K45B. Woman becomes a water animal. .39.40.53.59.

A man and a woman, belonging to different generations (father - daughter, son - mother), enter into a conflict, as a result of which the woman turns into a marine mammal, a mistress of marine mammals, or a frog.

Chukchi, Inupiat of northern Alaska, Caribou, Netsilik, Igloolik, Polar, Baffin Island, Labrador Eskimo, Southern Greenland Eskimo, Kuna, Warraw.

NE Asia. Chukchi : Bogoras 1902, No. 18 [the sun is owned by kele; Raven comes to his house, it starts to swing, he tells it to freeze; the sun, moon, and stars are sewn into balls made of walrus skins; Raven persuades the kele's youngest daughter to ask her father for the sun-ball; he gives her the stars, Raven hits the ball, it flies up to the sky, bursts, the stars cover the sky; he gets the moon in the same way, then the sun; kele, in a rage, hangs his daughter upside down on a cliff; the rope breaks, she falls into the sea, turns into a walrus; the tusks are her snot; according to another version, her father throws her out of the boat into the sea, cuts off her fingers when she grabs the side; the daughter turns into a walrus, the tusks are her braids ; daughter capsizes boat, father drowns]: 627; Bogoraz 1939 [father throws daughter overboard of boat; daughter tries to grab hold of the side, he cuts off her fingers with an oar; girl turns into a walrus, swims away]: 30.

Arctic. Inupiat of northern Alaska [a blind young man lives with his grandmother; she teaches him to trap a loon; the loon asks him to let her go because she has chicks; he lets her go, the grandmother gets angry; tells him to shoot a polar bear, lies that he missed; tells him to eat berries and mushrooms; the loon submerges his kayak twice, the young man regains his sight; throws the grandmother into the water, she turns into a whale, her hair turns into whalebone ; in gratitude, the young man puts a necklace of bone arrowheads on the loon's neck; now they are white feathers]: Lynch 1995: 21-26; Inupiat of northern Alaska [a woman gets tired of her son killing so many animals; she asks evil spirits to blind him; aims his arrow at a polar bear, lies that he missed, eats the meat herself; her daughter (the blind man's younger sister) puts aside pieces for him, gives them to him when her mother takes her away to hunt caribou; Loon dives with him five times, he regains his sight; his mother returns, he goes with her in a boat, throws her into the water; she grabs hold of the side, he cuts off her fingers, she tries to cling with her hair, he cuts them off; she turns into a black whale, her cut hair is whalebone in the whale's mouth ]: Frost 1971: 62-67; caribou (west coast of Hudson Bay) [according to the notes of Captain Comer, among the inhabitants of the west coast of Hudson Bay, Nuliayoq takes the place of Sedna; the myth connected with her recorded by Lyon coincides in all important respects with the legend of Sedna; he mentions that she is also called Ai -willi -ay -oo (Avilayoq); this name is also attributed to Sedna (cf. Boas 1901b: 163)]: Boas 1901b: 145-146; Netsilik : Rasmussen 1931: 225-226 [people sail on rafts across a strait; they push an orphan girl, Nuliajuk, into the water; when she tries to grab the edge of the raft, the people cut off her fingers; the fingers turn into seals, N. becomes the mistress of the sea animals ], 227-228 [an angry father orders his daughter to marry a dog; his dog in human form sleeps with her, she becomes pregnant; the father takes her to an island; she gives birth to puppies; the father brings her and them meat; she asks the children to tear him apart; he sends them away, they become the ancestors of Indians and whites; she wants to swim away with them, they push her into the water; they cut off her fingers, the stumps turn into walruses and seals; she becomes the mistress of sea animals ]; igloolik [girl rejects suitors; her father tells her to marry a dog; takes her to an island; the dog carries meat to her in his kayak; she gives birth to children and puppies; the father puts stones in the dog's boat, he drowns; she tells her children to tear up their father's boat, he manages to get home; her children turn into the ancestors of Indians and whites; she returns to her father; Foolish comes for her; she discovers that he has ugly eyes; bears him a child; the father comes for her; Foolish sends a storm; the father throws his daughter into the sea; she grabs hold of his boat, he chops off her fingers; they turn into seals, bearded seals, walruses; she becomes the Mistress of the Sea Animals ; her father and the drowned dog come to live with her]: Rasmussen 1930a: 63-66; Polar [A fool marries a girl, takes her to an island; one day she sees his ugly eyes when he takes off his snow goggles; the woman's brothers take her away; A fool raises a storm, they throw her into the water; she clings to the side of the boat, her father chops off her fingers with an oar, they turn into game animals; her father now lives with her at the bottom of the sea; shamans come to them if the animals disappear; (i.e., she is the mistress of the sea animals )]: Holtved 1951, no. 9: 60-63 (=1967: 147-148; trans. in Menovshchikov 1985, no. 267: 490-491); Baffin Island [the woman has an adopted son and daughter; the young man is blind; she tells him to shoot a bear, lies that he missed, eats the meat alone; his sister brings him pieces; A loon dives with him, making him see; he calls his mother to hunt beluga whales, tells her to hold the line, she is carried out to sea, she cries, I swaddled you ; turns into a narwhal ; a brother and sister are traveling; a sister goes into a house to ask for water; the inhabitants scratch her with their claws; the brother kills them; a brother and sister come to people without anuses; they chew food, spit it out; the sister marries one of them; pregnant women have their bellies cut open, removing the child; the brother explains that the sister will give birth herself; her son has an anus; people sit on stakes, piercing themselves; some die, most successfully make anuses for themselves]: Boas 1888: 625-627 (=Boas 1901b, no. 4: 168-171); Arctic Eskimos [an old woman with her small grandson and granddaughter are abandoned alone; a boy shoots a bear; the grandmother tells her granddaughter to tell him that he missed, she eats the meat; the sister secretly feeds him; he asks to be taken to the lake; the loon dives with him four times, he regains his sight; the young man harpoons the beluga whale, the tench drags the grandmother into the water, she turns into a narwhal, a tuft of her hair into his horn ; sister enters cannibals' house, is eaten; brother kills them, revives sister; brother and sister come to people without anuses; their excrement is reindeer fat, they spit it out through their mouths; they urinate through a hole in their palms; sister gets married here, is pregnant; shaman wants to give her a Caesarean section as is usual with these people; she gives birth to a girl normally, who has an anus; her grandmother sits on a sharp stick to pierce her anus; dies]: Holtved 1951, no. 37: 152-165 (trans. in Menovshchikov 1985, no. 230: 445-449); Labrador Eskimos : Hawkes 1916 [a young man blinded by the glare of the snow lives with his mother and sister; mother aims his bow at a bear, lies that he missed, eats the meat herself, gives it to her daughter; she tells her brother the truth; in the spring he regains his sight; harpoons a beluga whale, ties the line to her mother's belt, the beluga whale drags it under water; she lives with the beluga whales, keeps screaming, My son did this ]: 157-158; Nungak, Arima 1969 [stingy mother; sister secretly feeds brother; mother turns into a beluga whale, her hood into a tail; the beluga whale's cry can be heard saying, My son did this ]: 51; Eskimo of Labrador , Greenland (text compiled from 8 similar versions, 2 from Labrador, 6 from various parts of Greenland, 3 of them recorded before 1828) [a widow has a son and a daughter; the son kills a bearded seal, the mother wants it for her own use, the son does not give it to her; mother makes sinews spring when son makes tench out of them; boy goes blind from a blow to face; mother makes him shoot at a bear that comes up, lies that son missed; sister secretly feeds him bear meat; one day takes him to a lake; there geese drop their excrement in his eyes, he regains his sight; asks mother to hold tench while hunting beluga whales; he harpoons the biggest one, mother carries it into water, it turns into narwhal, a tuft of her hair into a horn ; brother and sister move inland, live alone; old brother visits people, then leaves forever]: Rink 1875, no. 2: 99-105; South Greenland [Lytzen 1874; orphan girl Nivigkâ lives with a hunter, he bosses her around; when everyone went seal hunting, the hunter put N. in an umiak with her dog, gave her her lamp, sat in it himself, and not in his kayak; for no apparent reason he threw her into the water with the dog and the lamp, cut off three fingers on each hand, leaving the thumbs and little fingers; she builds a house on the bottom of the sea; hides sea animals under the base of the lamp, sometimes releases them ; her guard dog lies on the roof of her house]: Lytzen 1874: 209 in Holtved 1967: 147.

Honduras - Panama. Kuna [see motif J16; woman's lover turns out to be her brother, turns into the Moon; leaves, she follows him; falls into fear, her sons eat the woman; the old woman finds eight boys in the womb; tells them that she is their mother; they are surprised to find her so different from them, ugly and without a nose; the old woman makes herself a clay nose; Woodpecker reports that their real mother has been eaten by fish; the brothers push the old woman into the water, cut off her fingers; she and all the fingers turn into toads and frogs ]: Chapin 1989 [the eldest brother holds out his golden staff to the old woman; she seizes it, he cuts off her fingers with a knife]: 32-42; Wassen 1934b: 7.

Guiana. Warrau : García 1993, no. 90 [a Mayacoto fisherman has two wives, a son from each; when he returns home, he always plays the flute; the hebu (forest demon) Jajuba swallowed him, came to his wives in his guise, but did not play the flute; he fell asleep, snored, then the wives heard the voice of the swallowed flute; the sisters took the children, ran away; the eldest laid her hair from her head on the path, the youngest turned it into a thorny thicket; Guauta at first did not want to open the door to them, they pinched the children, they cried; having learned that they were boys, G. let them in; she asked Jajuba, who ran up, to put his head under the door, cut it off with a knife; she sent the sisters for cassava, at that time she turned their babies into grown boys, they have a common name Jaburi; She ordered them to bring her fat birds from the hunt, and to give the skinny ones to the women after urinating on them; one of the arrows got stuck in a tree, he climbed after it; the otter youths passed under the tree, saw Khaburi's excrement, said that it stunk of the shit of those who give bad birds to their mothers, and good ones to Guauta; they told the brothers the whole story; they described the skinny birds, gave them to Guauta; they recognized the mothers; one of the H. made a boat out of clay, it melted in the water; out of wax - the same; out of bark, they floated in it; the supports of the house, the leaves on the roof shouted to Guauta that the women and the youths had run away, she did not understand them; she understood the parrot, threw herself into the water, grabbed the boat, H. cut off her fingers with an oar; the women asked H. to take it, so that she would not drown; H. began to row with the end of an oar, a bird cried out to row with the paddle; H. felled a tree where a beehive was in a hollow; G. began to suck honey, H. felled another tree on top of it, G. remained in the hollow, began to call for "the son of Haburi" , ordered the boat to become a rock when it reached the sea; this is a rock near the island of Trinidad]: 281-287; Wilbert 1970 [two sisters, one with a baby Haburi, flee from a demon or jaguar; an old woman Wauta kills the pursuer; turns the baby Haburi into a youth, says that she is his mother, the real mother cannot recognize him; Nutria or Otter tells him the truth; taking his mother and aunt, he swims away in a boat; Wauta grabs the side of the boat; Khaburi cuts off her fingers with an oar, lures her into a hollow with honey, she gets stuck, turns into a tree frog ], No. 140, 144: 288, 305.