6 [wife; husband rubs her neck with ash and pepper; burns the body]; tseltal [at night, the wife's head separates from the body, goes to devour people's souls; the mother advises her son to rub his wife's neck with salt; when he returns, the head could not connect to the neck, grow up to her husband's shoulder; addresses him like a child to his father, asks for various fruits; the man asks for a head get down so he can climb a tree for oranges; throws one away, his head rolls for an orange, thinking it's a man, falls into the abyss]: Stross 1978:25-27; acatec, yucatec [when flying away, the witch leaves her skin or head at home; the husband puts salt on them, the witch cannot return]: Peñalosa 1996, No. 749b:71; yucatec [(the summary is not entirely logical); the man did not know that his wife was a witch; told her to prepare two measures of salt; at night he saw that his wife was gone; he came to a meadow bathed in the moonlight; there his wife first took off her clothes, then her flesh, in the form of a skeleton rose to heaven; when she went down, she asked her husband if he would take off; but she couldn't take off anymore because of the salt thrown]: Brinton 1883:350; lacandons; kekchi, mopan; pipili [wife's head]: Campbell 1985 [the woman's head leaves the body at night; the husband smears her neck with pepper, the head (skull) sticks to her husband's neck; eats everything he gets; the priest advises climbing a tree, throwing a heavy fruit into his head; A deer runs by, its head jumps on it; a deer rushes through the thorny thickets, falls into a ravine, dies; the head of the vultures that have descended asks her husband not to eat; dies, grows up in this place a mountain tree; an old woman with iron teeth, a woman's mother, comes, picks a calebas, brings it home; a month later the fruit bursts, the seeds turn into boys; the old woman makes hammocks for them; boys they grow up, they kill a deer; an old woman eats all the meat with her lover; the youngest boy, Nanauacin, watches her, finds out that she is greasing the boys' lips so that they think they have eaten; the brothers trap the hole with stakes at the bottom, the lover falls into it, dies; they give its meat to the old woman, report what she ate; the brothers send a lizard, who reports that the old woman sharpens her teeth at the edge of the canyon; an old woman hits a lizard on the head; brothers offer to compete to see who will stream on the roof; the loser must be killed; they can't do it, she doesn't; they lock her in the house, burn it]: 907-910; Hartman 1907, No. 1 [ the woman's head goes at night, leaving her body, to the giant's lover sesimite; the neighbor informs her husband, advises her to pour hot coals around her neck; the head is attached to her husband's back; he asks her to get off while he will climb a tree for the fruits of the boot; throws heavy bunches specifically at his head; his head rushes after a deer running by, attaches himself to it, falls into the abyss; the priest advises his husband to walk along footsteps, collect all the hair that has fallen from the head, bury the head with the hair; a mountain tree (Crescentia L.) grows in this place; three boys and a girl are inside the fruit; they ask the father, where their mother; the sisemite giant and the cannibal Tanteputz (the man's wife's parents) raised them; Mother Moon sent bamboo with her milk to feed the children; the messenger handed it over to the Crocodile, but he drank the milk himself; The rabbit came to ask where the milk was, asked to open his mouth, saw milk, cut off the Crocodile's tongue; since then, the crocodile has been hiding in shame in the depths of the waters]: 144-145; Schultze-Jena 1935, No. 6 [head and limbs they leave for an unknown reason; the husband sprinkles ash on the body]: 23-27.

Honduras-Panama. Bribri [the heads of people of the ancient race separated from their bodies at night; wandered, devouring garbage]: Bozzoli, Cubero Venegas 1987:22.

Guiana. Kalinya [at night, the young man discovers that his beloved has no head; runs, dies; the girl regurgitates the leaves; her brothers realize that she climbed the tree for leaves, leaving her head, which is too heavy, then ate leaves]: Magaña 1987, No. 54:247; oyampi [a woman has a worm lover; she gives birth to two fish, her mother cooks them, lets her eat them with pepper; she eats her own children, runs to the river to cool her mouth from pepper; her head falls off; now leaves her body freely; the husband sets fire to the vegetation in the area where the wife was; the body burns, the head sticks to her husband ; he escapes in a tree; his head is attached to a tapir, then to a deer, to a vulture; he takes her to heaven; the Pleiades are her ear ornaments]: Greenland 1982, No. 16:140-147.

NW Amazon. Tikuna [the woman's upper body separates from the bottom to fish; when the mother-in-law breaks her spine at the bottom, the top is attached to her husband's shoulders; he escapes by diving into the river; the woman's upper part turns into a parrot]: Nimuendaju 1952:152-153

Eastern Amazon. Hissing [the wife's head wanders at night looking for food; the husband buries his body; the head sticks to his shoulder; he asks his head to get off so he can climb the tree for fruit; runs; the head sticks to a deer, then to a vulture that takes off; falls, and bone rings emerge from it, cutting into the fingers of those who wear them]: Nimuendaju 1922:369-370.

The Central Andes. Usually a woman's head wanders in search of water or in search of ash and coal. Quechua (dep. Cajamarca) [the wife's head wanders at night looking for water; when the husband touches his neck, he can no longer return to the body; the husband is attached to the shoulder; he escapes in a tree; the head is attached to the back of a deer or ]: Arguedas, Izquierdo Rios 1947 [to the lamb]: 189-190; Mires Ortiz 1988 [to the deer; her hair turns into its horns]: 28-31; Narvaez Vargas 2001:114 [1) (prov. de Bambamarca); peasant sees a woman's head entangled in long hair in blackberry bushes; she screams, Wak-wak-pum, asks to be released; the peasant says, Soul, go back to your body; his head did not bite or stick to him; 2) (Tarea 1988); the couple got drunk, ate a lot of salty; when the husband woke up, he saw his wife without a head; the head looks for a neck, does not find it, cries; the husband runs, his head sticks to him, he wears it for years; climbs a tree for fruit, throws her head down; her head jumps on a deer running by, its long hair turns into male deer antlers], 339 (Ferreñafe) [the wife asked for her to drink, the husband refused; she went by herself, her head was entangled in the branches of the tree, came off; the husband went to look for his wife, her head jumped on his shoulder; he began to cut branches, her head sat on a poncho; jumped on deer running past]; Ayacucho city [girl warns her lover not to come to her on Tuesdays and Thursdays; he comes on Tuesday, sees a headless body on the bed, sprinkles ash on neck; the head comes back, sticks to the young man's shoulder; he promises to collect fruit for her, puts it on a poncho, runs away; the head is mistakenly glued to a deer running by; dies when a deer wanders through thorny thickets]: Ansion 1987:146-147 in Toro Montalvo 1990b:200; Sonko, prov. Paucartambo, dep. Cusco [the Yahuar Maya blood river separates our world (kai pacha) from the world of the dead; the soul is transported through it by a black, brown or motley dog; at night, the girl's head flies away; this happens with looking for sexual adventures; when the head returned, found the door closed, clung to the shoulder of a passerby; the headless body died; the girl's dog recognized the mistress's head on the man's shoulder; transported the man across the Blood River, where the head jumped on its body; the dog began to drink from the blood river, transported the man to our world]: Allen 1988:61; Quechua (depots of Cusco, Huancavelica, Jauja, Ancash, Cajamarca): Morote Best 1953 [a woman's head wanders at night; cannot return to her body; stalks her husband (and other options)]: 825-826; 1958 [the head of a wife's lover murdered by her husband haunts her]: 834; Pezet 1917 [heads witches fly at night, gathering at the top of the mountain]: 294-295; Cusco [at night, a young man comes to his beloved, finds a headless body, blood gurgles in his throat; he sprinkles ash on his throat; his head flies in, sticks to a young man's shoulder; he goes to the forest; a deer carries his head]: Sebastiani 1990:99; Aymara (Chukuito) [man's head: cut off or wanders at night looking for water]: Tschopic 1951:204.

Eastern Brazil. Kayapo [wife's head wanders in search of water, husband burns her body]: Wilbert 1978, No. 109, 110

The Southern Cone. Araucana: Gusinde 1936:29-30 [a woman's children die one by one; the husband suspects that things are not easy because the wife does not grieve; pretends to be leaving for a long time, comes back, finds her a headless body, turns it over on the chest; a head arrives in the form of a large night bird chang-chong (a mythical bird, a bad omen; flies to gatherings of witches; sometimes it is an owl); cannot connect to the body until the husband turns it back on his back; the woman falls ill, the husband leaves her], 30 [starts as pp.29-30; the husband thinks his wife has been killed, calls the neighbors; the bird C. flies into the room, turns into a head, cannot connect to the body because people have illuminated it too brightly; it connects when people go out].