H24G. Woman in a vessel. .23.47.51.65.

A woman returned from the other world or received there disappears when a man prematurely opens the vessel in which she is located.

Gonds, Pardhans, Soras, Cherokees, Huichols, Quechuas (Ayacucho dep.).

South Asia. Gonds [Megh Raja and Megh Rani have an elder daughter, Sun, and a younger daughter, Moon; Moon was the more beautiful, had an admirer, Lakshman, who had already worked for her for 12 years; on hearing him play the violin, Sun offered to give her sister her ornaments, cut her into pieces; now Moon is incomplete, the stars are drops of her blood; L. demanded a wife; the raja and rani had another daughter, Bidjaldeo Kanya; L. worked for her for another 12 years; her parents placed her in bamboo, told L. to open it only at home; he opened it on the way, lightning flew out of the bamboo, disappeared; he made a bow and arrows, thunder is the sound he makes when he tries to pursue his bride]: Elwin 1949, no. 6: 61; Gonds (Madhya Pradesh) [Lakshman Jati was fond of playing the kingri (fiddle); His brother Rama asked him to do this less often; but the kingri began to cry and complain; L. began to play again; his playing was heard by Indrakumari, one of the heavenly maidens; she came down to L., but he paid no attention to her; in her anger she broke her bracelets, threw them at L., and left the ring she wore in her ear on the bed; Sita saw this and told Rama; he found L. sleeping, took the ring and began to try it on all the women; it fit only Sita; Rama began to insult L. and he descended to the lower world; he served the cobra king for many years; the king was pleased with him, gave him a daughter in marriage and sent him to earth, ordering him not to open the casket with his wife on the way; he violated the ban, the wife flew out and became lightning; thunder is the sound of the flying arrows that L. shoots at her]: Parmar 1960, No. 12: 50-51; pardhan [Sita tells Rama about his brother Lakshmana; R. suspects his brother; L. gets on the fire, does not burn, so he is innocent; S. turns into a fox, throws the fox cub, L. grabs the fox by the nipple, S.'s breast ends up in his hand; the same with S.'s transformation into a fig tree; her loincloth into a tobacco plant; in anger, L. falls into the lower world; there is Ses Nag, his three daughters ask their father to take L. as their husband, he must work for them; L. receives numerous difficult assignments; sows a field with sesame, the seeds must be returned, rice must be sown (pigeons collect sesame); three years later, during the wedding ceremony, L. is replaced by his sword; the daughters demanded that SN give them the Sun and the Moon as a dowry; he agrees, but the luminaries will spend half the time in the lower world; L. opened the basket on the way to look at the youngest girl; she flew away like lightning; L. still tries to reach her with an arrow – this is thunder; the other two were stolen by Dano; they appear once in 9 years as mohati and amhera flowers]: Elwin 1949, No. 11: 65-67; ​​sora [Janko Raja gives his son-in-law a basket with his daughter, tells him not to open it on the way home; he opens it, the girl flies away; the husband shoots after her, the arrow hits a tree, striking fire; the forest catches fire; this is how fire appeared]: Elwin 1954, No. 19: 578-579.

Southeastern United States. Cherokee : Kilpatrick, Kilpatrick 1966, #3 [Sun Woman's daughter dies; people come to the land of the dead for her, receive a box with the girl; the girl becomes a bird and flies away; death becomes final]: 388; Mooney 1900, #4 [Sun Woman lived on the other side of the sky, and her daughter lived in the middle of the sky above the earth; every day the Sun stopped to dine with her; the Sun did not like people because they frowned when they looked at her; the Sun's brother Moon loved them because they smiled at him; the Sun sent fever with her rays, almost everyone died; the Tiny People advised killing the Sun; turned two people into snakes Spreading-adder and Copperhead, placed them at the door of the Sun's daughter's house, but they were unable to bite; then the Tiny People turned two other people into the horned serpent Uktena and into a Rattlesnake; the Rattlesnake bit the daughter of the Sun to death and crawled away, U. followed him; since then people do not kill rattlesnakes; U. became so dangerous that he was sent to the upper world; the Sun hid from grief, people no longer died, but it became dark; the Tiny People ordered the soul of the daughter of the Sun to be brought in a box; on the way back she asked to open the box, flew away as a Redbird; the Sun from grief flooded the earth with a flood of her tears; then the young men and women began to sing and dance, the Sun opened her face, smiled, the disasters ended].

NW Mexico. Huichol [a tumuSaúwi shaman and his wife must observe abstinence for five years; after the fourth year the wife got drunk and had affairs with Mexicans; their child fell ill, T. began to beat his wife, after which the child died; Kauymáli asked her to marry him, but she died; K. came to the world of the dead, the sea gods gave him a bamboo vessel with a cotton stopper, told him not to open it on the way; having shot a magic thorn-arrow into his wife's heel, K. turned his wife into a fly, placed her in the vessel; hears his wife asking to open it; on the fifth night K. opens the vessel, the wife turns into a fly, flies away; K. comes to the gods again, but they only teach him funeral rites; the other dead beat the deceased until she bled, because she had wasted corn uselessly; as a child she broke an oak branch; now the lice that had been biting her came down from the broken place, and the branch grabbed her, pulled her, and threw her back; the woman was grabbed and raped by a small animal that she had once caught in a trap; the path was guarded by a maggot, and on the sides were two dogs that she had once kept half-starved; now they bit her; the turtledove woman wanted to give her a tortilla, but the crow would not allow it, for she teased the crow because of its long beak; when K. returned, he released the birds he had caught for his wife; that is why there are many beautiful birds in the mountains]: Zingg 1938, no. 4b: 544-546 (= 1982: 235-236).

Central Andes. Puquio (Ayacucho dep.) [after the death of his wife, the husband goes to Qoropuna (a mountain in Arequipa dep.); the master of the dead, San Francisco, agrees to return the deceased, placing her in a bamboo vessel and ordering that it not be opened before time; the husband opens it on the way, the wife flies away]: Arguedas 1975: 73f in Cipolletti 1980: 36.