I22E. Moving objects in the path of the dead.

.18.-.20.24.48.51.-.53.55.67.68.

The deceased, going to the afterlife, must pass colliding rocks or other moving obstacles.

Wurajeri, Kiwai, Central Carolines (Truk?), Gilbert Islands, Marquesas, Java, Toraja, Yokutz, Chumash, Cahuilla, Huichol, Aztec, Miskito, Kuna, Yupa, Guarayu, Chiriguano, Paresi.

Australia. Wurajeri and neighboring groups [the deceased is carried up to the sky by a rope, where the totems and ancestors live; he crawls through a hole like the mythical creatures of the beginning of time; the edges of the hole move continually, from time to time revealing a narrow crack ; the dead sees two guardians, a man-Moon on one side, a woman-Sun on the other; the long penis of the Moon is wrapped around his waist, the long clitoris of the Sun blocks the fire, which is the source of heat and daylight; if the deceased is not frightened, he goes to where the two ancestors Ngintungintsu and Gunababa begin to question him, but he must remain silent; they dance with erect penises and try to make him laugh with their song; he must not move an eyebrow; then the women dance an erotic dance, but again he must not react in any way; (shamans tell of similar trials when visiting the heavenly world); then the deceased meets Bayami and his wife, whose body is like rock crystal]: Berndt, Berndt 1964: 413.

Melanesia. Kiwai [a sick woman tells how her soul reached the world of the dead Adiri; two posts on the sides of the path continually collide and separate ; they let her pass; all the fruits and food of the dead are blue, red and white; the woman's dead husband told her to return to the living; another man also got to Adiri by passing between the crushing posts; the first dead Sído gave him a girl; if he had got together with her, he would have forgotten about home; but he was thinking of returning and S. sent him back]: Landtman 1927: 289-290.

Micronesia – Polynesia. Central Carolines {Truk County?} [sky like an inverted cauldron with a jagged rim that continually rises and falls; meteors are the souls of people who pass through to the other side of the sky when the rim rises ; if a meteor makes a sound when it falls, the soul has been crushed and its owner will die]: Goodenough 1953: 4; Gilbert Isls ["the soul of a deceased person might, under unfavorable conditions, be crushed between two rocks"]: Fraser, The Belief in Immortality, vol. 3, 1928, p. 49 in Propp 2000: 249; Marquesas [Kena leaves his wife; she tries to follow him, then throws herself over a precipice; he marries his cousin; she is killed; K.'s mother helps him down to the nether world; at the entrance - crushing rocks ; K.'s companion, holding on to the end of his loincloth, is crushed; the mistress of the lower world orders K. to wash and dress his wife, put her in a basket, and not open it for ten days; at first he breaks the ban; the second attempt is successful]: Handy 1930: 117-120 (retold in Blixen 1987: 261-266, in Beckwith 1970: 149, in Poignant 1967: 64).

Malaysia – Indonesia. Java : Kratz 1973, no. 9 [a half-man (vertical) goes to the Sun to ask it to give him a full body; the Sun replies that a cloud is more powerful than he is, let him address it; the cloud sends him to the wind, he to the mountain, to the porcupine that is digging a hole, to the dog of which the porcupine is afraid, to the man of whom the dog is afraid; the man says that he must ask the Lord; the Half meets a hadji who has sat on a stone all his life and rubbed it; he asks to know where in paradise a place has been prepared for him and how many houris he is entitled to; he meets a repentant robber, who asks to know what place in hell has been prepared for him; he drives the Half away from a man senselessly chopping bamboo; the Half wants to pick a pomegranate, but all the pomegranates praise themselves in turn, the Half cannot choose, leaves; two ponds are full and there is a dry one between them, fish jump from one end of the pond to the other without noticing the dry one; the Lord shows a place in paradise prepared for the repentant, a place in hell for the hajji; at the entrance there are scissors that cut the one entering hell into pieces ; two ponds are the rich who do not notice the poor; the one cutting bamboo is engaged in useless labor; pomegranates are people serving the rulers; tells one to walk without looking around along a long bridge; The half reaches the ground, gains a full body; tells the robber and the hajji what the Lord showed him]: 57-66; Raats 1970: 87; Eastern Toraja [ on the path of the deceased there are two heavy stones that crash against each other with a roar ; if they do not want to let the soul pass, they emit thunder and lightning; the soul throws sirih-pinang to them, manages to slip through while the stones are moving apart; a barking dog and a scratching cat await on the path; whoever is afraid of them is forced to wait until the heavenly inhabitants drive the animal away] (not known everywhere, but only in Meerstreek): Adriani, Kruyt 1950, No. 42: 470.

California. Yokuts : Gayton, Newman 1940, #3 [wife dies; husband sits on grave for two days; wife gets up, shakes herself off, walks west, husband follows her; reaching water, wife tells husband not to follow her, his smell is terrible to her; there is a bridge across the water that moves up and down , those falling turn into fish; wife crosses, husband flies to the other bank with the help of a talisman; there a man Tipiknits washes his face, tells him not to meet his wife in the world of the dead and on the way back not to tell anyone what he saw for 6 days; invisible birds with ka cries try to scare those walking so that they fall off the bridge; husband tells on the fourth day, is bitten by a rattlesnake, dies], 6 [wife dies, husband sleeps on grave; on the third night wife gets up, walks west, disappears during the day; the husband waits, in the evening the wife appears again, the husband continues to follow her; the wife rubs her face with all sorts of nasty things - insects, blood, urine; the husband does the same; at the river bank they both pass between crushed rocks ; the wife crosses the river over a bridge, the husband cannot; the owner of the dead Tipiknits sends his two daughters after him, they have skirts made of rattlesnakes, they carry him across the bridge; they give him something to drink, give him pine nuts, this is enough to satisfy his hunger; the wife is brought to the husband, T. tells him not to sleep, he falls asleep, wakes up among the embers; these are the dead; at night they are people again, the husband does not sleep; they are allowed to return; almost reaching the house, the husband, breaking the ban, lies down with his wife, she disappears; he tells his parents what he saw], 146 [the wife died, the husband sleeps on the grave; on the third night the woman gets up, goes to the west; [the husband follows her, safely passes between the crushed rocks ; the woman crosses the pond on a shaky bridge; Tipiknitz – the master of the dead, his two daughters accompany the deceased’s husband; he is given an inexhaustible supply of food; the man sees the dead in the form of firebrands; he manages to stay awake; he returns home with his wife, breaks the ban on sleeping with her, the wife disappears; the husband’s parents were in mourning, he tells them what happened]: 17-18, 19-20, 102; chumash [souls go across the sea; first they enter the Land of Widows, who feed on the smell of food and water (see motive I19); then they pass between two moving rocks ; they flatten the living, are safe for the dead; they pass between two qaq birds, which peck out the eyes of souls; souls insert poppy heads into their eye sockets, see again; they cross the river on a log, entering the land of the dead Šimilaqša; there they obtain eyes from blue abalone shells; the souls of those who have forgotten the customs of their ancestors fall from the bridge, turning into monstrous turtles, frogs, snakes, fish]: Blackburn 1975, no. 12: 99-100; Cahuilla [the souls of the dead go east between the moving hills ; the evil are crushed, turning into rocks, bats, butterflies]: Hooper 1920: 321, 342.

NW Mexico. Huichol [the soul of the deceased reaches a fork in the road; the righteous take the right path; those who have committed incest or had sexual relations with non-Huichol take the left; the left path goes between crushed rocks; the souls are frightened but pass ]: Furst 1967: 62-64.

Mesoamerica. Aztecs [ souls pass between crushing rocks ; many perish]: Sahagún 1978 (=Krickeberg 1928a: 30).

Honduras - Panama. Miskito [see motif H12; the path to the world of the dead goes between two pine trees; they constantly collide and separate; the soul of a woman passes between them ; her living husband walks around the pine trees; the soul follows a bridge of human hair; it sails in a boat rowed by four toads; the soul is met by a woman with gigantic breasts]: Conzemius 1932: 159; Kuna : Keeler 1960 [the soul goes to a fork; to the left is the road of flowers, to the right - of thorns; Piler, who "behaved badly" in relation to his sister, mother, aunt, took the left road, but fell into thorns; eagles tore him, snakes bit him, scissors cut him ; stopped before the city of God, must suffer for a long time; the wicked go this way; the righteous go the road of thorns, must be able to tame snakes, etc.; in the city of God they are brought before the judge Olowikpalele; he either assigns a punishment or lets them pass immediately; in heaven the souls travel in the boat of the Sun]: 238-241; Nordenskiöld 1938 [the souls pass into the world of the dead between moving scissors ]: 445.

Northern Andes. Yupa [souls can take the roads of the worm, the toad, the stone; the toad laughs, gives them dirty food; those who eat, end up on the road of the worm, then on the road of the flies, are eaten by worms; those who choose the road of the stone must pass between two rocks that do not let liars through]: Villamañán 1982, no. 5: 20.

Bolivia - Guapore. Guaraju [according to the Franciscan José Cardús, 1886; at the fork the soul of the deceased turns onto the narrow left path; the wide right one is unknown to Europeans; the soul swims across the first river on a caiman, playing the flute; if it plays badly, the caiman will drown and eat it; on the opposite bank of the second river there is a tree with a box on top; it sometimes bends toward this bank, then straightens up; the soul jumps into the box; if it misses, it drowns; further along the path lies the worm Izoiramoi; to a good person it seems gigantic, and as it approaches it decreases to a tiny worm; to a bad person it seems small, and then grabs it between the legs, bites it in half, eats it; further is the region of darkness, the soul lights a bunch of straw, passes through; this torch must be held behind the back; if ahead - bats will pounce; approaching the bottle tree Tuanandior, the soul kicks the root, making itself known; the soul washes, drinks chicha, goes around the tree, hummingbirds flutter near its flowers; the soul wounds them with arrows, picks up feathers as a gift to Grandfather, releases the hummingbirds; then the path between two crushing rocks Itacuru ; when they diverge, the soul screams, the rocks stop for a moment, the soul slips through ; if it does not know what to scream, then it is crushed, eaten by insects; it swims across the next river on a raft; if the person was bad, the raft capsizes in the middle, the soul drowns; then at the fork the Vulture looks, does the one who came also have decorations in his lower lip, nose, ears; if not, he shows the wrong path, where the soul dies; then a huge monkey grabs the soul, tickles it; if the soul laughs, the monkey will eat it (the Guarayu try not to laugh; women often giggle, so they will not get to the Grandfather); further to the left of the path is a deceptive tree Iguirar-oriyo; from under it there are voices, cries, there are colorful plants, it is easy to lose the way; you have to pass by with your eyes closed and your ears plugged, otherwise the tree will carry you away; then the road becomes smooth, there are flowers all around; the soul is kindly met by the long-bearded Grandfather, washed, making him handsome, gives him a wife; the person lives an ordinary life in the village of the dead]: Grubb 1924: 187-193; Pierini 1910: 707-708; Chiriguano : Cipolletti 1978 [ pounding rocks ; scissors ; also a flame that rises and dies down alternately and a boiling cauldron]: 55; Nordenskiöld 1938 [ Scissors cut the souls of the dead]: 445.

Southern Amazonia. Paresi [the elder brother dies; his soul leads the younger one to the world of the dead; they pass between two moving sharp plates which stop for a moment (the souls of those who have committed incest are cut); the man remains in the world of the dead]: Pereira 1986, no. 21: 308-311.