K87a1. Child handed over. .10.19.26.40.49.59.62.72.
The demonic woman asks the baby's mother to let her hold him in her arms or quietly replaces another person who was supposed to take the child. Having received the baby, the demon takes him to herself.
Hottentot, Upper Arapesh, Meo, Central Yupik, Mouth of the Mackenzie, Western Shoshone, Chemehuevi, Warraw, Bora, Makah.
Southwest Africa. Hottentots [husband leaves at night, wife lights fire; senses someone nearby, thinks husband, lets her hold child; husband comes, they realize hyena has carried off child; boy grows up with hyena's children; spotted; caught with hyena; when trained to live with humans, hyena released]: Schmidt 2007, no. 57: 129-130.
Melanesia. Upper Arapesh [a cannibal spat on an old woman, killing her; put on her skin, came at night to two women, asked for their babies; ate one, leaving a rotten piece in its place; raised the second, a girl; ate human flesh herself, fed the girl pork; the Moon began to come to the girl, copulated, ran away with her to an island; the cannibal asks how they got across; On a board ; they pushed her into the sea, her spirit became a man-eating crocodile]: Mead 1940, no. 38: 381-382.
China - Korea. Meo [the elder sister has no child, the younger has a little daughter Nkauj Ncoom ("pronounced Kow Chong"); she often passed the girl to the elder sister through the window to do housework; one day a tigress came instead of her sister; having received the girl, she ran away; killed a dog, smeared the girl's clothes in the dog's blood; the sisters found the clothes and decided that the child was dead; the tigress raised the girl in a cave; in order to teach her to make beautiful clothes, she attacked Chinese merchants, they abandoned everything; then she brought the best craftswoman to the cave; she taught NN the craft, and then the tigress returned the woman to the village so that she would not notice the way; told her to keep quiet - otherwise she would kill her; brought NN to the village so that she would participate in the New Year's festival, and then took her back; the same the next day; the younger sister's new daughter hears NN singing that she lives in the forest; understands that this is her missing sister, told her mother; she invited NN to her place, told her who she was; taught her to tell the tigress that she wanted elephant meat; closing the exit from the cave, the tigress killed the elephant with difficulty and brought the meat; now NN wants the meat of a woolly mammoth {?}; while the tigress was hunting, NN was taken to the village; the path was covered with autumn leaves and the tigress did not find a trace; since then she has been crying in the cave]: Livo 1991: 115-119.
Arctic. Central Yupik (Kuskokwim) [a woman at work gives a crying child to another who is willing to hold it; the stranger and the child disappear; not the shamans, but a poor boy tells the father of the missing man that the She-Wolf has stolen the child; gives goose and otter skins; a man comes to the village of the Wolves, an old man and an old woman hide him; the She-Wolf suggests 1) hunting seals (the man kills a seal before the She-Wolf's brothers); 2) running a race (there is a precipice on the way, the man descends in the form of a goose); 3) wrestling in a dugout (the man puts on an otter skin, the She-Wolf puts on a sea otter skin, he kills her); the Wolves give him his son, he returns home]: Krenov 1951: 181-185; mouth of the Mackenzie [people sing, beat a drum; a small boy is awakened, crying; his grandmother is rocking him; a woman asks to be given him in her arms; the grandmother thinks it is the child's mother; people follow the tracks, human ones turn into foxes; the boy's parents enter the house, invisible to its inhabitants; they carry the boy away, managing to jump out before the door slams shut]: Ostermann 1942: 80-83.
Great Basin. Western Shoshoni [ Echo (mountain spirit) asks woman to hold her baby, carries him off; extends his penis and copulates with him; boy runs away; Robin Man cuts off long penis; boy's genitals return to normal]: Smith 1993: 138-139; Chemehuevi [Turtle Dove leaves Sand Fly to watch newborn son while going out to gather seeds; Wind Woman imitates Turtle Dove's voice, takes baby from nurse's arms, carries him off; Sand Fly punishes Fly by squeezing her, now has elongated body; boy becomes a youth; is forced to copulate with Wind Woman so often that his penis becomes heavy and long, unable to run; meets four girls, his relatives; they restore his penis to normal, tell him to hang game high in a tree, run; archer hides youth in arrowhead, shoots; another hides it in a pile of arrows; rushes out of the cave with it; when the pursuer runs into it, closes the entrance; the woman turns into Echo]: Laird 1976: 158-159.
Guiana. Warrau [mother gives baby girl to Jaguar who takes the form of the baby's grandmother; when the girl grows up, she runs away to the people, having spilled a boiling cauldron on the Jaguar; other Jaguars are going to take revenge, but the people run away]: Wilbert 1970, no. 191: 442-444.
NW Amazonia. Bora [women dancing at a festival, holding babies; the Forest Dog asks each one what sex the baby is; all say it is a girl, the last one a boy; Dog asks to hold it, carries it away; Doe tells woman to make peppered soup, add shit, centipedes, etc., take it to Dog, drain all springs; Dog eats with pleasure, feels thirsty; goes to look for water, leaves the baby with her daughter; Doe takes the baby, brings it to its mother; Dog thinks Doe has hidden in a hollow tree, climbs in, fights with some creature living there; her daughter pulls out her severed legs]: Anderson de Thiesen 1975: 55-65.
Chaco. Maca [in the dark, a woman asks his mother to hold her baby while she changes the bed; a fox takes the boy in her arms instead of his grandmother, carries him away; the boy thinks that the fox is his grandmother; having killed a partridge, he asks if he can eat this or that part of the bird; the imaginary grandmother answers each time that the meat will harm him, allows him to eat the bones; having found an arrow, she says out loud that it is a toy of the boy's parents; the boy accidentally hears, meets the real mother at a spring; the fox comes looking for the child; the father calls her into the house, kills her]: Wilbert, Simoneau 1991a, no. 27: 91-92.