B1G. Four Transformer Brothers. .43.62.

Four brothers change the world, freeing it from monsters, transforming inhabitants and obtaining valuables (water, fire, cultivated plants, etc.). Usually one of the brothers is the main one, the others help him. All four often have a common name.

Quarry, Chilcotin, Shuswap, Thompson, Lillooet, Ufaina, Kabiyari, Makuna, Letuama.

Coast - Plateau. Quarry [women picking berries; one girl brings nothing, says the bears have spoiled everything; the next day the strap of her basket breaks; everyone goes home; two Black Bears in the form of young men come to her; when she opens her eyes, she finds herself in a large village; all the animals dance in turn and talk about what they will feed their wife; Muskrat, Raven, Weasel, Frog, Caribou, Marten are rejected, she marries Grizzly; in the spring he says that the youngest of her four brothers will kill him; this happens; the brothers ask what part of the carcass she will take home; she drags the skin and the head, on the way turns into Grizzly, kills the brothers, then other people; the youngest brother and sister return from squirrel hunting; the boy tells his sister to run between Grizzly's legs; after this she takes off the bear skin, promises not to harm the girl; the girl asks where the Grizzly's heart is; she shows that it is on the palm of her hand; the brother kills the Grizzly, hitting the palm with an arrow; says that if they run around the mountain from different sides and jump between two trees at the same time, they will be able to enter into marriage; he manages to catch up with his sister, jump; she becomes pregnant from the touch of his foot; gives birth to a son; she is killed by a cannibal; the brother kills the cannibal, burns both bodies; goes to the village, carrying the baby on his shoulders; he kills him by ripping open his throat and pulling out his tongue; in the village he takes out the tongues of sleeping people; two girls who were in ritual isolation are saved; they push the baby into the fire; his ashes turn into mosquitoes; one girl conceives from a stone and dies, the other conceives from a feather, gives birth to Ahlnuk 'a and his three brothers(Ahlnuk, Tachandalkan, Taslas and another); they kill a large snake that was drowning people passing by; in the village they are given willow branches to chew: no water, two grizzlies kill those coming to the spring; the brothers kill the grizzlies; A. asks the man what he is doing; "I am cutting a club to kill A.," said the old man, turning and raising his eyelashes to see who is asking him; A. touches his lips with his finger, he falls down dead; the brothers come to the people who are crying, for they are going to cut the woman open to extract the child; A. teaches childbirth; a man harpoons a fish with his sharpened shin bone; A. turns into a salmon, the man misses, breaks the bone on a stone; sharpens it again; A. makes him a normal leg, gives him a spear (origin of the spear)]: Jenness 1934, no. 6: 129-136; Chilcotin[a chieftain has a virgin daughter; someone comes to her at night; she smears his shoulder with white paint; in the morning she sees this mark on her father's old dog named Lendix'tcux; gives birth to three puppies; her father orders her to be left alone without food or property; Raven puts out all the fires by defecating in them; the uncle of the abandoned Magpie hides the fire under the roof of the house; the girl orders L. to get game for their sons; puts her clothes on a scarecrow, sneaks up to the house where her sons and their father are dancing, throws their dog skins into the fire; L. manages to pull his up halfway, remains half dog; the boys become good hunters; they fill Magpie's house with meat, Raven's house with excrement; Magpie comes to visit; feeds her children the fat she has obtained, one chokes; Raven has learned the truth; the people return; L. and his sons set out on a journey; a monstrous elk stands in the river and swallows everything that floats; L. lets himself be swallowed, cuts off the elk's heart, makes a fire, eats the cooked heart; the elk jumps out onto the shore and dies; the sons cut up the carcass, L. is safe and sound; from the pieces they made animals of all kinds; from the brain they made a frog - so ugly that they threw it into the water and told it to live there; the man-Seagull harpoons salmon in the river; L. turned into a salmon, Seagull hit him with a harpoon, L. cut off the tip with a knife and carried it away; all four came to Seagull's house; L. promises a new tip if Seagull will arrange a steam room for them; all this time Seagull's wife is crying: she is pregnant and her husband will soon cut her belly open to get the child; L. taught her to give birth; after the bath he returned the harpoon; Seagull stretches out his legs like a bridge across the river; L.'s sons are crossing, and when L. is walking, Seagull tries to shake him off into the water; but L. broke both of Seagull's legs with his staff; he became a seagull and flew away; since then seagulls have crooked legs; if death is near, a person sees a seagull; on the cliff is the nest of a man-eating eagle; L. pulled on the skin of an elk, began to collect feathers under the cliff; the eagle and the eaglet came down and carried L. to the nest; L. tied a stone to the eagle's leg; he flew with him, got tired, returned, L. killed him with his staff, threw him off; the same with the eaglet and all the chicks; L. came down on the last one; told him to build nests on the rocks and not to eat people; and the marmot was a man-eater; L. killed him, made a tobacco pouch from the skin; the marmot's mother is sitting in a house with a stone door; four entered, the door began to close; they jumped out, but L. cut off the tip of his little finger; therefore the little finger is shorter than the other fingers; L. lay down by a tobacco tree; it began to fall on him; he put his staff under it, the tree fell apart; L. collected leaves and put them in a tobacco pouch; L. had intercourse with a woman whose womb was toothed; he stuck his staff in it, the teeth fell out; L. and his sons have intercourse with a woman; since then sex is safe; elks killed people, raising poisonous dust while running; three brothers ran with two elks; they died; L. put arrowheads in his hair; ran, becoming a dog; the arrowheads flew out and killed both elks; L.with a rod he revived his sons and the elks; he told the elks not to kill any more people; the beaver drags people under water when they harpoon him; L. let himself be dragged under and swallowed, but cut off his heart; the sons cut the beaver open, L. is alive; L. wanted to grab a chipmunk; stripes from his fingers remained on the skin; but the chipmunk broke free, so L. and his sons lost their strength and turned into stones; they did not kill the bear, so he still kills people]: Farrand 1900, No. 1: 7-14;shuswap [Tlē'esa is the eldest of four brothers; they decided to wander; their mother threw something at them to make them stronger, but it missed T., and he became a dog {but then he often acts like a man}; Woodchuck (Arctomys monax) lives in a house between rocks; when a guest enters, the rocks crush him; T. inserts a spear between them, enters, kills the owner, turns him into a woodchuck; the brothers came to the house where Grizzly and Coyote lived; they proposed a competition in climbing a pole, and tied the dog at the entrance, covering it all over with flint blades; Grizzly kills each of the three brothers when they try to climb; T. breaks the rope and cuts Grizzly in half himself; so with four grizzlies; T. connects the limbs of the brothers, jumps over them, they come to life; The Hare invites people into his house to eat meat; pierces those who come with his (sharp?) foot, hitting them in the chest; T. ties a stone to his chest beforehand; kills the Hare, makes him a hare; the Elk stands in the river, swallows boats; T. allows himself to be swallowed, lights a fire in the Elk's stomach; cuts off the heart when the Elk swims to the shore; tells the brothers not to touch him when they begin to skin the carcass; the "tobacco tree" (probably its leaves were once smoked) lashes with branches and kills everyone who comes near; T. chopped off the branches and tore out the tree; the Mountain Goat kills passers-by; T. killed him, ordered that from now on people should kill and eat goats; the Eagle carries away people; T. allows himself to be carried away, scatters red and white paints, the Eagle takes them for blood and brains; T. kills the Eagle, descends on the back of the eaglet; then the brothers sat down by the river and watched the girl dance on the other bank; they turned to stone, those stones are still there]: Boas 2002, no. I.1: 61-67 (=1895: 1-4); Thompson [the four surviving sons of the black bear (see motif J52) wander, transforming the world, exterminating monsters; the main one is the eldest of them, the others only help; the name of the eldest, as well as of all four brothers together, is Qwa'qtqwetl; they meet a snake woman who invites passers-by to copulate and bites off their penises with her vagina; the eldest K. inserts a wringer into her vagina, preventing it from closing; turns the woman into stone; also other episodes]: Teit 1917b, no. 3: 15-20; Thompson: Boas 1895, No. II.2 [Woodpecker had four sons each from Grizzly and Black Bear; Grizzly killed her husband and Black Bear; her children fled, the ferryman drowned the pursuer; Qoeqtlk-otl - the youngest of four brothers; turned into a salmon, allowed himself to be harpooned by a giant, took the harpoon; the brothers came to his dugout, said they had found the harpoon, gave it to him; Q. lay down by the fire, and the eldest brother threw his beaver hat into the fire; the river overflowed, but the place where K. lay was not flooded; the elders took wives; they were killed by a bear; K. turned into a dog, tore the bear apart, the inhabitants of that village, revived his brothers by jumping over them; then they turned into stones]: 16-17 (=2002: 84-86); Hanna, Henry 1996 [Grizzly marries (Black) Bear; they have four children; Grizzly searches his wife's head, kills her; tells his children to bake Bear Cubs; they kill them themselves, bake the youngest, leave him where Grizzly eats; he realizes he has eaten his son; chases the Cubs; quarrels with Squirrel, grabs her on the back, leaving white marks; the Cubs' grandfather takes them across a river; while taking Grizzly across, makes a hole in the boat; water creatures grab Grizzly through the hole, eat him; Monster sits by the river, biting women on the back of the head; one of the Bear brothers turns into a salmon, allows himself to be harpooned, bites through the line, carries off the spear; Monster goes home; the brothers return the spear to him; survive the flood]: 67-71; Hill-Tout 1899 [Woodpecker marries Grizzly and Black Bear, loves only the latter, each has three sons; Grizzly tells his sons to feed Bear's sons a thin decoction; they will become weak from it, they must be drowned, the youngest must be roasted for her; Bear tells her sons to feed Grizzly's sons a thick decoction to make them heavy; Grizzly takes Bear to dig roots, offers to take out lice, bites off her head; meets Woodpecker, kills him in the same way; Grizzly's sons drown, Bear's sons roast the corpse of the youngest for his mother; the little bird tells her that she ate her son; when Grizzly catches up, the brothers climb a tree, throw wood dust in her eyes, wasps and ants on her chest, run away; While Woodchuck teases Grizzly, Woodchuck's brother takes the brothers across the river; while taking Grizzly across, he places her on a hole in the bottom of the boat, tells the fish to bite her, they rip out her insides, she dies; the younger brother Sqaktktquaclt (S.) turns into a hummingbird, flies into the back of a moose, flies out of his mouth, the moose dies; S. drinks up the lake, kills beavers with a stick; the two older ones come to a man who is ready to cut open his wife's belly to extract the child; each wife gives birth to a girl, she grows up, the man marries her, kills her to extract the girl, etc.; S. helps give birth to a boy, the woman will continue to give birth; Coyote boasts that he eats human flesh, S. offers him to regurgitate it, closes his eyes, but peeks; Coyote regurgitates grass, the young man turns him into a coyote; two women hold salmon behind a dam; S. throws a wooden bowl into the water, it destroys the dam; his brother opens the women's five boxes, releasing their weapons into the world - wind, smoke,wasps, mosquitoes; the women turn into two rocks; the brothers enter the house, the eldest finds a piece of wood in the bed, throws it into the fire; a trace of a human figure remains in the ashes; the owner enters, looks for his wife, cries, seeing the trace; S. carves two women out of poplar and alder, brings them to life; one is white, the other is red-skinned; S. gives them to the owner of the house; a one-legged cannibal pierces the shadows of those passing by along the shore with a harpoon, passers-by die; S. turns into a trout, lets himself be harpooned, carries away the harpoon; turns the one-legged man into a blue jay (grabbed him by the hair, the jay now has a crest); his wife - into a partridge (mountain grouse); S. lies down in a basket, takes red and white clay in his mouth, the eagle carries away the basket, throws it away, takes the clay for blood and brains, brings S. to the chicks; S. grabs the chicks, descends from the cliff onto them, puts their skins on his brothers, turns himself into a dog, placing stone knives under his skin, comes to a village where all the animals are dogs; defeats everyone, revives them, turns those people into ants, the dog-animals into ordinary animals; The seal overturns boats with tornadoes, S. turns it into a seal]: 195-216;lillooet [four brothers A'tse'mêl went up the Fraser River valley to cleanse the country of bad creatures; with them is their sister (her witchcraft is the strongest) and Mink; in one place there lived a dangerous woman; the brothers told Mink not to go alone; but he went, stuck his hand in her vagina, and she clamped it shut; had to cut it off above the wrist; the brothers tried to transform the woman, but did not have enough strength; called their sister; she stuck her hand in the woman's vagina, pulled it out, the woman died; they met an old man, he had more strength than they, but his sister turned him into stone; they came to a man who was vainly trying to catch fish with two sticks; he and his wife eat boiled grass; the man has a knife on his back, in order to soon cut open the belly of his pregnant wife; wives die every time; the transformers taught how to weave nets; one became a salmon, got caught in the net; a man was shown how to cut it up and cook it; they ate the salmon; the bones were thrown into the water and the transformer took on its normal form; the sister of the brothers taught the woman how to give birth; a man makes a spear: the transformers will come, I will kill them; they ask to see, throw the man into the water, hit him with the spear, he became a whitefish; this fish has a small mouth because the man whistled all the time; another man grabbed the fish with his hands and ate it raw; turned into an osprey]: Teit 1912b, no. 1: 292-296.

Western Amazonia. Ufaina [four Imarikakana brothers came to their aunt (any older woman); in the morning she gave them some water to wash with, told them to take care of it, said that she collects dew from leaves; she herself went to her four ponds before dawn, bathed, caught fish, cooked and ate it, gave the brothers only cassava soup; Imarika Kayafiki found a fish bone in the ashes; followed the aunt, becoming a chimbe, she guessed; in the morning the brothers took axes, went in the other direction, returned to the ponds; the aunt told them to put a log before breaking the pond, then a river would form; but the river did not form; all the fish were in that pond, but there were no rays or anacondas; IF wanted to drain another pond, but noticed that there were only harmful creatures in it; the same in the third; in the last one both creatures and fish; cut down a tree, it was also a snake; a river was formed, it is winding like a snake]: Hildebrand 1975, No. IV: 337-339 (the cycle of the four brothers p. 331-371); Kabiari : Bourgue 1976 [Yakamamukute (Sky) had no anus; (his umbilical cord was connected to the pupuchu- the liana Banesteriopsis caapi; the Jaguar Hehechu was its shoot; this is only in the retelling of Bonnemère 2001: 40); Hehechu is associated with the earth; Ya. came to dance with X.'s children, killed them; one was saved, became a bird; Ya. threw the other into boiling water like a worm; X. collected the pieces of his body, connected them with cotton wool, he turned into a monkey (mico); Ya. pretended not to know anything; invited Ya. to dance; loudly let out the winds; Ya. asked him to make an anus for him too; X. pierced his anus, he died; his body exploded, becoming the sky, i.e. the sky separated from the earth; X.'s remains turn into a hill, the blood became clay; from other remains the sons of Ya. arose - the four cultural heroes of Munully; they measure the earth to determine where its center is; They build the first maloka, having cut down a single Teviji tree, there are no others yet; the roof is flat, after the first rain it falls; M. get night from the toad Karu; at first they do not give payment, K. hands them a vessel with wounds; he demands gold; having received night, M. carelessly open the vessel, darkness comes; M. create nocturnal animals that cry out at a certain time; when the time of dawn comes, the sun rises; M. receive a vessel with earth from the worm Mapitare, carelessly open it, the earth disperses; the water in Pira-parana is hot, you can’t eat fish, it causes diseases, and there are no other rivers yet; M. come to a tree in which there is water and fish, it is owned by Kamanatana, the wife of the worm Mapitare; the brothers eat ants, and Kamanatana feeds them tapioca; The youngest of the M. (his name is Mamitiri) looks in and sees that the tapioca is Mapitare's sperm; Mamitiri, in the form of a hummingbird, finds the tree that Kamanatana owns; the M. open the pit in which she kept the animals, the animals spread throughout the forest; the M. blind Kamanatana, send her down the river to the rapids; they cut down the trees, which turn into different rivers; when they cut down the tree that Kamanatana owned, it does not fall, it is suspended by vines; they send the white squirrel Maniritare to cut them down; the fallen tree turns into Apaporis, the vine into the Cananarí River; the sky at sunset is stained with the blood of the squirrel; the brothers tell the snake to make the river beds winding; the brothers turn into parrots, fly to Thunder, replace his lightning with a parrot's tail, carry it away, distribute it to all communities]: 121-131 [exposition with commentary and interpretation], 138-143 [exact exposition]; Kabiyari[Ye'shu the Jaguar had four sons; while he was working on clearing a plot, Yakamamukute ("Sky") came to dance with his children; one boy cut the strap of the basket in which Ya. had rattles, he was unable to collect them; ordered to boil water to cook a worm, threw the children into the cauldron; the youngest became a bird, flew to his father; Y. took the other one out of the cauldron, he became a monkey; after four years Y. arranged a celebration, called Ya.; said that he pierced his anus with a stake; Ya. wanted to be pierced too, died; his sons are los Mujnuyi; sometimes all four act under this name, sometimes only the youngest is a powerful shaman; they built the first maloca in the center of the world; the earth was given by the Master of the Earth, the worm Mapitare, the material for construction - parts of the body of an eagle (gavilán - harpy eagle); this house is the body of the eagle itself; Mujnuyi brought the night from the master of the night, the frog Karu; on the way back they opened the package, it became dark, they got wet in the rain; all the water with fish was in the hollow of the Itshuna tree, it was owned by the old woman Kamatana; she bathed and caught fish, then plugged the hole; the youngest of the Mujnuyi brothers (he is a shaman) became a hummingbird, spied; the brothers did not have cassava flour, and K. took it out of the body of her husband Mapitare (he is a white worm) during copulation (this is his sperm; var.: he copulated with a clay pot, K. took sperm from there); the brothers refused to eat it; they burned coca leaves over the worm's hole, it died; they met the Howler Monkey; he told them to paint themselves black, to come to the maloca of the jaguar Jejechu, where there was a festival; J.'s daughter hid one of the Mujnuyi in her mouth; the brothers began to cut down the tree of old woman K., but the clearing was overgrown; they began to carry the chips away; Belka was chopping from above, the chips flying from him were drizzling rain; the chips fell on the head of Mujnuyi, since then people have had headaches; the tree fell together with the Kumaka liana, from which a river was formed; from the branches - channels, lakes; the root is the mouth of the Apaporis River; the Ant-woman (is she K.?) locked the brothers in an anthill; they turned into mosquitoes, after five days, when the exit was open, they flew away; they came to Thunder while he was sleeping, replaced his lightning with feathers from the tail of a parrot (they became parrots, Thunder's daughter let them in); they came to K. again, asked to cook them fish; while K. was collecting fuel, one of the Mujnuyi stole a piece of coal; he sailed across the river on a caiman boat, the caiman went underwater, took the fire; Mujnuyi turned into a frog, lured the caiman to the shore; the brothers cut open his belly, Osa found fire inside; they made masks from the vertebrae and intestines – they are like fire]: Correa 1989: 36-50; makuna[the yurupari (Je) instruments were in the possession of Rômikũmu (Woman Shaman) and other women; four Ayawa brothers stole them and hid them in the river bank; one yurupari a woman hid in her vagina, since then women have menstruated; R. began to look in the head of one of the A., noticed rotten leaves (they remained when he dived into the water), and guessed that the brothers had stolen the yurupari; the A. suggested that people live forever; the R. suggested that they grow up, grow old, die; the snakes said that they would not die, but change their skin; grasshoppers (grillos) said that they did not need females to reproduce their own kind]: Århem et al. 2004: 449; letuama : Palma 1984: 56 [there were four sacred yurupari flutes; four Ayas brothers tell their aunt that they are going to stun fish with poison, ask her to teach them; when she entered the water, one of the brothers became an anaconda, grabbed her; the brothers spread her legs, measured her vagina and stomach, and made holes in the sacred flutes according to this pattern; their aunt, the mistress of the world, is upset], 77-80 [the Ayas brothers did not know how to play the sacred flutes; the women knew how, took the flutes into the forest, and began to play; the brothers attacked the women, took the flutes away; the women got scared, thought that forest spirits had attacked, and ran home; one woman hid the flute in her vagina, this is the only flute that the women have preserved, and the other three were kept by the men; when the man attacked, aruñarun (?) a calabash with coca, blood began to flow; since then the women have menstruated].