I48A. Sinking Through the Earth. .12.13.17.19.21.28.31.32.34.-.37.43.45.50.51.

The hero's opponent descends into the underworld.

Yoruba, Sara, Old Testament, Torres Islands, Maewo, Bhutan, Liangmai, Russian written tradition, Ukrainians (Galicia, Zaporizhia), Veps, Chuvash, Altaians, Teleuts, Shors, Khakass, South Altai Tuvans, Eastern Khanty, Forest Nenets, Evens, Udege, Modoc, Tuscarora, Seneca, Mohawk, Cahuilla, Cupeño, Maricopa, Diegueño, Pima, Papago, Nahuatl of western Mexico.

West Africa. Yoruba [at first below the sky there was water and a swamp; Arámfè sent his sons Odúva and Orísha to create the world and people; Oduwa gave kingship, Orisha a bag of wisdom and arts; on the way down, Oduwa gave Orisha a drink, stole the bag; lowered a chain from the edge of the sky, sent the priest Ojúma down it, giving him a snail shell filled with magic sand and a five-toed hen; he scattered the sand on the water, the hen scattered it with her paw, dry land appeared, with Ife in the center; after this, Oduwa and Orisha descended themselves; Orisha began to make people; it was dark; Arámfè sent the sun, the moon and fire; a vulture brought the fire on its head, that is why it is bald; Oduwa, Orisha and the gods who supported each began to fight over the bag of wisdom; Oduwa carried her away, turning into stone and falling into the underworld; his son Ogun, the god of blacksmiths, became king]: Wyndham 1919: 107-108.

Sudan - East Africa. Sarah : Belcher 2005 (mbai) [Loa did everything well and beautifully: boats, ornaments, fishnets; his brother Sou did everything badly, carelessly; Loa was always silent; to make him talk, Sou broke his traps, Loa: Are you a destroyer ? Sou accused his brother of insulting him from the first words; Loa ascended to heaven; Sou found him there, went into his house, took a rain-making stone, rain came when people were in the fields; Loa told him to return, lowered a rope, asked him to fight off the birds without throwing weapons at them; he began to throw, knives and blades ran out, the birds cut the rope, Sou fell, sank into the ground, now he is there]: 349-351; Fortier 1967 (mbai): 123-125 [Sou and Loa lived together; L.: Let the fields of grain cover the whole earth; S.: But then there will be no place to relieve oneself; Let people dig graves for the dead; So S. made people mortal; L. wanted people to die and be reborn; The lizard quickly ran to L. and said that people would die forever; The chameleon walked slowly and arrived later; Said that people would die and be reborn; L. replied that he was late].

Asia Minor. Old Testament [Korah, Dathan, Abiram, and Avian with their men rebelled against Moses and Aaron; Moses: All that I do is not of my own free will, but for the Lord; if not, then the rebels will suffer the usual punishment; but if so, then the earth will open up and swallow them up, and they will go down alive into the underworld; the earth opened up and swallowed up Korah and his followers]: Numbers 16: 28-34 .

Melanesia. Torres Islands (Loch) [Tagaro the Great (TB) is a negative character, Tagaro the Little (TL) is a positive one; TB wants eternal night; trees without edible fruit; TM wants alternation of night and day, trees with good and bad fruit, so that people do not become lazy; and so on with everything; TB went to live in the volcano Omba, when he quarrels with his wife, the earth trembles, fire blazes]: Coombe 1911: 27; Maewo (or rather the islet Whitsuntide south of Maewo) [Tagaro came down from the sky, created people and everything else, returned to the sky; Suqe lived on the earth; his head is split in two, so there are always two thoughts in it; S. does everything badly; wanted people to die only for 5 days; wanted to plant the scooped meat of yams, not the peel; wanted five nights in one day; T. sent him into the bottomless abyss, he now rules the dead there; where T. trampled, leveling the earth, there is a plain, in other places mountains; the mother of T.'s son answered him that his father was in heaven; the son shot into the sky, the arrow turned into something like a banyan root, the son and mother ascended to heaven; T. sat on a tree, made an image of himself from a fruit, threw it to the boy, the mother looked, recognized T.; T. agreed to come down, but cut the liana when the son and wife came down, remained in heaven]: Codrington 1891: 169.

Tibet - Northeast India. Bhutan [the parents have a daughter, Boded; they decided to leave, leaving her behind: the harvest on the plot is meager, and sinpo demons are all around; they told B. to dry the grain, driving away the birds from it; a raven cries that the parents are leaving; B. rushed into the house, but they have not left yet; does not listen to the raven anymore; finally, it cries that the parents have left; no one is home, the girl climbed a peach tree to see if they can be seen on the road; someone asks her to throw him a peach; she threw it; "it fell in the dung, come down, throw another"; ditto; "give it to your hands"; D. held out the peach, the sinpo {man} grabbed her, put her in a sack and carried her into his house; an old hungry dog ​​is there; whispers: if you feed me a little, I will give you three words of wisdom; B. had some food left with her, she fed the dog, the dog told her to take three packets of seeds out of her ear: they will come in handy when she runs; sinpo tells B. to pound rice, every now and then saying, "I am here"; the louse promises to answer for her: let him take it out of her hair and leave it in the spit; when the saliva dried, the louse died and stopped answering; sinpo rushed in pursuit; B. threw pepper tree seeds, a forest of pepper trees grew; then - pine seeds; bamboo; sinpo is about to break through the bamboo; the moon rose; B. asks her to lower her an iron chain, not a wool ladder; the moon Acho La La answers every time: wait, I'm still washing; making breakfast; having breakfast; putting away the dishes; looking for the chain; straightening it out; the moon lowered the chain, B. climbed up; sinpo asks her to lower his chain too; the moon answers the same as the girl (washing myself, etc.); lowered a ladder made of wool; when he climbed halfway, cut the ladder; sinpo fell, sank deep into the ground; a girl is seen on the moon, milking the cow of the moon]: Choden 1994: 35-40; liangmai(part of the Zelyangrong ethnic group) [a lonely unmarried woman in a village; a wanderer spent several days with her and left; she gave birth to 8 eggs near a banana tree that she had planted on the river bank; she left the pot on the fire there, putting one grain of rice in the water; she put a sword nearby and left; the first to hatch from the egg was the god Puichamiw, but he returned back to the shell; the second was Charahwang; seeing no one, he declared himself the eldest, to the annoyance of P.; then others, but the last one did not hatch; the brothers threw this egg into the river and a boa constrictor emerged from it; he became the river king; Ch. saw bananas, took a sword, cut off a bunch and distributed the bananas to his brothers; they were blind; each said that his portion was incomplete; Ch. saw a black monkey, cut off its hand, smeared the brothers' eyes with blood and they regained their sight; the grain of rice in the pot will fill the vessel with rice if the brothers find their mother; Ch. turned into a crow, found their mother; the brothers returned to the river and saw that the vessel was full of rice; they came to their mother, who asked where the eighth brother was; upon learning what had happened to the last egg, the mother said that if the brothers had been patient, the last one would have become the strongest; when the mother grew old, she began to steal vegetables from the garden of the god Banglahwang; he grabbed her, took pity on her, and began to raise her sons; six servants of the goddess lived in the palace; B. dressed them up, and kept his daughter in black flesh; he ordered the brothers to choose a chicken each; everyone took the plump ones, and Ch., on the advice of their mother, a skinny black one; then B. ordered to choose the girls; everyone chose the beautiful servants, and Ch. the Cinderella sitting in the kitchen; Ch. orders to point out the chosen bride among the rest, although they are wrapped in cloth and only the tips of their fingers are visible; a fly landed on the finger of B.'s daughter and Ch. realized that this was his bride; Ch. gave away his daughter; each brother built a separate house; P.'s house is higher than Ch.'s house; he suggested to P. to destroy his houses in order to dam the river and catch fish; he gathered black clouds around the house, hung many pots on it and began to shake them; P. believed that Ch.'s house was collapsing and in fact destroyed his own; seeing the deception, he retired to the extreme southwest of the Zelyangrong country; the father-in-law suggested to Ch. to wrestle; the loser will retire under the 8th layer of earth; the earth shook; B.'s wife gave her daughter a lock of her hair to throw at the feet of either her father or her husband; she threw it at her father's feet, he got entangled in his hair and fell as if mown down and sank through the ground; he managed to say that he would take revenge; the place of his fall is the valley between the lands of Angami and Mao; Ch. cannot arrange a holiday: as soon as he tries, an earthquake occurs, caused by B.; Ch. rules the earth, but his brother P. interferes, sending storms in the spring; wants to remind that he should have been the one in charge]: Miri 2006, no. 2: 6-9.

Central Europe. Russian written tradition (literary tradition; manufactory of the Solovetsky Library; from Paleia, late 16th or early 17th century) [God walked on water, saw a goldeneye bird; began to question it, it answered that he was the God of gods, from above, and she from below; God ordered it to give from below; the bird dived, brought God foam like silt, God made earth from it; named the bird Sotonail, made him chief of the heavenly powers; he decides to set up a throne above the stars; God transferred power over the heavenly powers to Michael; M. at first abandoned S., but God removed S.'s divinity, M. cast him out of heaven; he fell, sank underground, and part of his powers with him; others fell to the ground, became demons; others remained in the air, pretending to be angels]: Porfiryev 1877: 87-89; Ukrainians (Galicia, Kosiv district, 1902) [there is only sea everywhere; there is noise in the sea, Herod arose from the noise; dew fell from the sky, and from it – God; he knows the thoughts of Herod and people, and Herod knows the thoughts of people only when they speak; Herod offers to create dry land; God tells him to dive and get earth from the bottom in the name of God; he dives twice, but says that it is in his name; while he is rising, the earth slips through his fingers, washed away by water; the third time he says that it is in the name of God, but his, Herod’s, too; God fell asleep, Herod drags him to the edge of the dry land to drown him; but the dry land expands as he does so; God created Adam from clay; Herod spat on him; God turned him inside out; since then there is disease and weakness inside man; God created Eve from Adam’s rib; he ordered them not to commit fornication; they sinned and God drove them out; Adam made a hut without windows, began to carry light in handfuls; God cut out windows; Satan (aka Herod) rebelled, and God ordered the Archangel Michael to throw him and his servants out of heaven; they fell on rocks, forests, water, broke up, many ended up on the ground; God ordered Elijah to strike Satan's army with lightning; then he deprived him of the strength in one arm and leg; therefore, during a thunderstorm, Elijah fires at half strength; at the end of time, he will strike with all his strength and the earth will crumble; Satan descended into hell, sits there chained to a chair; and Elijah, as soon as he sees the devil, strikes him with lightning]: Gnatyuk 1902 (2), No. 382: 217-220; Ukrainians(Zaporizhzhya, Vasilyevsky district, Tsaritsyn Kut) [People do not go to Bald Mountain near Vasilyevka (the district center of Zaporizhzhya Oblast) because in the middle of the mountain there is a bottomless abyss in which evil spirits nest. The devil lures people, but to no avail. Then he decides to steal the sun so that eternal night comes to earth and people go blind. As soon as the sun rolls towards sunset, he drags it into its lair. People wait for the sun, but there is pitch-black night all around. A light comes on Bald Mountain. Old people say that this is Satan beckoning, you can’t go there, especially sinners, otherwise there will be trouble. Children do not listen to this advice, because they have no sin. A dozen boys secretly go to the mountain to steal fire from the evil spirit and make a bonfire for the whole world. But as soon as they approach, the light moves away. Wandering through dark holes, they discover daylight and see the sun behind bars. They break the locks with stones and release the sun from captivity. While the devil beckons people with a lamp, the sun rises over the world, people, birds and animals rejoice in it. The evil spirit falls into a black pit forever out of anger]: Chabanenko 1990: 14-15.

Baltoscandia. Veps [When God created the earth and living creatures, the devil, out of envy, hindered Him. God became angry, grabbed the devil and threw him from heaven to the earth, into a swamp. In the swamp, in the place where the devil fell, a large hole formed; from this hole all sorts of "evil spirits" crawled out. Some went into lakes - vodyaniks, some into forests - lesoviki, some climbed into clouds and clouds and thus spread throughout the world. Even more of this "evil spirit" would have crawled out, if God had not guessed to plug the hole in the swamp with a burning log]: Kolmogorov 1913: 372.

Volga - Perm. Chuvash [ Tura makes the land flat, it grows; Shuittan spits out the silt hidden in his mouth, creates mountains, ravines, or causes a storm in the ocean before the earth has had time to harden; so that Sh. would spit out the silt, T. hits him, evil spirits emerge from the splashes of blood; T. begs for land, agrees to a patch of ground to lean on with his staff, makes a hole in the ground, falls into the lower world; diseases and reptiles come out of the hole; T. drives them back; Sh. clumsily imitates T.; T. makes apples, a cow, a sheep, Sh. - potatoes, a goat, a pig; predatory and harmful animals, reptiles, fish (throwing pebbles into the water); T. made a man, went for the soul, left a hairless dog to guard; Sh. brought cold, promised a dog a fur coat, spat on a man; T. turned a man inside out, ordered a dog to eat bones, and endure beatings]: Egorov 1995: 117-118.

Southern Siberia – Mongolia. Altaians [water everywhere, Kudai sent fish to look for land, only Pike brought it from the bottom; K. made it lighter than other fish; K. fell asleep, his brother Erlik grabbed a handful of earth and ran; the earth continued to be created; where E. jumped, a mountain appeared, where he stepped – a hollow, the earth became uneven; K. agreed to give E. land the size of the end of his crutch; E. fell into this hole, from it came out all the reptiles and insects]: Khokholkov 1997: 21-22; Teleuts [founded by missionary Vas. Postnikov in the village of Myuta, the population of which was formed mainly from Bachat Teleut settlers – see Potanin 1883: 130, note 2; Funk 2004: 9); there was only water; Ulgen' went down to create the earth; Erlik volunteered to dive, brought earth from the bottom in his mouth; U. made the earth, it was all turf; a little earth remained between E.'s teeth; he spat it out, a hummocky marshy place was formed; U. began to scold him; he begged to give him as much earth as the end of his stick occupied; he fell into the place he begged for; the Swallow brought turf in its beak; U. scattered it; made the forest and everything that is on the earth; created the body of man from earth, bones from stones; a dog without hair; went to look for a soul for man, left the dog as a guard; E. appeared, promised to give the dog wool and a soul to man; the dog ate E.'s excrement, became overgrown with hair; E. put a pipe in the man's rear end, blew, thereby reviving him; U. came, wondering whether to exterminate people; The frog persuaded them to leave them as they were]: Potanin 1883, No. 46a: 218-220; Shors [ Ulgen created man, went to look for a soul, left a dog to guard; Erlik gave it wool, spat on the man, smeared him with mud; U. agreed that E. would make a soul for the man; he blew it into the man's mouth through an angelica stalk; this is the "kut" soul, which E. always takes for himself; there are three more; E. asked for some land to rest his staff on; he fell into a hole, and reptiles and insects crawled out of it]: Khlopina 1978: 71-72; Khakass: Katanov 1963 [=Katanov 1894: 185-188; at first there was a duck; having made another a companion, she sent her to the bottom of the river for sand; she brings it and gives it to the first three times; the third time she kept some of the sand in her mouth, this part became stones; the first duck scattered the sand, pounded it for nine days, the earth grew; the mountains grew after the messenger duck spat the stones out of her mouth; because of this, the first duck refuses to give her land; agrees to give land the size of a cane; the messenger pierces a hole in the earth, goes into it; the remaining one sends a swallow for the soul of a man, ordering the dog to watch and bark at Erlik Khan; E. created winter, gave the dog a fur coat, spat on the man; God poured out his soul on the man, made him a wife from a rib; ordered to eat red currants at sunrise, but not at sunset; the wife has eaten; a woman with a child and a mare with a foal are feeding on grass, the woman has climbed over seven hills, the mare over one; God decided that if people were to eat grass, they would eat it all; see motive D13]: 155-156; South Altai Tuvans [silver and golden frogs closed the spring; the old man says that they will open the water by drinking the blood of the khan's two twin sons; the boys swallowed the frogs themselves, the river carried them to the country where the khans die on their wedding night; the elder twin becomes a khan, the younger sees an old woman next to his brother, and a wolf three fathoms away rolls in the ashes, runs away; the old man says that it was the soul of the shulmus that ran for a way to kill the khan; the younger kills the wolf with an arrow, it falls into the ground, the old woman is dead; brothers marry beauties]: Taube 1994, no. 28: 234-236.

Western Siberia. Eastern Khanty (Tomsk region): Kulemzin, Lukina 1978, no. 16 [one of the two brothers angered Torum and he made him a devil; when grass and forest grew on the earth, there were many people, they began to hunt the devil; the devil to Torum: I need a hole in the ground to hide from people; T. poked his staff into the ground, the devil climbed in there; since then devils live underground]: 19; Lukina 2004, no. 1.1 [there is only sea everywhere; Torum began to pour earth from his hand and wheat on it; the devil appeared, made swamps, hummocks, holes; stuck his staff in; T. fell asleep, the devil began to drag him to drown him, there was earth everywhere; T. flew to the sky, and the devil began to live underground]: 13; Petrukhin, Khelimsky 1982 (Eastern, clarified by N.V. Lukina, December 2016) [ Kyn-lung ( Kul-otyr ), taking advantage of Numi-Torum's sleep, began to drag him along the ground, trying to drown him; in the process, hills, valleys, pits, hummocks, and swamps arose; K. left for his underground world through the hole left by the staff stuck in the ground; blood-sucking mosquitoes and spirits of disease rose to the ground through the hole, but the goddess Mykh-imi blocks it]: 567; forest Nenets [at first there was water everywhere; Num sent swans and geese to look for land; they returned and said that there was no land anywhere; sent Gagara to dive; she returned on the sixth day and said that there was something at the bottom, but she did not have enough strength; The bird lyuri dived , on the seventh day it emerged with earth and a blade of grass in its beak; it made a nest for itself; the wind drove it from one bank to the other; N. told the lyuri to dive again, it returned after seven days; N. compressed the earth, making it large enough to build a dwelling; an old man came and asked to be let in, N. reluctantly agreed; in the morning they saw that the old man was washing his face at the edge of the earth, and in fact was trying to destroy the earth; N. drove him away; made the earth even larger; allowed various peoples, animals, trees, rivers, etc. to appear; the old man returned, began to ask for at least enough earth to stick a stick into; N. agreed, the old man entered the hole, said that he had deceived N., and now he would steal people from him]: Lehtisalo 1998: 8-9.

Eastern Siberia. Evens [there was a fire on the earth, then it was flooded; the reindeer and people who had gathered on a high mountain also drowned when the mountain went under water; Mikola asked a loon to dive, it brought some clay in its beak; the clay slipped out of its beak, the devil stole it, M. spat at it, the devil fell underground; M. began to sing: let a river, a lake, a mountain appear; M.: let there be no mosquitoes; devil: let the mosquitoes remain, so that people do not become arrogant and so that there are fewer of them]: Robbek 2005: 209-210.

Amur - Sakhalin. Udege [people did not die; men turned into poplars, women into birches; the elder brother Egdiga hunted, the younger Uza sat at home; U. sees a shell on the lake, it tells him to dig a hole to the lower world where E. usually sits; otherwise E. will kill all the animals; E. falls into the lower world, but returns, sends U. there; since then the souls of the dead go there; the dog does not let them out]: Podmaskin 1991, No. 8: 120.

Coast - Plateau. Modoc [old man whose name is "sweetroot-glutton" is furious because his daughter-in-law has kept some edible seeds from him; he falls into the ground; now causes landslides and earthquakes]: Curtin 1912: 122-124.

Northeast. Tuscarora [woman in upper world about to give birth to twins; falls through; sea monsters get some earth from bottom, put it on turtle; when woman lands on it, land begins to grow; good son Enigorio (E) is born normally, evil Enigonhahethea (EH) – through mother’s side, killing her; E turns mother’s head into sun, body into moon; creates plants, animals, people, monkeys are obtained; E lies that he can be killed with reeds; EH answers that he can be killed with deer’s horn; brothers fight, E kills EH, he falls through earth, becomes spirit of evil]: Cusick 1827 in Leland 1968: 24, in Beauchamp 1922: 8-11; Seneca [in sky Great Chief uproots tree, sends pregnant woman down; the birds catch her, not letting her fall into the sea; the Muskrat brings clay from the bottom on his paw; the clay is placed on the Turtle, the earth grows; the woman gives birth to twins; the evil one comes out under her arm; she dies giving birth to the good one; the good one makes the sun from her face, the moon and stars from her breast, gives the Earth her body; makes mountains, straight rivers; goes across the sea to his father, who asks how high he can reach; the son reaches the sky; as much as he can lift, he lifts a mountain; the father recognizes him as his son, gives him two bundles, in them are birds led by an eagle, animals led by a deer; the evil brother makes the rivers winding, creates storms, sea monsters, predators, reptiles; the brothers fight, the good one imprisons the evil one in the underworld]: Converse 1908 in Turner 1978: 36-39.

Great Southwest. Cahuilla[inside the cluster of darkness – male and female; gave birth to Temaīyauit and Mūkat; they came out, began to argue which of them was older; M. took out of his heart a black pipe and black tobacco, and T. – a white pipe and white tobacco; to light the pipe, M. took out of his heart the sun, but it fell out and rolled into the darkness; M. took out the western light, T. – the eastern, they lit the pipes; the smoke from M.’s pipe formed clouds; M. said that he lowered the pipe, but he himself raised it, T. did not see it; T. said that he raised the pipe, but he himself lowered it, but M. found it; thus it turned out that he was older; they took out of their hearts the central pillar of the world, but it did not stand; they created all the snakes to support it – they could not hold it; two mountains – the same; then spiders; they wove webs around it and the pillar stood firm; They climbed to the top of the table and saw clouds of smoke below; these were all kinds of diseases that arose from the place where M. and T. were born; M. and T. decided to create shamans to cure diseases; M. took black earth from his heart, and T. white earth, and placed it on top of the pole, but it fell off; then they took out black and white spiders, they entangled the earth with their webs; the ants spread it, and the whirlwinds did it quickly; but the world rocked, for the ants are too light; then M. and T. created an ocean around the earth, placing in it two water demons and all the water creatures; the earth stopped rocking; they placed the sky, but it swayed in the wind; they fixed the sky with their saliva - the stars; T. created (always: took from the heart) a coyote, and M. an owl; in making man, M. worked slowly and diligently; and T. got a man with a belly and a face front and back, with eyes everywhere, hands like dog paws; T. managed to make three times more such freaks than M. did people; M. created the moon; T. and M. argue; T. wants people not to die, or to return back, cleansing themselves of the mortal smell; there is not enough food, let them eat the earth, if necessary, we will expand it; M. objects every time: let people die forever, otherwise the earth will overflow; offended T. decided to go underground, taking his creations; he wanted to take the sky and the earth, but M. did not allow it; from this the earth shook, a rugged relief was formed; when the sun appeared, the people created by M. began to speak different languages; when the sun appeared, the dog stopped talking; the Moon (she is a woman) divided people into coyote and wildcat phratries; everyone offended the rattlesnake, but M. gave it a poisonous tooth; suggested that people shoot each other, many were killed; M. made a hole in the ground so that the souls of the dead would go into it; Luna was a beautiful naked woman, slept separately from the others; one day M. touched her (there are no details, but it was "a terrible sin of the Creator"); Luna got sick and disappeared; but then appeared again; people decided to get rid of M.; a lizard spied on where he was relieving himself, a frog swallowed his excrement; M. got sick and died; a coyote ran for fire, but at that time a fly received fire by friction; the coyote jumped over those surrounding the fire, grabbed, carried away and ate M.'s heart; at the place of M.'s burning.strange plants grew; the shaman caught up with the spirit M. and asked what it was; M.: tobacco grew from my heart, pumpkins from my stomach, melons from my pupils, corn from my teeth, wheat from my nits, beans from my sperm; all the other vegetables also grew from parts of his body; after Coyote ate M.'s heart, he became ill; then he rolled up some reeds, swallowed them, and regurgitated all his illnesses; he made an image of M. from sea reeds (and something else that had to be gotten from the sea); the people, singing mournful songs, placed it on a fire and burned it (a funeral ritual)]: Strong 1929: 130-148;Cupeno: Strong 1929 [inside a cluster of darkness – male and female; gave birth to Temaīyauit and Mūkat; they came out, began to argue about which of them was older; M. took out of his heart a black pipe and black tobacco, and T. – a white pipe and white tobacco; to light the pipe, M. took out of his heart the sun, but it fell out and rolled into the darkness; M. took out the western light, T. – the eastern, they lit the pipes; the smoke from M.’s pipe formed clouds; M. said that he lowered the pipe, but he himself picked it up, T. did not see it; T. said that he raised the pipe, but he himself lowered it, but M. found it; thus it turned out that he was older; they took out of their hearts the central pillar of the world, but it did not stand; they created all the snakes to support it – they could not hold it; two mountains – the same; then spiders; they covered it with webs and the pillar stood firm; they climbed to the top of the table and saw clouds of smoke below; these were all kinds of diseases that arose from the place where M. and T. were born; M. and T. decided to create shamans to cure diseases; M. took black earth from his heart, and T. white earth, put it on the top of the pillar, but it fell off; then they took out black and white spiders, they entangled the earth with their webs; ants spread it, and whirlwinds did it quickly; but the world rocked, for ants are too light; then M. and T. created an ocean around the earth, placing in it two water demons and all water creatures; the earth stopped rocking; they placed the sky, but it swayed in the wind; they fixed the sky with their saliva - the stars; T. created (always: took from the heart) a coyote, and M. - an owl; M. worked slowly and diligently while making a man; and T. made a man with a belly and a face front and back, with eyes everywhere, hands like dog paws; T. managed to make three times more of these monsters than M. did people; M. created the moon; T. and M. argue; T. wants people not to die, or to return back, cleansing themselves of the mortal smell; if there is not enough food, let them eat the earth, if necessary, we will expand it; M. objects every time: let people die forever, otherwise the earth will overflow; offended T. decided to go underground, taking his creations; he wanted to take the sky and the earth, but M. did not allow it; from this the earth shook, and a rugged relief was formed; when the sun appeared, the people created by M. began to speak different languages; when the sun appeared, the dog stopped talking; the moon (she is a woman) divided people into phratries of the coyote and the wild cat; the rattlesnake was bullied by everyone, but M. gave it a poisonous tooth; suggested that people shoot each other, many were killed; M. made a hole in the ground so that the souls of the dead would go into it; the Moon was a beautiful naked woman, slept separately from the others; one day M. touched her (there are no details, but it was "a terrible sin of the Creator"); the Moon got sick and disappeared; but then reappeared; people decided to get rid of M.; a lizard spied where he was relieving himself, a frog swallowed his excrement; M. got sick and died; a coyote ran for fire, but at that time a fly received fire by friction; the coyote jumped over those surrounding the fire, grabbed, carried away and ate M.'s heart; at the place of M.'s burning.strange plants grew; the shaman caught up with the spirit M. and asked what it was; M.: tobacco grew from my heart, pumpkins from my stomach, melons from my pupils, corn from my teeth, wheat from my nits, beans from my sperm; all the other vegetables also grew from parts of his body; after Coyote ate M.'s heart, he became ill; then he rolled up some reeds, swallowed them, and regurgitated all his illnesses; from sea reeds (and something else that had to be gotten from the sea) he made an image of M.; the people, singing mournful songs, placed it on a fire and burned it (funeral ritual)]: 130-148 [as among the Mojave]: Strong 1929: 269-270;maricopa [water floods the world; Kukumat and Isacipas (hereinafter simply Cipas; I.) sink to the bottom; I. is the first to surface, answers K. that he kept his eyes open; K. goes blind from the salt water; both float on a log, the water gradually recedes, but there is a swamp all around; one of them digs a hole, gets sand, scatters it, the earth dries up; I. rolls his hair into a ball, places it in the eastern sky, making the sun; from a fingernail - the moon; places it in different directions, it slides off; when to the west, it remains in the sky; throwing sand into the sky, he creates stars; I. and K. make people out of clay, K.'s people have webbed fingers, he says that it is more convenient to take water to drink; I. says that it is more convenient for people to make a palm like a cup; I. and K. argue about whose creations are better; K. falls into anger, breaks what he has created, throws the fragments into the sea, from which ducks, beavers and other creatures with webbed feet appear; falling through, I. pulled the sky with him; left a hole in the ground, blood (i.e. diseases) flowed from it; I. covered the hole with his foot, but left a small stream so that the people would not become too numerous; now they sometimes get sick; I. gives the tribes their customs; Rabbit offended Snake, I. gave Snake poisonous teeth, it bit Rabbit, he died; for this, people decided to kill I.; Frog drank water from the pond where I. was bathing, he fell ill, died; Coyote was sent to the sun for fire for the funeral pyre, they lit the fire in his absence; looking back, Coyote ran back; animals and birds formed 4 rings around the fire; where Possum, Fox and the other low-growing ones stood, he jumped over them, carried off and ate I.'s heart; I. waits for people to talk; the Mission Indians of southern California spoke first, then the Maricopa, then the others; the Chemehuevi at night, so their speech is unintelligible; the Europeans last; they were crybabies; in an attempt to appease them, the Creator made them richer than the Indians]: Spier 1933: 345-352; diegueño[the sea was first from the west and from the east of the hills; a man emerged, opened his eyes to see the sun; the second emerged, was blind; there were two foxes, a silver one and an ordinary one, the silver one belonged to the blind man; he touched the ordinary one, the sighted man said that it was his, the silver one; but he knew that it was not; the blind man created a coyote, wading birds, the moon; fell into the lower world, and the sighted man rose to the sky; when the blind man moves, earthquakes occur, if he turns over, then the earth will turn over; the sighted man went down where the blind man had gone, took red clay, made a man and a woman, left them by the fire; one of the figures fell apart; so several times, finally, they came to life; the sighted man said that the blind man could not make people, so he did it; returned to the sky; one of the people, Tcikumat, was in the east, got sick; he was brought home, he died; he was laid on the funeral pyre, the blue flies made a fire with their fire drills; Coyote was sent away for the time being; when he came running, only the heart remained unburned; Badger stood on the east side of the fire, Wildcat on the west; Coyote seized the heart, carried it away, ate it; a drop of blood fell into the water, from it came little birds with red feathers; Wildcat sent Crane to bring the snake Mattiawit, placed the property of Tcikumat inside the enclosure, the snake lay inside in a circle, the whole was set on fire; part of the snake flew back, other fragments to the people, became different songs; those who received them became different groups of people, dispersed]: Spier 1923: 328-331; Papago[in the beginning it is dark; Earth Creator (EC) and Yellow Vulture (YV) meet four times in the void, each urging the other to create the world; EC took something from his heart or rolled dirt from his skin, put it on his palm, from this grew a green branch, greasewood; a louse on a plant produced resin and from this EC created the earth; he sang, pounded it, it became flat; he placed mountains on the earth, bird fluff (clouds) and shamans on the tops of the mountains; when the earth spread out, shamans and mountains spread everywhere; the Earth expanded to the dome of Heaven; I'itoi jumped out, said that he was the son of Heaven and Earth; he is small, bearded, gray or blond; Coyote came out from under a bush from the northwest; the earth was shaking, Coyote, I. and YV unsuccessfully tried to secure it; This was done by two Spiders, who connected the sky and the earth with a web; all the mountains were tilted to the west, and all the rivers flowed there; ZhS flew by, flapping his wings, and gave the mountains various shapes, and the rivers flowed in different directions; SZ splashed water to the north, west, south, and east, and the moon and the sun arose; he spat out the stars like saliva; he created people from his body, and they began to fight; he and I. sent a flood; for this I. created the Handsome Man, who made all the girls pregnant, and the next morning each of them gave birth; the sorcerer made the Handsome Man himself give birth; he abandoned the child, and he began to cry, and his tears flooded the earth; SZ was saved on a magic wand, I. in a large vessel, Coyote in a reed, ZhS pierced the firmament; some people became birds, and clung to the sky with their beaks; others became trees, and took root; Others with a dog climbed to the top of the mountain, turned into stones there; traces of foam on the water are visible on them; SZ and I. agreed that whoever emerged first after the flood would be older; SZ first, then I., Coyote last; but I. achieved that he was considered the eldest; all three began to mold new people; those made by Coyote are formless, thrown out to sea; those made by SZ are also formless, and I.'s people are real; SZ and I. began to argue; SZ tried to pull down the sky, then fell through the earth, spreading diseases; I.'s people became Pima, Papago, Apache, Maricopa; I. made the Papago his people, taught them culture (bow and arrow, housekeeping, drinking ceremony); I. retired to a cave; the people, especially the Maricopa, kicked a defenseless rattlesnake; I. gave it poison; it bit the Maricopa, he died; he was burned (since then the Maricopa cremate their dead); Coyote stole the heart from the funeral pyre; a hole in the ground opened, water or wind came out; it closed when two boys and two girls were thrown into it; this is how the Santa Rosa ceremonies arose; a cannibal stole children, she was suffocated with smoke in a cave; I. killed a man-eating eagle, feathers - for witchcraft; the monster sucked everyone into itself; I. let himself be sucked in, killed the monster, freed those swallowed; I. grew old, began to attack girls during the ceremony of reaching puberty; people killed him three times; on the advice of the Sun, ZhS managed to kill I. with an iron bow (gun); after 4 years I. was reborn, went to the west; I. created deer,an evil shaman drove them into a pen; two brothers paid the shaman so that everyone could hunt; JS was scalped, therefore bald; I. sometimes returns from the underworld]: Underhill 1946: 8-12; pima[in the dark abyss appears Earth Doctor (ED); takes some dust from his chest, makes a cake out of it, grows a bush on it; creates a termite, it makes the earth big, as it is now; at first it trembles; ED makes a gray Spider, it fastens the edges of the earth and sky with a web, the earth stops shaking; ED makes water, mountains, plants; pours water into a bowl, it freezes, he throws this piece of ice to the west, north, south; it slides down each time; thrown to the east, it turns into the sun, it begins to move as it should; the month is similarly created; taking water in his mouth and sprinkling it into the sky, the Creator makes the stars; the Milky Way is his staff, on the ends of which he sprinkled ashes; people did not die, they multiplied, began to eat each other; ED ordered the Sky to copulate with the Earth, and the Sun with the Moon; the first pair gave birth to the Elder Brother (SB), and the second - Coyote; having pulled the Sky to the Earth, ED crushed all its inhabitants, created the second race of people; SB shortened the human life, then destroyed the second race; for this he sent a young man who consorted with all the women; the pregnancy of each subsequent one was shorter and shorter; the daughter of the South Doctor (SD) immediately gave birth, the tears of the abandoned baby flooded the earth; Coyote was saved on a log, SB in a clay vessel, ED - in a reed rod, some people left through a hole made in the ground by SD with his staff, found themselves on the other side of the earth; five birds were saved from the flood, including the Woodpecker and the Vulture (they clung to the sky with their beaks, their tails were extorted, a trace remained; they made nests for themselves on the waters); some people were saved on the mountain with SD; he sent a dog to see if the water was high; these people were petrified; Coyote and ED argue about who appeared first after the flood; admit that it was SB, who becomes the ruler of the world; Coyote and SB ran to the west and east to determine where the center of the earth is; returned at the same time - this is the center; SB sat down facing west, Coyote - facing south, ED - facing east, began to create; Coyote created animals with membranes, snakes, birds; ED created people with defects (no leg, with big ears, no holes in the body, with flames blazing from their knees, etc.); SB told Coyote to throw his creations into the water, and ED - to the west; ED fell underground; SB tried to hold him back, got his hands dirty, shook him off, and this is how diseases appeared; SB created people; gave a sting to a rattlesnake, it bit Rabbit, he died; Coyote was sent away, Fly made the first fire drill, Rabbit's body was put on the fire; Coyote broke through, took Rabbit's heart, ate it; food began to fall through Coyote, Wolf and Puma stitched him up; he pretended to be ill, asked Puma's wife to carry him, began to copulate; the sorcerers hid all the ungulates in a cave; Coyote released the animals, ran away; one young man was told to close the passage for deer, and he began to build a fence from hill to hill; shoot at a pregnant woman (doe) - he killed the woman; at an old man (horned male) - killed the old man; the gambler beat everyone; the girl gave him a drink with ground feathers; he became an eagle, began to carry people away; ED climbed into his nest,asked Eagle's wife to put Eagle to sleep when he returned, hid as a fly under corpses; killed Eagle and his son, revived them with the blood of people; people tried to kill SB; he fell into the ground, brought out people who had hidden from the flood; Coyote came up, laughed, the hole closed, some people remained; those who came out killed many (Pueblo Indians?)]: Russell 1908: 206-230;Pima [after the flood, Elder Brother, Coyote, and Earth Sorcerer mold people; the Sorcerer's people have one arm and one leg; in anger he falls into the ground]: Shaw 1968: 4-5.

NW Mexico. Nahuatl of western Mexico [the cannibal Tepusilam kills children, men; can transform herself into a man and kill women; people (=birds) invite her to a festival, she eats the messengers; Hummingbird manages to give her pulque with scorpions; she comes with her yarn and spindle, dances, falls asleep; she is covered with brushwood and burned, meat broth is given to her husband who comes for her; he revives her, but is angry that she eats people; she falls into the ground, he turns into an iguana]: Preuss 1968, no. 3, 4: 117-124.