{
 "about": {
  "title": "The First Humans Couldn't Speak: tellings from around the world",
  "essay": "https://snakecult.net/posts/first-humans-couldnt-speak/",
  "description": "Myths in which the first humans had no speech: who gave it to them, what shock made them talk, and whether it came in stages. One record per telling, with the primary text quoted at length in the original language and in translation wherever it is in the public domain or openly licensed; works still in copyright appear as short quotations plus a staged summary (summary_long).",
  "fields": {
   "layers": "mute (first humans speechless), taught (speech given by a teacher), shocked into speech, in stages; a telling may carry several",
   "scheme": "one-line shape of the telling",
   "map_story": "the ~120-word retelling shown on the map",
   "excerpts": "primary text: original, translation, translator, citation, url, rights",
   "summary_long": "prose summary, given only where the full source is in copyright",
   "translator": "'lane translation' or similar marks English made for this dataset from the original"
  },
  "count": 45
 },
 "tellings": [
  {
   "id": "luiseno",
   "people": "Luiseño",
   "region": "Temecula, southern California, United States",
   "latitude": 33.49,
   "longitude": -117.15,
   "layers": "mute, in stages",
   "scheme": "Thought, consciousness and talk together.",
   "map_story": "Sky and Earth bring forth the First People in darkness. They can feel each other but see nothing, and nothing is said. They set out on a journey, and at Temecula a change comes over all of them at once: “Then they began to think, to gain consciousness, and could now talk to each other, and discuss what it was best to do.” Only after that is the sun made. When it rises the people can see one another, and they scatter. They have had one language until then, and as they go their separate ways each group is given its own, along with its religion.",
   "map_source": "DuBois 1908, pp. 143–145",
   "text_date": "published 1908",
   "recorded": "Dictated by the Luiseño informant Lucario Cuevish (Luiseño country, southern California, United States) to Constance Goddard DuBois, who published it in 1908.",
   "original_language": "English (DuBois's rendering of Luiseño narration)",
   "excerpts": [
    {
     "label": "Sky cuts Earth open; the first born, in darkness",
     "citation": "DuBois 1908, p. 142 (the end of the birth of the First People)",
     "original_source": "English only (DuBois's rendering of the telling)",
     "translation": "She was with child and so large that she must lie down, falling backwards. She looked for something to help her, and Tukmit to deliver her took Sivut paviut, the sacred stick with flint knife inserted in the end of it, and with this he cut her open from between the breasts downward. (Groaning recitative.) Then came forth her children in the order of their birth.",
     "translator": "Constance Goddard DuBois, 1908",
     "url": "https://archive.org/details/religionofluise01dubo",
     "rights": "public domain"
    },
    {
     "label": "The First People feel each other in the dark; at Temecula they begin to think and talk; the sun is made; one language becomes many",
     "citation": "DuBois 1908, University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 8(3), pp. 143-145",
     "original_source": "English only (DuBois's rendering of the telling)",
     "translation": "Tukmit and Tomaiyowit now made the land, only a small piece at first. Then later they made it larger just as it is now. Everything now came into shape just as it had been named and planned in the conversation between Tukmit and Tomaiyowit. Everything was all in the dark. The First People could just feel each other but could see nothing. \n\nThey traveled east till they came to Epyuvokala Putwalakala, a place that was just like a blank wall in front of them; so they turned around and came back to the same place. Then they came to Kawima Putlalak, near San Bernardino, where they got to a cañon that they could not go through. Then they came along by Elsinore, and stopped there, and made the lake that is there. They traveled as far as Temecula, called EWa Temeko, and stopped by a small lake that used to be there, but it is drained out and dried up now. \n\nThen they began to think, to gain consciousness, and could now talk to each other, and discuss what it was best to do. Now Hainit Yuinit made the sun. This means something way down in the ground. \n\nThis man, when he made the sun, took the reddish milkweed plant that twine is made of, and twisted the fibres of it into twine, and out of that made a net, not an ordinary carrying net, but a long one. Then he called all the people and they got together in a place near Temecula. He took the net that was all rolled up, and with groaning invocation he laid it on the ground, and all the people standing in a circle bent over and placed it before them on the ground. \n\nThey sang about Temet, the sun, and putting him in the net, they raised their arms with the appropriate groans, cries, and gestures, and sent him up into the sky as the sun: Temet kwon na nuni, temet kwon na num, temet kwon na num, han-han-n, han-n-n. He went to the north, but that was not right and they placed him in the net again. (Same recitative, words slightly varied.) He went south, but came back again. (Same recitative, groans, and gestures.) He went west, but went a little way and came down again. Temet kwon put ya, temet kwon put ya, temet kwon put ya. han-n-n. wahha, wahha, wah-ha-a. They sent him east, and he went up in the sky and away off. (Expressive gestures, arms raised towards the sky.) (Another recitative invocation). They made it so that he would not follow in a straight line, but work southward or northward at different seasons of the year. Song, Temet karia. The sun should rise. \n\nHe rose. All was light, and the people could see each other. \n\nTukmit said that some of the children should go north, others east, south, and west. So he divided them in this way. They had had only one language, but when they scattered he gave them different languages. He also gave them their religion. He sent the Dieguenos and others south with their language, and to the west he sent those of Capistrano, and so on, with their language, and in the center he left us (the Mountain Luiseños), with one language from Temecula to La Jolla.",
     "translator": "Constance Goddard DuBois, 1908 (text from the archive.org OCR, footnote marks and page headers removed, OCR errors corrected; ellipses of ritual songs not present)",
     "url": "https://archive.org/details/religionofluise01dubo",
     "rights": "public domain"
    }
   ],
   "sources": [
    {
     "citation": "Constance Goddard DuBois, The Religion of the Luiseno Indians of Southern California, Univ. of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 8(3), Berkeley 1908, pp. 143-145",
     "url": "https://archive.org/details/religionofluise01dubo"
    }
   ],
   "notes": "The speech passage is one sentence: thought, consciousness and talk arrive together, at Temecula, in the dark, before the sun is made. Caveat: DuBois's informants were Christianised and she edited the English; the sun-making ritual passage is included because speech comes immediately before it and light immediately after."
  },
  {
   "id": "acoma",
   "people": "Acoma Pueblo",
   "region": "New Mexico, United States",
   "latitude": 34.9,
   "longitude": -107.58,
   "layers": "mute, taught",
   "scheme": "Thought Woman teaches two sisters.",
   "map_story": "Two sisters are born underground, in the dark. “There was no light and they could only feel each other.” They grow slowly. They have no names and no words, and at last they ask why they must live in the dark without knowing each other by name. The one who answers is Tsichtinako, Thought Woman, a female spirit they never see, who feeds them and looks after them. They wait a long time. As they grow they learn their language from her. Words are the first thing the sisters are given, before light and before names, and the one who gives them is a woman.",
   "map_source": "Stirling 1942, p. 1",
   "text_date": "dictated September-October 1928; published 1942",
   "recorded": "Matthew W. Stirling took the myth down in English in September and October 1928 at Acoma Pueblo, New Mexico, USA, from an elderly Acoma man who had learned it at his initiation into the Koshari clowns; published as Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 135 (1942), a US government publication.",
   "original_language": "Keresan (Acoma), recorded in English",
   "excerpts": [
    {
     "label": "Two sisters in the dark who can only feel each other; they learn their language from Tsichtinako",
     "citation": "Stirling, Origin Myth of Acoma, BAE Bulletin 135, 1942, pp. 1-2 (opening of the myth)",
     "translation": "In the beginning two female human beings were born. These two children were born underground at a place called Shipapu. As they grew up, they began to be aware of each other. There was no light and they could only feel each other. Being in the dark they grew slowly.\n\nAfter they had grown considerably, a Spirit whom they afterward called Tsichtinako spoke to them, and they found that it would give them nourishment. After they had grown large enough to think for themselves, they spoke to the Spirit when it had come to them one day and asked it to make itself known to them and to say whether it was male or female, but it replied only that it was not allowed to meet with them. They then asked why they were living in the dark without knowing each other by name, but the Spirit answered that they were nuk’timi (under the earth); but they were to be patient in waiting until everything was ready for them to go up into the light. So they waited a long time, and as they grew they learned their language from Tsichtinako.",
     "translator": "recorded in English by M. W. Stirling, 1942 (OCR text of the archive.org scan; hyphenation, name variants and footnote debris repaired, and the text otherwise as printed)",
     "url": "https://archive.org/details/originmythofacom00stir",
     "rights": "public domain"
    },
    {
     "label": "At the surface: Tsichtinako has the sisters name each other, and Iatiku and Nautsiti are named",
     "citation": "Stirling 1942, BAE Bulletin 135, pp. 1-5 (the emergence and the naming; exact page not pinned)",
     "translation": "And as they waited to pray to the Sun, the girl on the right moved her best hand and was named Iatiku which meant “bringing to life.” Tsichtinako then told her to name her sister, but it took a long time. Finally Tsichtinako noticed that the other had more in her basket, so Tsichtinako told Iatiku to name her thus, and Iatiku called her Nautsiti which meant “more of everything in the basket.",
     "translator": "recorded in English by M. W. Stirling, 1942 (OCR text of the archive.org scan; hyphenation, name variants and footnote debris repaired, and the text otherwise as printed)",
     "url": "https://archive.org/details/originmythofacom00stir",
     "rights": "public domain"
    }
   ],
   "sources": [
    {
     "citation": "Stirling, Origin Myth of Acoma and Other Records, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 135, 1942",
     "url": "https://archive.org/details/originmythofacom00stir"
    }
   ],
   "notes": "Caveat from Stirling's own preface (p. v): the informant was an exceptionally good Catholic, and some passages may have been shaped for the benefit of the White man; the serpent's speech is close to Genesis 3. The passages between those quoted (the emergence, the first corn, the clans, the migration) are in the same bulletin; excerpts here stop at the points where the sequence of first things (no sickness, then sickness; no death, then death; no killing, then war) is stated."
  },
  {
   "id": "yi-liangshan",
   "people": "Yi (Nuosu)",
   "region": "Liangshan, Sichuan, China",
   "latitude": 28.0,
   "longitude": 102.5,
   "layers": "mute, shocked into speech",
   "scheme": "Three mute sons and bursting bamboo.",
   "map_story": "After the flood a man marries the Sky King's daughter, and their three sons cannot talk; they can only eat and do mischief. The cure is a secret of the sky. A yellow sparrow overhears a moth telling it in the sky palace, and the Sky Mother's messenger tears off the sparrow's tail. Three joints of bamboo are put on the fire. “The bamboo joints exploded loudly, and the three dumb boys were so surprised that they cried out.” The eldest cries out in Yi that it is very hot, the second in Tibetan, the youngest in Chinese, and they become the ancestors of those three peoples.",
   "map_source": "Graham 1961, p. 88",
   "text_date": "collected 1920s-1940s; published 1961",
   "recorded": "Told by Yi (Lolo, Nuosu) people of Liangshan, Sichuan, China, collected by David Crockett Graham in Sichuan and published in Folk Religion in Southwest China (Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections 142(2), 1961).",
   "original_language": "English (from Lolo/Chinese oral telling)",
   "excerpts": [
    {
     "label": "Three dumb sons and the bursting bamboo",
     "citation": "Graham 1961, p. 87-88",
     "original": "",
     "original_source": "English only (Graham's rendering of the telling)",
     "translation": "The time passed very quickly. Ch'iao-mu-shih-ch'i was married to the daughter of the King of the Sky. For years there were abundant harvests, and all the people were happy. But the three sons of the daughter of the sky could not talk. They could only eat and do mischief, like three dumb people. This made their parents sorrowful.\n\nA small yellow sparrow was anxious to reward them for saving its life. He flew here and there seeking a method to requite the young people. One day he arrived at the palace of the King of the Sky. He heard a moth say that the three boys could speak if someone would get and use three joints of bamboo (causing them to explode by putting them in a fire). The yellow sparrow was very happy. He suddenly said out loud \"I know, I know.\" The Sky Mother immediately sent a person to catch the yellow sparrow. The yellow sparrow flew away, but an angel (messenger) caught the tail of the yellow sparrow and it was broken off. Therefore sparrows now have short tails.\n\nThe little sparrow returned to report the good news. They sought out three joints of bamboo and burned them. The bamboo joints exploded loudly, and the three dumb boys were so surprised that they cried out. The oldest boy said in the Lolo language, \"This is very hot.\" The second oldest shouted in the Hsi Fan language, \"This is very hot.\" The youngest also shouted in the Chinese language, \"This is very hot.\" They became respectively the ancestors of the Lolos, the Tibetans, and the Chinese, and so of all human beings.",
     "translator": "D. C. Graham, 1961",
     "url": "https://archive.org/details/folkreligioninso00grah",
     "rights": "public domain (US government publication, Smithsonian)"
    }
   ],
   "sources": [
    {
     "citation": "D. C. Graham, Folk Religion in Southwest China, Smithsonian Misc. Coll. 142(2), 1961, pp. 87-88",
     "url": "https://archive.org/details/folkreligioninso00grah"
    }
   ],
   "notes": "Passage opens after the frog's cure of the Sky Mother and the daughter's consent to marry Ch'iao-mu-shih-ch'i (Jjumu); that earlier episode is omitted. Text read from a local archive.org OCR capture."
  },
  {
   "id": "yi-chuxiong",
   "people": "Yi",
   "region": "Chuxiong, Yunnan, China",
   "latitude": 25.0,
   "longitude": 101.5,
   "layers": "mute, shocked into speech",
   "scheme": "The sky-god's secret, overheard.",
   "map_story": "The three sons of the first couple are like mutes and cannot talk. The sky-god wants it so: people stole from him, and he means every later generation to be dumb. But he tells his wife how easily it could be undone, while a small bird hides in the chopstick holder and listens: “cut three bamboos and burn them in the hearth; when the bamboo bursts, the children speak.” The bird carries the secret down to earth. The parents cut the bamboo and lay it in the fire, it bursts, and the children speak. Human speech is something the sky tried to keep back.",
   "map_source": "zqymyth id 485 (开天辟地史)",
   "text_date": "published in the 20th century (collection of Yi creation texts)",
   "recorded": "Yi of Chuxiong, Yunnan, China; text titled 开天辟地史 in the zqymyth database, a variant of the Mile text 举木惹牛.",
   "original_language": "Chinese (Putonghua rendering of Yi oral telling)",
   "summary_long": "The three sons of the first couple are like mutes and cannot talk. The packet reports that the sky-god wants it that way: people stole from him, and he declares that he will make every later generation dumb. Yet he remarks to his wife, in the hearing of a small bird (Apu-yoduo) that is hiding in the chopstick holder, that making the children speak is really not hard. One need only cut three bamboos and burn them in the hearth, and when the bamboo bursts the children will speak. The bird carries the secret down to earth. The parents cut three bamboos and lay them in the fire; they burst, and the children speak. In this telling speech is a thing the sky tried to keep from people and lost by an eavesdropper's gossip, a theft of knowledge rather than a gift. The motif of the overheard remedy matches the Liangshan and Mile Yi texts, where a sparrow or a small bird listens in the sky palace and pays for its indiscretion with its tail. The Chuxiong text is the plainest on the sky-god's motive. It makes dumbness his deliberate decree against a thieving humanity and the bamboo fire the loophole through which the decree is undone. The whole telling is part of a cosmogony (open heaven and earth, people, then the speech episode), as the database title indicates.",
   "excerpts": [
    {
     "label": "The sky-god withholds speech",
     "citation": "zqymyth id 485",
     "original": "他们偷走了我的东西，我要让以后的人都成哑巴",
     "original_source": "藏羌彝走廊多民族创世神话数据库 (zqymyth.com), id 485",
     "translation": "They stole my things; I will make all later people mutes.",
     "translator": "compiler's English",
     "url": "http://www.zqymyth.com/nd.jsp?id=485&fromMid=3&groupId=59",
     "rights": "in copyright, short quotation"
    },
    {
     "label": "The sky-god withholds speech",
     "citation": "zqymyth id 485",
     "original": "竹子一烧炸，孩子就说话",
     "original_source": "藏羌彝走廊多民族创世神话数据库 (zqymyth.com), id 485",
     "translation": "when the bamboo bursts, the children speak",
     "translator": "compiler's English",
     "url": "http://www.zqymyth.com/nd.jsp?id=485&fromMid=3&groupId=59",
     "rights": "in copyright, short quotation"
    }
   ],
   "sources": [
    {
     "citation": "藏羌彝走廊多民族创世神话数据库, id 485 (开天辟地史)",
     "url": "http://www.zqymyth.com/nd.jsp?id=485&fromMid=3&groupId=59"
    }
   ],
   "notes": "zqymyth.com was unreachable from Chrome and curl on 2026-11-14 (error page), so quotes and summary come from the asia-pacific packet, whose Chinese quotes were read in-page on the earlier pass; Chinese quotes are trimmed to 25 characters or fewer."
  },
  {
   "id": "yi-mile-bird",
   "people": "Yi",
   "region": "Mile and Shilin, Yunnan, China",
   "latitude": 24.45,
   "longitude": 103.45,
   "layers": "mute, shocked into speech",
   "scheme": "A speaking medicine withheld.",
   "map_story": "Jjumu Re'nyu marries a daughter of heaven, and all three of their children are mute. She knows heaven holds a medicine which, eaten, lets one speak. The sky-god refuses it and cuts the messenger spider into three pieces. A little bird hides under his eaves, hears him tell his wife the real cure, laughs out loud, and loses its tail for it. The parents burn three bamboos. “The three bamboos burst, giving three different sounds, and the three children each gave out three different sounds.” The sounds become Chinese, Tibetan and Yi, which is why the peoples are brothers.",
   "map_source": "zqymyth id 469 (举木惹牛, 1983)",
   "text_date": "1983 (anthology of Chinese minority myths); collected from Yi narrators",
   "recorded": "Yi of Mile and Shilin, Yunnan, China; epic 举木惹牛 (Jjumu Re'nyu), collected by 阿鲁斯基, edited 谷德明, 中国少数民族神话选 (1983).",
   "original_language": "Chinese (rendering of Yi oral telling)",
   "summary_long": "Jjumu Re'nyu marries a daughter of heaven, and all three of their children are mute. The heavenly wife says that heaven holds a medicine which, if eaten, lets people speak. The messenger spider is sent to ask for it, but the sky-god Entigu refuses and cuts the spider into three pieces. A little bird, Apu-yoqu, hides under the god's eaves and hears him tell his wife the real cure. It laughs out loud at the secret and loses its tail for the offence. The parents then burn three bamboos. The three bamboos burst with three different sounds, and each of the three children makes one of those sounds. The sounds become Han (Chinese), Tibetan and Yi speech, and the story concludes that the peoples are brothers of one family. The structure is a stolen cure: heaven owns speech, withholds it, and a bird overhears. It is the same plot as the Liangshan text recorded by Graham and the Chuxiong text, but the Mile telling adds the failed embassy of the spider and the cut-up messenger. Speech is not taught here; it is shocked out of the children by the bursting of the bamboo, and the bamboo's three sounds give the three languages.",
   "excerpts": [
    {
     "label": "A speaking medicine withheld; three bamboos burst",
     "citation": "zqymyth id 469",
     "original": "三个孩子都不会说话",
     "original_source": "藏羌彝走廊多民族创世神话数据库 (zqymyth.com), id 469",
     "translation": "All three children could not speak.",
     "translator": "compiler's English",
     "url": "http://www.zqymyth.com/nd.jsp?id=469&fromMid=3&groupId=59",
     "rights": "in copyright, short quotation"
    },
    {
     "label": "A speaking medicine withheld; three bamboos burst",
     "citation": "zqymyth id 469",
     "original": "三根竹子烧爆了，发出了三个不同的响声",
     "original_source": "藏羌彝走廊多民族创世神话数据库 (zqymyth.com), id 469",
     "translation": "The three bamboos burst, giving three different sounds",
     "translator": "compiler's English",
     "url": "http://www.zqymyth.com/nd.jsp?id=469&fromMid=3&groupId=59",
     "rights": "in copyright, short quotation"
    },
    {
     "label": "A speaking medicine withheld; three bamboos burst",
     "citation": "zqymyth id 469",
     "original": "因此，各族人民是亲兄弟",
     "original_source": "藏羌彝走廊多民族创世神话数据库 (zqymyth.com), id 469",
     "translation": "Therefore the peoples are blood brothers.",
     "translator": "compiler's English",
     "url": "http://www.zqymyth.com/nd.jsp?id=469&fromMid=3&groupId=59",
     "rights": "in copyright, short quotation"
    }
   ],
   "sources": [
    {
     "citation": "藏羌彝走廊多民族创世神话数据库, id 469 (举木惹牛, 1983)",
     "url": "http://www.zqymyth.com/nd.jsp?id=469&fromMid=3&groupId=59"
    }
   ],
   "notes": "zqymyth.com was unreachable from Chrome and curl on 2026-11-14 (error page), so quotes and summary come from the asia-pacific packet, whose Chinese quotes were read in-page on the earlier pass; Chinese quotes are trimmed to 25 characters or fewer."
  },
  {
   "id": "naxi",
   "people": "Naxi",
   "region": "Lijiang, Yunnan, China",
   "latitude": 26.9,
   "longitude": 100.2,
   "layers": "mute, shocked into speech",
   "scheme": "Calling back the soul of wisdom.",
   "map_story": "Coqssu Lee'ee and the heavenly maiden Cehheng have three sons who grow taller than calves and still cannot speak. Their mother asks how they differ from livestock, and how the soul of wisdom can be called back. A bat hides on the Sky Father's roof-beam and hears the answer: sacrifice to Heaven, and the boys will have tongues like parrots. The bat laughs and is burnt bald. The family makes the first sacrifice to Heaven. Then a horse gets into the turnips: “The three sons, alarmed, shouted three sounds together, which became three languages.” They are Tibetan, Naxi and Bai.",
   "map_source": "zqymyth ids 542 and 603",
   "text_date": "collected 20th century; 纳西族民间故事集成 (1995) and a migration epic",
   "recorded": "Naxi of Lijiang (Labu and Taian), Yunnan, China; ids 542 (story collection) and 603 (migration epic, T-27-022).",
   "original_language": "Chinese (rendering of Naxi oral telling)",
   "summary_long": "Coqssu Lee'ee and the heavenly maiden Cehheng have three sons who grow taller than calves and still cannot speak. Their mother asks how they differ from livestock, and how the soul of wisdom may be called back. A bat hides on the Sky Father's roof-beam and overhears the answer: if the family sacrifices to Heaven, the three sons will have tongues like parrots. The bat laughs and is burnt bald for it. The family makes the first sacrifice to Heaven. In the companion migration-epic text (id 603), speech arrives after that first sacrifice, when a horse gets into the turnips and the three sons, alarmed, shout three sounds together; these become three languages: Tibetan, Naxi and Bai (Minjia). The sacrifice to Heaven is said to begin with this generation. The line that a speechless child is no different from livestock, and that speech is the calling-back of a soul of wisdom, is the strongest statement in the lane that speech is what makes humans human. The overhearing animal (a bat here, a sparrow or small bird among the Yi) and the shock that finally releases the voice are shared with the Yi tellings.",
   "excerpts": [
    {
     "label": "The soul of wisdom called back",
     "citation": "zqymyth id 542",
     "original": "我们的三个儿子不会说话",
     "original_source": "藏羌彝走廊多民族创世神话数据库 (zqymyth.com), id 542",
     "translation": "Our three sons cannot speak.",
     "translator": "compiler's English",
     "url": "http://www.zqymyth.com/nd.jsp?id=542&fromMid=3&groupId=59",
     "rights": "in copyright, short quotation"
    },
    {
     "label": "The soul of wisdom called back",
     "citation": "zqymyth id 603",
     "original": "三个儿子一时着急，齐声喊出三种声音，变成三种语言",
     "original_source": "藏羌彝走廊多民族创世神话数据库, id 603 (T-27-022)",
     "translation": "The three sons, alarmed, shouted three sounds together, which became three languages.",
     "translator": "compiler's English",
     "url": "http://www.zqymyth.com/nd.jsp?id=603&fromMid=3&groupId=59",
     "rights": "in copyright, short quotation"
    }
   ],
   "sources": [
    {
     "citation": "藏羌彝走廊多民族创世神话数据库, id 542 (纳西族民间故事集成 (1995); id 603 migration epic)",
     "url": "http://www.zqymyth.com/nd.jsp?id=542&fromMid=3&groupId=59"
    },
    {
     "citation": "zqymyth id 603 (migration epic)",
     "url": "http://www.zqymyth.com/nd.jsp?id=603&fromMid=3&groupId=59"
    }
   ],
   "notes": "zqymyth.com was unreachable from Chrome and curl on 2026-11-14 (error page), so quotes and summary come from the asia-pacific packet, whose Chinese quotes were read in-page on the earlier pass; Chinese quotes are trimmed to 25 characters or fewer. Chinese quotes come from ids 542 and 603."
  },
  {
   "id": "lisu",
   "people": "Lisu",
   "region": "Dechang, Sichuan, China",
   "latitude": 27.4,
   "longitude": 102.2,
   "layers": "mute, shocked into speech",
   "scheme": "Ping-ping-pang by the hearth.",
   "map_story": "Three sons are born clever enough to learn anything at once, but none of the three can speak. Pangu, the maker, has three joints of bamboo laid by the hearth to burn. “Suddenly, ping-ping-pang, three bursts: the bamboo exploded and the three children cried out in fright.” Each boy screams something different. The first shouts for his mother in Chinese, the second cries out in Yi, the third in Lisu, and from that moment the three can talk. They become the ancestors of the Han, the Yi and the Lisu, three peoples who were once brothers at one fireside.",
   "map_source": "zqymyth id 875 (盘古造人)",
   "text_date": "collected 20th century; 《傈僳族民间故事选》",
   "recorded": "Lisu of Dechang, Sichuan, China; T-20-030 盘古造人 (Pangu makes people), in a Lisu folk-story collection.",
   "original_language": "Chinese (rendering of Lisu oral telling)",
   "summary_long": "Three sons are born clever enough to learn anything at once, but none of the three can speak. Pangu, the maker, has three joints of bamboo laid by the hearth to burn. Suddenly the bamboo bursts with three bangs, ping-ping-pang, and the children cry out in fright. Each boy cries something different: the first calls out 'Mama!' in Chinese, the second shouts a Yi cry, the third a Lisu one. From that moment the three can talk. They become the ancestors of the Han, the Yi and the Lisu, three peoples who were once brothers at one fireside. The Lisu text confirms that the bamboo-explosion motif, known mainly from the Yi, is told by a neighbouring people in almost the same form: three sons, three bamboos, three cries, three peoples. What the Lisu add is the creator Pangu, a Chinese-style culture hero who here stands in the place of the Yi sky-god. The sons are described as quick learners, so the lack of speech is not a lack of intelligence but a lack of the shock that opens the mouth.",
   "excerpts": [
    {
     "label": "Ping-ping-pang by the hearth",
     "citation": "zqymyth id 875",
     "original": "突然，乒乒乓乓三声，毛竹爆炸，三个小孩惊叫起来",
     "original_source": "藏羌彝走廊多民族创世神话数据库 (zqymyth.com), id 875",
     "translation": "Suddenly, ping-ping-pang, three bursts: the bamboo exploded and the three children cried out in fright.",
     "translator": "compiler's English",
     "url": "http://www.zqymyth.com/nd.jsp?id=875&fromMid=3&groupId=59",
     "rights": "in copyright, short quotation"
    }
   ],
   "sources": [
    {
     "citation": "藏羌彝走廊多民族创世神话数据库, id 875 (盘古造人)",
     "url": "http://www.zqymyth.com/nd.jsp?id=875&fromMid=3&groupId=59"
    }
   ],
   "notes": "zqymyth.com was unreachable from Chrome and curl on 2026-11-14 (error page), so quotes and summary come from the asia-pacific packet, whose Chinese quotes were read in-page on the earlier pass; Chinese quotes are trimmed to 25 characters or fewer."
  },
  {
   "id": "miao-qiandongnan",
   "people": "Miao",
   "region": "Qiandongnan, Guizhou, China",
   "latitude": 26.6,
   "longitude": 108.0,
   "layers": "mute, shocked into speech",
   "scheme": "A bamboo mountain set alight.",
   "map_story": "After the flood the gourd brother and sister have a child that is only a lump of flesh. They hack it up and scatter the pieces, and people spring from them on every mountain, but they are all like mutes; none can speak. The siblings set fire to a mountain of bamboo. “The bamboo burst everywhere in the fire; the people, frightened by the bangs, cried out wildly, and so they began to speak.” What each mountain's people cry is different from the next, and that is why this mountain and that mountain do not speak the same language today.",
   "map_source": "zqymyth id 438 (阿各林和葫芦兄妹)",
   "text_date": "published in 《贵州民间文学资料》",
   "recorded": "Miao (Hmong) of Qiandongnan, Guizhou, China; 阿各林和葫芦兄妹 (Agelin and the gourd siblings), id 438.",
   "original_language": "Chinese (rendering of Miao oral telling)",
   "summary_long": "After the flood the gourd brother and sister have a child that is only a lump of flesh. They hack it up and scatter the pieces, and people spring from the pieces on every mountain; but they are all like mutes and none can speak. The siblings set fire to a mountain of bamboo. The bamboo bursts everywhere in the fire; the people, frightened by the bangs, cry out wildly, and so they begin to speak. What each mountain's people cry is different from the next, which is why this mountain and that mountain do not speak the same language today. The text joins the Miao flood myth to the Yi bamboo-shock motif and gives it an explicit linguistic consequence: the diversity of languages arises in the very moment speech begins, since each group cries something different. The people are made by a violent act (the hacking-up of the flesh-lump), and the fire that follows is the second violent act, which opens their mouths. The packet notes it confirms Bender's 2006 Miao account on a second text.",
   "excerpts": [
    {
     "label": "A bamboo mountain set alight",
     "citation": "zqymyth id 438",
     "original": "那些人被竹子的爆炸声吓得乱叫了起来",
     "original_source": "藏羌彝走廊多民族创世神话数据库 (zqymyth.com), id 438",
     "translation": "frightened by the bamboo's bangs, the people cried out wildly",
     "translator": "compiler's English",
     "url": "http://www.zqymyth.com/nd.jsp?id=438&fromMid=3&groupId=59",
     "rights": "in copyright, short quotation"
    },
    {
     "label": "A bamboo mountain set alight",
     "citation": "zqymyth id 438",
     "original": "这边山与那边山说的不同",
     "original_source": "藏羌彝走廊多民族创世神话数据库 (zqymyth.com), id 438",
     "translation": "this mountain and that mountain spoke differently",
     "translator": "compiler's English",
     "url": "http://www.zqymyth.com/nd.jsp?id=438&fromMid=3&groupId=59",
     "rights": "in copyright, short quotation"
    }
   ],
   "sources": [
    {
     "citation": "藏羌彝走廊多民族创世神话数据库, id 438 (阿各林和葫芦兄妹)",
     "url": "http://www.zqymyth.com/nd.jsp?id=438&fromMid=3&groupId=59"
    }
   ],
   "notes": "zqymyth.com was unreachable from Chrome and curl on 2026-11-14 (error page), so quotes and summary come from the asia-pacific packet, whose Chinese quotes were read in-page on the earlier pass; Chinese quotes are trimmed to 25 characters or fewer."
  },
  {
   "id": "miao-rongshui",
   "people": "Miao",
   "region": "Rongshui, Guangxi, China",
   "latitude": 25.1,
   "longitude": 109.2,
   "layers": "mute, shocked into speech",
   "scheme": "Mouths that could not speak.",
   "map_story": "When the earth is peopled again after the flood, twelve people grow from lumps of flesh. “They had mouths but could not speak, ears but heard nothing”, the text says. The remedy is given as a task: cut three hundred loads of grass and three thousand bamboos and burn them; when the grass burns and the bamboo bursts, the children will talk and laugh. In a companion text the maker fires clay people in a kiln, and they neither cry nor laugh until their fontanelles have been tapped for 360 hours. Miao mothers still tap a baby's fontanelle so it will not stay mute.",
   "map_source": "zqymyth ids 416 and 412",
   "text_date": "published in 《广西苗族民间故事选》 (ed. 梁彬、王天若)",
   "recorded": "Miao of Rongshui, Liuzhou, Guangxi, China; ids 416 (re-peopling after the flood) and 412 (clay people in a kiln).",
   "original_language": "Chinese (rendering of Miao oral telling)",
   "summary_long": "When the earth is peopled again after the flood, twelve people grow from lumps of flesh. They have mouths but cannot speak, and ears but hear nothing. The remedy is given as a task: cut three hundred loads of grass and three thousand bamboos and burn them; when the grass burns and the bamboo bursts, the children will talk and laugh. In a companion text (id 412) the creator Naluo Yingou fires clay people in a kiln, and the girls do not cry and the boys do not laugh. He taps their fontanelles for 360 hours, and at last they wail and laugh. Miao mothers still tap a baby's fontanelle, the text says, so the child will not stay a mute all its life. The Rongshui pair thus offers two cures for the same condition: the bursting bamboo, the same as in Guizhou and Yunnan, and the tapping of the soft spot of the skull, which is a ritual still performed on babies.",
   "excerpts": [
    {
     "label": "Mouths that could not speak",
     "citation": "zqymyth id 416",
     "original": "他们有嘴不会讲，两耳听不闻",
     "original_source": "藏羌彝走廊多民族创世神话数据库 (zqymyth.com), id 416",
     "translation": "They had mouths but could not speak, ears but heard nothing",
     "translator": "compiler's English",
     "url": "http://www.zqymyth.com/nd.jsp?id=416&fromMid=3&groupId=59",
     "rights": "in copyright, short quotation"
    },
    {
     "label": "Mouths that could not speak",
     "citation": "zqymyth id 416",
     "original": "草烧竹子爆，娃娃就会说会笑了",
     "original_source": "藏羌彝走廊多民族创世神话数据库 (zqymyth.com), id 416",
     "translation": "when the grass burns and the bamboo bursts, the children will speak and laugh",
     "translator": "compiler's English",
     "url": "http://www.zqymyth.com/nd.jsp?id=416&fromMid=3&groupId=59",
     "rights": "in copyright, short quotation"
    }
   ],
   "sources": [
    {
     "citation": "藏羌彝走廊多民族创世神话数据库, id 416 (广西苗族民间故事选; ids 416 and 412)",
     "url": "http://www.zqymyth.com/nd.jsp?id=416&fromMid=3&groupId=59"
    }
   ],
   "notes": "zqymyth.com was unreachable from Chrome and curl on 2026-11-14 (error page), so quotes and summary come from the asia-pacific packet, whose Chinese quotes were read in-page on the earlier pass; Chinese quotes are trimmed to 25 characters or fewer. Quotes come from id 416; the companion text is id 412 (url pattern as above)."
  },
  {
   "id": "hei-miao",
   "people": "Black Miao (Hei-Miao)",
   "region": "Guizhou, China",
   "latitude": 26.5,
   "longitude": 106.7,
   "layers": "mute, shocked into speech",
   "scheme": "The first fire strikes them vocal.",
   "map_story": "After the flood a brother and sister couple, and she bears a shapeless lump of flesh. From it come three pairs of humans, and all of them are mute. The man who survived the flood digs up fire and strikes it from flint. The children have never seen fire, and they scream in terror. “Some cried ‘Ao’: these were the Chinese. Others cried ‘fifi’ and so began to speak the language of the Yi.” The rest cry the words for fire in the Miao dialects. The missionary who wrote it down left out the details of the incest as too indecent to print.",
   "map_source": "Schotter 1908, p. 424",
   "text_date": "1908",
   "recorded": "Told by Black Miao (Hei-Miao) of Guizhou, China, to P. Aloys Schotter, a Catholic missionary, and published in French in Anthropos 3 (1908), p. 424.",
   "original_language": "French (from Miao recitative)",
   "excerpts": [
    {
     "label": "After the flood: mute children and the first fire",
     "citation": "Schotter 1908, p. 424",
     "original": "Babel, division des langues.\n\nLe déluge est fini. La terre est sans habitants. Frère et sœur ont quitté leur barque. Ici on comprend comment un si beau thème prête à amplification. Pour les mariages nos sorciers miaos ont là un sujet poétique tout trouvé.\n\nJe passe donc sous silence les détails: car le Récitatif miao comme le latin, sait quelquefois braver l'honnêteté.\n\nLe ciel a approuvé l'union. Les deux pierres de la meule se sont rencontrées. Elles seront les témoins de ce contrat matrimonial. Il naît de cette union contre nature une chair informe qui donnera naissance à trois couples d'hommes, hélas! tous sont muets.\n\nC'était par une fraîche matinée de printemps, Noé appelle ses enfants à venir se réchauffer dans sa tente. Il va ensuite déterrer le feu, qu'il retrouve dans la pierre à feu. Noé se penche, bat le briquet, l'étincelle jaillit, le feu prend. Panique générale! Avouez, cher lecteur, qu'il y avait de quoi. Cette clarté, cette chaleur, ce crépitement pour les enfants de Noé qui n'avaient jamais vu le feu, ce sont des merveilles. Les uns crièrent: Ao, ce furent les Chinois. Les autres crièrent: fifi et commencèrent ainsi à parler la langue des Y-jen. D'autres crièrent: fou, tua, teua, toua, c'est le mot pour exprimer le feu dans les différents dialectes miaos. Voilà le premier échantillon de linguistique comparée des Miao.",
     "original_source": "Anthropos 3 (1908), p. 424, Internet Archive scan (OCR normalized for accents by compiler); heading and diacritics restored",
     "translation": "Babel, division of tongues.\n\nThe flood is over. The earth has no inhabitants. Brother and sister have left their boat. Here one sees how so fine a theme lends itself to amplification. For marriages our Miao sorcerers have a ready-made poetic subject. I therefore pass over the details in silence, for the Miao recitative, like Latin, sometimes knows how to defy decency.\n\nHeaven approved the union. The two stones of the millstone have met; they will be the witnesses of this marriage contract. From this unnatural union is born a shapeless flesh which will give birth to three couples of men, alas! all are mute.\n\nIt was on a cool spring morning that Noah calls his children to come and warm themselves in his tent. He then goes to dig up the fire, which he finds again in the flint. Noah bends down, strikes the steel, the spark flies, the fire catches. General panic! Admit, dear reader, that there was cause. This light, this heat, this crackling were wonders to the children of Noah, who had never seen fire. Some cried: Ao; these were the Chinese. Others cried: fifi, and so began to speak the language of the Yi (Y-jen). Others cried: fou, tua, teua, toua, which is the word for fire in the different Miao dialects. There is the first sample of comparative linguistics of the Miao.",
     "translator": "compiler's English",
     "url": "https://archive.org/details/anthropos_1908_3",
     "rights": "public domain"
    }
   ],
   "sources": [
    {
     "citation": "P. Aloys Schotter, Notes ethnographiques sur les tribus du Kouy-tcheou (Chine), Anthropos 3 (1908), p. 424",
     "url": "https://archive.org/details/anthropos_1908_3"
    }
   ],
   "notes": "Schotter calls the flood survivor 'Noe' throughout (the Miao 'Noah'). The flood narrative leading to this passage runs from the preceding pages (the boat, the eagle, the hen and the cock) and is omitted. Schotter censors the sibling union as too indecent to print."
  },
  {
   "id": "miao-huaning",
   "people": "Miao",
   "region": "Huaning, Yunnan, China",
   "latitude": 24.2,
   "longitude": 102.9,
   "layers": "mute, shocked into speech",
   "scheme": "Seated on a hot stone.",
   "map_story": "The brother and sister who live through the flood have three sons, and none of them can speak. A god comes in a dream and tells the parents what to do: heat a great flat stone and set each child on it. They begin with the eldest. “They heated a great stone and set the eldest on it; the moment his backside touched the stone he yelled ‘Aiyo-na!’” The second boy yells something else and the third something else again. The three cries are the first words of Miao, Yi and Chinese, and the three boys are the fathers of those peoples.",
   "map_source": "zqymyth id 292 (洪水潮天)",
   "text_date": "published in 玉溪地区民间故事集成 (1990), pp. 34-35",
   "recorded": "Miao of Huaning, Yuxi, Yunnan, China; 洪水潮天, Miao narrator 王小福.",
   "original_language": "Chinese (rendering of Miao oral telling)",
   "summary_long": "The brother and sister who live through the flood have three sons, and none of them can speak. A god comes in a dream and tells the parents what to do: heat a great flat stone and set each child on it, beginning with the eldest. The moment his backside touches the stone he yells 'Aiyo-na!'. The second boy yells a different cry, and the third a different one again. The three cries are the first words of Miao, Yi and Chinese, and the three boys are the fathers of those three peoples. Here speech is not frightened but burned out of the children by pain. It is the same triad (three brothers, three cries, three peoples) as in the Yi bamboo texts, with the bamboo explosion replaced by a heated stone. The cry is an interjection, 'ouch', and the Huaning text makes the first word of each language a shout of pain.",
   "excerpts": [
    {
     "label": "Seated on a hot stone",
     "citation": "zqymyth id 292",
     "original": "把一块大石头烧烫后，首先抱大的那个来烫",
     "original_source": "藏羌彝走廊多民族创世神话数据库 (zqymyth.com), id 292",
     "translation": "They heated a great stone and set the eldest on it first",
     "translator": "compiler's English",
     "url": "http://www.zqymyth.com/nd.jsp?id=292&fromMid=3&groupId=59",
     "rights": "in copyright, short quotation"
    },
    {
     "label": "Seated on a hot stone",
     "citation": "zqymyth id 292",
     "original": "屁股一落在石头上就喊'哎哟呐！'",
     "original_source": "藏羌彝走廊多民族创世神话数据库 (zqymyth.com), id 292",
     "translation": "the moment his backside touched it he yelled 'Aiyo-na!'",
     "translator": "compiler's English",
     "url": "http://www.zqymyth.com/nd.jsp?id=292&fromMid=3&groupId=59",
     "rights": "in copyright, short quotation"
    }
   ],
   "sources": [
    {
     "citation": "藏羌彝走廊多民族创世神话数据库, id 292 (洪水潮天)",
     "url": "http://www.zqymyth.com/nd.jsp?id=292&fromMid=3&groupId=59"
    }
   ],
   "notes": "zqymyth.com was unreachable from Chrome and curl on 2026-11-14 (error page), so quotes and summary come from the asia-pacific packet, whose Chinese quotes were read in-page on the earlier pass; Chinese quotes are trimmed to 25 characters or fewer."
  },
  {
   "id": "marind",
   "people": "Marind-anim",
   "region": "South coast of Papua (Merauke), Indonesia",
   "latitude": -8.5,
   "longitude": 140.4,
   "layers": "mute, shocked into speech, in stages",
   "scheme": "Bamboo cracks, and they shriek.",
   "map_story": "The first people are shapeless lumps, warming themselves at a fire of bamboo. Each time a stem pops they take more human form: ears open, then eyes, a mouth, nostrils. They still cannot speak and only murmur. Then “a big bamboo burst with a louder crack than usual, which frightened the people so that they gave a loud shriek, and that was the beginning of human speech.” A second telling has the first pair dug from the ground by a dog, living like beasts with no wish to talk, until wonder at fire and fear of the crackling bamboo loosen their tongues.",
   "map_source": "Frazer 1918, pp. 37–38 (after Viegen 1912)",
   "text_date": "1912 (Viegen); 1918 (Frazer)",
   "recorded": "Marind-anim (Marindineeze) of the south coast of Dutch New Guinea (now Merauke, Papua, Indonesia), reported by the missionary Jos. Viegen (Merauke) in 1912 and retold by J. G. Frazer in Folk-Lore in the Old Testament, vol. 1 (1918).",
   "original_language": "English (Frazer, after Dutch Viegen)",
   "excerpts": [
    {
     "label": "The crane, the clay lumps and the bamboo fire",
     "citation": "Frazer 1918, vol. 1, pp. 37-38 (after Viegen 1912, p. 137)",
     "original": "",
     "original_source": "English only (Dutch original not read)",
     "translation": "A somewhat different account of the origin of man is given by the Marindineeze, a tribe who occupy the dreary, monotonous treeless flats on the southern coast of Dutch New Guinea, not far from the border of the British territory. They say that one day a crane or stork (dik) was busy picking fish out of the sea. He threw them on the beach, where the clay covered and killed them. So the fish were no longer anything but shapeless lumps of clay. They were cold and warmed themselves at a fire of bamboos. Every time that a little bamboo burst with a pop in the heat, the lumps of clay assumed more and more the shape of human beings. Thus the apertures of their ears, eyes, mouth, and nostrils were opened, but as yet they could not speak, they could only utter a murmuring sound. Their fingers were still joined by membranes like those in the wings of bats. However, with a bamboo knife they severed the membranes and threw them into the sea, where they turned into leeches. When the nature spirit (dema) saw the human beings, he was wroth, and enviously asked the crane, why he had bestowed life on these creatures. So the crane ceased to peck at the fish and pecked at a log of wood instead; and that is why his beak has been bent ever since. At last, while the first men were sitting round the fire, a big bamboo burst with a louder crack than usual, which frightened the people so that they gave a loud shriek, and that was the beginning of human speech. You may still hear shrieks of the same sort at the present day, when in time of sickness the descendants of these first parents are sitting by the fire and throwing bamboos into it, in order that the crackling and popping of the bamboos in the flames may put the spirit of disease to flight. Every time a bamboo bursts with a pop, all the people shout and load the demon with curses. And this Papuan narrative of the descent of man usually winds up with the words, \"So the stork or crane (dik) bestowed life on us.\"",
     "translator": "J. G. Frazer, 1918",
     "url": "https://archive.org/details/folkloreinoldtes0001jame_o4m3",
     "rights": "public domain"
    },
    {
     "label": "Another version: the first pair dug out by the dog",
     "citation": "Frazer 1918, vol. 1, p. 38 (after Viegen 1912, pp. 145 f.)",
     "original": "",
     "original_source": "English only",
     "translation": "A somewhat different version of the story is told by other members of the tribe. They say that before the first human pair appeared on earth, there were spirits (demas) residing at Wegi, near Kondo-miraaf which is near the extreme south-eastern corner of the tribal territory. Now the spirits owned a dog and a bird (diegge), which may be presumed to be the same crane or stork (dik, diek) which figures in the former version. One day the dog, snuffing about, was attracted by the scent to a certain spot, and there with his paws he scraped a hole in the ground, from which the first human pair, a man and a woman, came forth. They possessed all animal instincts, but their minds were very imperfectly developed. They lived like beasts, without experience and without feeling the need of communicating with each other by speech. As for the necessaries of life, they received them from the spirits. Roaming about one day they came to a river, and in their ignorance of the nature of water they walked straight into it and might have been drowned, if the bird had not flown to their rescue and drawn them out of the stream. That is how they came to be acquainted with water; but still they were ignorant of fire. Their knowledge of that element they acquired from watching a fire which the spirits had kindled to warm themselves at in cold weather; and it was the astonishment our first parents felt at the sight of the devouring flames, and the alarm they experienced at the loud crackling of the bamboos in the heat, which elicited from them the first cry of fear and wonder and so unloosed their tongues. Henceforth they could speak.",
     "translator": "J. G. Frazer, 1918",
     "url": "https://archive.org/details/folkloreinoldtes0001jame_o4m3",
     "rights": "public domain"
    }
   ],
   "sources": [
    {
     "citation": "J. G. Frazer, Folk-Lore in the Old Testament, vol. 1 (1918), pp. 37-38",
     "url": "https://archive.org/details/folkloreinoldtes0001jame_o4m3"
    },
    {
     "citation": "Jos. Viegen, Tijdschrift van het K. Nederlandsch Aardrijkskundig Genootschap, 2e ser. 29 (1912), pp. 137, 145 f."
    }
   ],
   "notes": "Viegen's Dutch original not read; Frazer's text from a local archive.org OCR capture. The excerpt breaks at the second version's description of the hole from which the first pair emerged. Frazer's footnote gives Viegen, Nederlandsch-Indie, xix (1914), for the second version."
  },
  {
   "id": "khmu",
   "people": "Khmu (northern Kammu)",
   "region": "Northern Laos",
   "latitude": 20.5,
   "longitude": 101.5,
   "layers": "mute, shocked into speech",
   "scheme": "A log snaps, and they laugh.",
   "map_story": "A brother and sister live through the flood inside a hollow tree and are told by a cuckoo to marry. She gives birth to a dry gourd. They hear sounds inside it, and the brother burns a hole with a hot iron. Out come the Lamet, then the Khmu, the Tai, the Europeans and the Chinese, but none of them speaks. Someone seats them all on a dry log laid across a ravine. It snaps, they all tumble down, burst out laughing and begin to talk. A world catalogue of myths files the story under the heading “First people are dumb”.",
   "map_source": "Lindell et al. 1988, pp. 268–278, via Berezkin E38C",
   "text_date": "collected 1970s-80s; published 1988",
   "recorded": "Northern Kammu (Khmu) of Laos, in Lindell, Swahn and Tayanin, Folk Tales from Kammu IV (1988), pp. 268-278, as summarized by Yuri Berezkin (motif E38C, 'First people are dumb').",
   "original_language": "Kammu (English edition; Berezkin summary read)",
   "summary_long": "A brother and sister survive the flood inside a hollow tree and are told by a cuckoo to marry. The sister gives birth to a dry gourd. The couple hear sounds inside it, and the brother burns a hole in the gourd with a hot iron. Out come the Lamet, then the Khmu, the Tai, the Europeans and the Chinese, but none of them speaks. Someone seats them all on a dry log laid across a ravine. The log snaps, they all tumble down, and they burst out laughing and begin to talk; the text adds that they then learn to write. Laughter is the shock that opens speech in this telling, in place of the bursting bamboo or the fire of the Yi and Miao versions, and the peoples who emerge include the Europeans and the Chinese, which belongs to the Kammu storytellers' later view of the world. A world catalogue of myths files the story under the heading 'First people are dumb'. This summary rests on Berezkin's catalogue entry only; the Lindell volume is not online and the primary text was not read.",
   "excerpts": [],
   "sources": [
    {
     "citation": "Lindell, Swahn and Tayanin, Folk Tales from Kammu IV (1988), pp. 268-278, via Berezkin, motif E38C"
    }
   ],
   "notes": "Summary only; primary (Lindell et al. 1988) not reached. Cite via Berezkin's catalogue, motif E38C."
  },
  {
   "id": "terena",
   "people": "Terena",
   "region": "Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil",
   "latitude": -20.24,
   "longitude": -56.38,
   "layers": "mute, shocked into speech",
   "scheme": "A toad makes them laugh.",
   "map_story": "The hero Yurikuyuvakae follows a bem-te-vi bird to a hole in the earth and sees heads inside it. He orders the people out. They are people, but he cannot get a word from them or to them. He calls a little toad. “The little toad began to hop, and the people began to laugh and to communicate with one another.” In an older telling a wild dog tries first and fails, and when the toad struts up and down and the people laugh, each starts to speak his own language. The hero names them Terena, the people who came from inside the earth.",
   "map_source": "Turíne Terenoehiko 2018, pp. 16–22",
   "text_date": "Baldus recorded 1940s, published 1950; Terena text published 2018",
   "recorded": "Told by the Terena elder Guilherme Felipe Valério and written down in Portuguese and Terena by the Terena teachers of Aldeia Jaguapiru, Dourados, Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil, as Turíne Terenoehiko (Dourados: EdUFGD, 2018, 32 pp.). An older version was recorded by Herbert Baldus in the 1940s (Revista do Museu Paulista n.s. 4, 1950, pp. 218-219, 223-225), known here only from Berezkin's summary.",
   "original_language": "Portuguese (parallel Terena text in the same book)",
   "summary_long": "The culture hero Yurikuyuvakae is walking through a forest where many birds and other animals live. In a great tree a bem-te-vi sings its own name, and he understands the song as 'bem-que-eu-vi', 'I saw it well'. The bird keeps singing while looking at the ground, and he comes to a head coming out of a hole in the earth. On the second day of the walk he sees a second head, and on the third day, as he comes up to the tree and the bird sings again, he sees a head and a body. He orders everyone to come out of the hole. They are people, but he cannot talk with them. He calls the little toad. The toad begins to hop, the people begin to laugh, and as they laugh they begin to communicate with one another. Yurikuyuvakae then takes them all to the forest and names them: he is of the forest, they are of the earth, and he will call them Terena, the people who came out from inside the earth. In the older version recorded by Baldus in the 1940s, as Berezkin summarises it (not read directly), a wild dog tries first and fails to make them speak; then the Toad struts up and down, the people laugh, and each of them begins to speak his own language, so that one laugh gives both speech and the many languages. The Terena are an Arawakan-speaking people of Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil, and the story is still told by their elders and teachers. It is the closest American match to the laughter-opens-the-mouth tellings of the Khmu, Yi and Miao in Southeast Asia and China.",
   "excerpts": [
    {
     "label": "The hero finds people in a hole in the earth and cannot communicate with them",
     "citation": "Turíne Terenoehiko 2018, p. 16",
     "original": "Viu que eram pessoas, mas não conseguiu se comunicar com elas.",
     "original_source": "UFGD open book, text read in full",
     "translation": "He saw that they were people, but he could not communicate with them.",
     "translator": "Own English translation",
     "url": "https://omp.ufgd.edu.br/livrosabertos/catalog/download/206/248/541?inline=1",
     "rights": "in copyright, short quotation"
    },
    {
     "label": "The toad hops and the people laugh and begin to communicate",
     "citation": "Turíne Terenoehiko 2018, p. 19",
     "original": "O sapinho começou a pular e as pessoas começaram a rir e a se comunicar entre si.",
     "original_source": "UFGD open book",
     "translation": "The little toad began to hop, and the people began to laugh and to communicate with one another.",
     "translator": "Own English translation",
     "url": "https://omp.ufgd.edu.br/livrosabertos/catalog/download/206/248/541?inline=1",
     "rights": "in copyright, short quotation"
    },
    {
     "label": "The people are named Terena",
     "citation": "Turíne Terenoehiko 2018, p. 22",
     "original": "Eu sou da mata e vocês são da terra. Vou chamá-los de Terena, o povo que saiu de dentro da terra.",
     "original_source": "UFGD open book",
     "translation": "I am of the forest and you are of the earth. I will call you Terena, the people who came out from inside the earth.",
     "translator": "Own English translation",
     "url": "https://omp.ufgd.edu.br/livrosabertos/catalog/download/206/248/541?inline=1",
     "rights": "in copyright, short quotation"
    }
   ],
   "sources": [
    {
     "citation": "Turíne Terenoehiko, told by Guilherme Felipe Valério, Terena teachers of Aldeia Jaguapiru (Dourados: EdUFGD, 2018)",
     "url": "https://omp.ufgd.edu.br/livrosabertos/catalog/download/206/248/541?inline=1"
    },
    {
     "citation": "Herbert Baldus, 'Lendas dos índios Tereno', Revista do Museu Paulista n.s. 4 (1950), pp. 218-219, 223-225 (not read; via Berezkin E38C)"
    }
   ],
   "notes": "The page numbers are the printed numbers of the picture-book pages. The Baldus variant (wild dog fails, each person speaks his own language) is cited from Berezkin's summary, not from Baldus."
  },
  {
   "id": "bambara",
   "people": "Bambara (Bamana)",
   "region": "Middle Niger (Ségou), Mali",
   "latitude": 13.43,
   "longitude": -6.26,
   "layers": "mute, in stages",
   "scheme": "Voiceless, unbroken, then cut.",
   "map_story": "Creation is done in three stages. The first is made in secret, without a voice to express itself; its sign is a woman, Mousso Koroni, the first being to possess a soul. The second belongs to Faro, lord of water, and his Word is “a sort of language in which the words are not separated”, speech that cannot be understood. In the third the heavenly smith Ndomadyiri makes the breaks of the speech, and it turns into useful discourse. That third period is the present, and in it men assert themselves as individuals, each with his own will and feelings.",
   "map_source": "Zahan 1974, Introduction",
   "text_date": "initiatory teaching recorded 1930s–50s (Dieterlen 1951); synthesis published 1974",
   "recorded": "Zahan's account draws on Bambara teaching in Mali, building on Germaine Dieterlen, Essai sur la religion bambara (Paris: PUF, 1951); published in English as Dominique Zahan, The Bambara (Iconography of Religions VII.2), Leiden: Brill 1974.",
   "original_language": "French (Zahan's text; the Bambara terms are given in transliteration)",
   "summary_long": "This is a summary of Zahan's synthesis of Bambara teaching; Dieterlen 1951, the primary account, is not reachable online and Zahan is in copyright. The world is made in three stages, and the first stage is secret, without speech. At that time everything exists only in chrysalis form, folded up and unready. The sign of this beginning is a woman, Mousso Koroni, the little old woman with a white head. She becomes the wife of Pembele, the first creator, and engenders plants, animals and people, but she does it in haste, disorder and confusion, so that everything multiplies as fast as it can. She is the first being to possess a soul, and she is the source of all the vital principles; she also sows the germs of all knowledge in what Zahan calls the unconscious of living things. In this stage men are immortal and grow young again, through a tree that will one day be the cause of death. The second stage is the setting of the world in order, and it belongs to Faro, the lord of water, who takes the double (dya) of beings into his keeping. His Word is a speech in which the words are not yet separated, so it cannot be understood. In the third stage the heavenly smith, Ndomadyiri, makes the breaks in speech. He cuts the flow into words, and speech becomes useful discourse. Within the world he has formed, people assert themselves as individuals, with their wills and their feelings, egoistic or altruistic, and as social beings. It is also the stage in which death comes. Zahan presents the three stages as a single work done in three steps, from a beginning with no voice to the present world of articulate, individual speakers. The three-stage frame is Zahan's wording of the teaching.",
   "excerpts": [
    {
     "label": "The first stage of creation is made in secret, 'without a voice'",
     "citation": "Zahan, The Bambara (1974), Introduction",
     "original": "a beginning made in secret, 'without a voice' to express itself",
     "original_source": "Zahan 1974, archive.org bambara0000zaha (read by an earlier lane through search-inside; the book is lending-only and was not re-read)",
     "translation": "a beginning made in secret, 'without a voice' to express itself",
     "translator": "Zahan's text in English",
     "url": "https://archive.org/details/bambara0000zaha",
     "rights": "in copyright, short quotation"
    },
    {
     "label": "Faro's Word: speech in which the words are not separated",
     "citation": "Zahan, The Bambara (1974), Introduction",
     "original": "a sort of language in which the words are not separated … a language that cannot be understood",
     "original_source": "Zahan 1974, archive.org bambara0000zaha (read by an earlier lane through search-inside; the book is lending-only and was not re-read)",
     "translation": "a sort of language in which the words are not separated … a language that cannot be understood",
     "translator": "Zahan's text in English",
     "url": "https://archive.org/details/bambara0000zaha",
     "rights": "in copyright, short quotation"
    },
    {
     "label": "The smith makes the breaks: speech becomes useful discourse",
     "citation": "Zahan, The Bambara (1974), Introduction",
     "original": "It is through him that speech … has become transformed into useful discourse",
     "original_source": "Zahan 1974, archive.org bambara0000zaha (read by an earlier lane through search-inside; the book is lending-only and was not re-read)",
     "translation": "It is through him that speech … has become transformed into useful discourse",
     "translator": "Zahan's text in English",
     "url": "https://archive.org/details/bambara0000zaha",
     "rights": "in copyright, short quotation"
    }
   ],
   "sources": [
    {
     "citation": "Dominique Zahan, The Bambara (Iconography of Religions VII.2; Leiden: Brill, 1974), Introduction",
     "url": "https://archive.org/details/bambara0000zaha"
    },
    {
     "citation": "Germaine Dieterlen, Essai sur la religion bambara (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1951)"
    }
   ],
   "notes": "Older public-domain accounts of the Bambara (Joseph Henry, L'âme d'un peuple africain: les Bambara, 1910; Tauxier, La religion bambara, 1927; Delafosse, Haut-Sénégal-Niger, 1912) were read in full-text; none of them carries the three-creation scheme (Henry's chapter IV gives only a Bible- and Islam-coloured Adam and Eve). The scheme comes from the later Dieterlen and Zahan line. In the quotations, the third was joined from two adjacent search-inside snippets of the same page. The three quotations here are the speech passages (the 'without a voice', 'words not separated' and 'useful discourse' wordings were carried over from an earlier lane's search-inside reading; the 'useful discourse' and 'words are not separated' quotations were not re-read this session)."
  },
  {
   "id": "dogon",
   "people": "Dogon",
   "region": "Bandiagara cliffs, Mali",
   "latitude": 14.35,
   "longitude": -3.61,
   "layers": "mute, in stages, taught",
   "scheme": "Three Words, and a serpent eaten.",
   "map_story": "The water spirit Nommo looks down and sees his mother, the Earth, “nue et sans parole”, naked and without speech. He clothes her in a skirt of fibres, which is the first Word, the crudest of all time. Her son the jackal takes speech from her by incest. The second Word, more supple, comes through weaving and is held by the seventh ancestor, the Master of the Word. He comes down among men in the form of a great serpent, and the smith has them kill and eat him. From that meal comes the third Word, clear and perfect, carried by the drum.",
   "map_source": "Griaule 1948, pp. 26–27, 50–53, 70–71",
   "text_date": "told 1946; published 1948",
   "recorded": "Told by the blind Dogon elder Ogotemmêli (Ogol-du-Haut, Bandiagara escarpment, Mali) to Marcel Griaule over thirty-three days in October–November 1946, with Dogon-language speech rendered into French; published as Dieu d'eau: entretiens avec Ogotemmêli (Paris: Éditions du Chêne, 1948). Page numbers below are the Fayard 1966 reprint on archive.org.",
   "original_language": "French (from Dogon)",
   "summary_long": "This is a summary of Griaule's record of what Ogotemmêli taught; the full text is in copyright. The sequence runs through three Words, each given through a craft, and the creation of people sits inside the first of them. After a disorder in Amma's union with the Earth, the god's first son, the Jackal, is born alone. The Nommo, the twin water-spirit, looks down and sees his mother the Earth naked and speechless. He brings fibres from heavenly plants, divides them into ten bundles for his ten fingers, twists five for the front and five for the back, and clothes her in a fibre skirt. The fibres are wet with his breath, and his breath is speech, so the skirt is the first Word: the crudest speech of all time, with an elementary syntax, few verbs and a graceless vocabulary, but strong enough for the great labours of the beginning. The Jackal wants the Word and seizes the skirt, which is his mother's clothing. The Earth resists and burrows into an anthill as an ant; the Jackal follows, and the hole is never deep enough. The incest gives the Jackal speech, which he keeps to reveal Amma's designs to diviners, and it brings the first menstrual blood, which stains the fibres. The Earth is now impure, and Amma turns away from her and makes a human couple directly from clay. From this couple come eight ancestors, four male and four female. Each is both sexes and can fertilise himself, and none of them dies; at the end of a long life they go into the anthill and rise as Nommo. The second Word is given to the Seventh ancestor, Master of the Word. It is clearer than the first and meant for all people, not a few, and it comes through weaving. Then the Eighth ancestor descends out of rank, and the Seventh, angered, takes the form of a great serpent and rushes into the granary for the seeds. The Smith tells the men to kill the serpent and eat its body, and he keeps the head and buries it under his anvil stone, so that every smith works seated on the serpent's head. The Smith also gives men joints, the hoe and farming. The third Word, clear and perfect, is carried by the drum, built as a woven cylinder with a copper coil. Griaule's own summary ranks the three Words as fibre, weaving and drum. Death comes only after the third Word and the modern order of the world: before that, men did not die, or after a long life changed as the ancestors had. Griaule's later work with Dieterlen (Le renard pâle, 1965) turns the Words into grades of initiation. Walter van Beek (1991) found that other Dogon did not know Ogotemmêli's scheme, so it is best read as one sage's teaching.",
   "excerpts": [
    {
     "label": "The Nommo sees his mother, the Earth, naked and without speech",
     "citation": "Griaule, Dieu d'eau (1948; Fayard reprint 1966), p. 26, chapter 'La première parole et la jupe de fibres'",
     "original": "Le Nommo, du haut du ciel, vit sa mère, la Terre, nue et sans parole",
     "original_source": "Griaule, Dieu d'eau, archive.org OCR of the Fayard reprint (read this session)",
     "translation": "From the height of the sky the Nommo saw his mother, the Earth, naked and without speech",
     "translator": "Own English translation",
     "url": "https://archive.org/details/marcel-griaule-dieu-deau-entretien-avec-ogotemmeli",
     "rights": "in copyright, short quotation"
    },
    {
     "label": "Ogotemmêli: to be naked is to be without speech",
     "citation": "Griaule, Dieu d'eau, discussion of the fibre skirt (page not pinned in the OCR)",
     "original": "Etre nu, dit-il, c'est être sans parole.",
     "original_source": "Griaule, Dieu d'eau, archive.org OCR of the Fayard reprint (read this session)",
     "translation": "To be naked, he said, is to be without speech.",
     "translator": "Own English translation",
     "url": "https://archive.org/details/marcel-griaule-dieu-deau-entretien-avec-ogotemmeli",
     "rights": "in copyright, short quotation"
    },
    {
     "label": "Three Words, each clearer than the last",
     "citation": "Griaule, Dieu d'eau, passage on the three Words (pp. 70-71 per the earlier lane's packet; page not pinned in the OCR)",
     "original": "La seconde parole, plus déliée … Enfin la troisième parole, claire et parfaite",
     "original_source": "Griaule, Dieu d'eau, archive.org OCR of the Fayard reprint (read this session); the OCR prints 'délice' for 'déliée'",
     "translation": "The second Word, more supple … Finally the third Word, clear and perfect",
     "translator": "Own English translation",
     "url": "https://archive.org/details/marcel-griaule-dieu-deau-entretien-avec-ogotemmeli",
     "rights": "in copyright, short quotation"
    }
   ],
   "sources": [
    {
     "citation": "Marcel Griaule, Dieu d'eau: entretiens avec Ogotemmêli (Paris: Éditions du Chêne, 1948; Fayard 1966), chapters 'La première parole et la jupe de fibres', 'La seconde parole et le tissage', 'La troisième parole ...'",
     "url": "https://archive.org/details/marcel-griaule-dieu-deau-entretien-avec-ogotemmeli"
    },
    {
     "citation": "Marcel Griaule and Germaine Dieterlen, Le renard pâle (Paris: Institut d'ethnologie, 1965)"
    }
   ],
   "notes": "No public-domain Dogon account of this sequence exists: the pre-1930 French colonial works checked (Desplagnes 1907, Delafosse 1912, Tauxier 1912 and 1927) do not contain it. The page numbers for the three quotations are those of the Fayard reprint as printed in the OCR. Walter van Beek, 'Dogon restudied', Current Anthropology 32 (1991), is the standard caution."
  },
  {
   "id": "cicero",
   "people": "Roman (Cicero)",
   "region": "Arpinum and Rome, Italy",
   "latitude": 41.68,
   "longitude": 13.61,
   "layers": "mute, in stages",
   "scheme": "Mind cuts sound into parts.",
   "map_story": "Cicero tells how reason found the first humans. They were making an unfinished, confused noise with unformed voices, and they lived apart from one another. Mind took hold of the noise: “incidit has et distinxit in partis”, it cut these sounds and divided them into parts. Then it pressed words onto things the way a seal is pressed, so that each thing carried its own mark. With that, men who had been unassociated were tied to one another by what he calls the sweetest bond, the bond of speech. Speech, for Cicero, is sound that a mind has cut up.",
   "map_source": "Cicero, De re publica 3.3",
   "text_date": "c. 54-51 BCE (De re publica; this passage is preserved in citations by Augustine, City of God, and others)",
   "recorded": "Composed by Marcus Tullius Cicero at Rome, Italy, as the third book of De re publica, a dialogue set in 129 BCE; the opening of the book is lost and the passage on speech survives in fragments quoted by later writers.",
   "original_language": "Latin",
   "excerpts": [
    {
     "label": "Mind takes in confused, unformed sounds, cuts them into parts and presses words on things like seals",
     "citation": "De re publica 3.3 (fragment 3)",
     "original": "(3) et vehiculis tarditati, eademque cum accepisset homines inconditis vocibus inchoatum quiddam et confusum sonantes, incidit has et distinxit in partis, et ut signa quaedam sic verba rebus inpressit, hominesque antea dissociatos iucundissimo inter se sermonis vinculo conligavit. a simili etiam mente vocis qui videbantur infiniti soni paucis notis inventis sunt omnes signati et expressi, quibus et conloquia cum absentibus et indicia voluntatum et monumenta rerum praeteritarum tenerentur. accessit eo numerus, res cum ad vitam necessaria tum una inmutabilis et aeterna; quae prima inpulit etiam ut suspiceremus in caelum, nec frustra siderum motus intueremur, dinumerationibusque noctium ac die<rum> [...]",
     "original_source": "The Latin Library, https://www.thelatinlibrary.com/cicero/repub3.shtml (the text breaks off at the lacuna after \"ac die<rum>\")",
     "translation": "[...] aiding our slowness by carriages, and when it had taught men to utter the elementary and confused sounds of unpolished expression, articulated and distinguished them into their proper classes, and, as their appropriate signs, attached certain words to certain things, and thus associated, by the most delightful bond of speech, the once divided races of men. And by a similar intelligence, the inflections of the voice, which appeared infinite, are, by the discovery of a few alphabetic characters, all designated and expressed; by which we maintain converse with our absent friends, by which also indications of our wishes, and monuments of past events are preserved. Then came the use of numbers—a thing necessary to human life, and at the same time immutable and eternal; a science which first urged us to raise our views to heaven, and not gaze without an object on the motions of the stars, and the distribution of days and nights.",
     "translator": "C. D. Yonge, 1853 (Bohn), in The Treatises of M. T. Cicero, p. 348-349; the OCR of the scan was corrected by eye where one word was garbled (\"aiding\"), and the page-footnote and running head were removed. The sentence runs on from a lost opening clause marked [...]",
     "url": "https://archive.org/details/treatisescicero00ciceuoft",
     "rights": "public domain"
    }
   ],
   "sources": [
    {
     "citation": "Cicero, De re publica 3.3, Latin, The Latin Library",
     "url": "https://www.thelatinlibrary.com/cicero/repub3.shtml"
    },
    {
     "citation": "The Treatises of M. T. Cicero ... On the Republic, trans. C. D. Yonge (London: Bohn, 1853), p. 348-349",
     "url": "https://archive.org/details/treatisescicero00ciceuoft"
    }
   ],
   "notes": "Yonge gives the passage as a paragraph of the surviving fragments; the sentence it begins in, about reason aiding the slowness of walkers by vehicles, is cut off by the lacuna. The English \"elementary and confused sounds of unpolished expression\" renders inconditis vocibus inchoatum quiddam et confusum sonantes; the Latin verb incidit has et distinxit in partis is \"cut these sounds and divided them into parts\". Keyes 1928 (Loeb) was not used."
  },
  {
   "id": "vedic",
   "people": "Vedic India",
   "region": "Kuru-Pañcāla country, northern India",
   "latitude": 29.5,
   "longitude": 77.5,
   "layers": "in stages",
   "scheme": "Indra divides undivided speech.",
   "map_story": "Speech, who is a goddess, at first speaks without parts. The gods cannot use her as she is, and they go to Indra and ask him to divide her for them. He agrees. He steps into the middle of speech and separates it. “Speech aforetime spoke without discrimination”, the text says, and because Indra went into the middle of it, it is now spoken distinctly. The verb used for what he does is the root of the Sanskrit word for grammar. Speech has two ages here: whole, then jointed.",
   "map_source": "Taittirīya Saṃhitā 6.4.7.3; Keith 1914, p. 534",
   "text_date": "c. 1000-800 BCE (Taittiriya Samhita, Black Yajurveda)",
   "recorded": "Vedic prose of the Taittiriya school of the Black Yajurveda, composed orally in the Kuru-Pancala region of northern India; the passage sits in the explanation (brahmana-style) of the Soma cups drawn for Indra and Vayu in the Soma sacrifice.",
   "original_language": "Vedic Sanskrit",
   "excerpts": [
    {
     "label": "Speech spoke without discrimination aforetime; the gods ask Indra to discriminate it; he enters the middle of it, and so speech is now spoken distinctly",
     "citation": "Taittiriya Samhita 6.4.7.3 (Keith 1914, vol. 2, p. 534)",
     "original": "वाग् वै पराच्य् अव्याकृतावदत् ते देवा इन्द्रम् अब्रुवन् । इमां नो वाचं व्याकुर्व् इति सो ऽब्रवीत् । वरं वृणै मह्यं चैवैष वायवे च सह गृह्याता इति तस्माद् ऐन्द्रवायवः सह गृह्यते ताम् इन्द्रो मध्यतो ऽवक्रम्य व्याकरोत् तस्माद् इयं व्याकृता वाग् उद्यते तस्मात् सकृद् इन्द्राय मध्यतो गृह्यते द्विर् वायवे द्वौ हि स वराव् अवृणीत",
     "original_source": "Taittiriya Samhita 6.4.7.3, in the unaccented, word-split (visvara) edition on Sanskrit Wikisource, https://sa.wikisource.org/wiki/तैत्तिरीयसंहिता(विस्वरः)/काण्डम्_६/प्रपाठकः_४ (CC-BY-SA); GRETIL has no converted TS text (it is TITUS-restricted)",
     "translation": "Speech aforetime spoke without discrimination; the gods said to Indra, ‘Do thou discriminate this speech for us’; he replied, ‘Let me choose a boon; let this (cup) be drawn for me and for Vayu together.’ Therefore the cup is drawn together for Indra and Vayu. Indra approaching it in the midst discriminated it; therefore is speech spoken distinctly. Therefore is it drawn once, in the middle, for Indra, and twice for Vayu, for he chose two boons.",
     "translator": "Arthur Berriedale Keith, The Veda of the Black Yajus School entitled Taittiriya Sanhita, Harvard Oriental Series 18-19 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1914), vol. 2; footnote numbers removed and the line-end hyphens joined",
     "url": "https://archive.org/details/vedaofblackyajus02keit",
     "rights": "public domain (Keith 1914); Sanskrit text CC-BY-SA (Sanskrit Wikisource)"
    }
   ],
   "sources": [
    {
     "citation": "Keith, Taittiriya Sanhita, HOS 19 (1914), p. 534 (TS 6.4.7.3), archive.org",
     "url": "https://archive.org/details/vedaofblackyajus02keit"
    },
    {
     "citation": "Taittiriya Samhita 6.4, Sanskrit Wikisource (visvara edition)",
     "url": "https://sa.wikisource.org/wiki/तैत्तिरीयसंहिता(विस्वरः)/काण्डम्_६/प्रपाठकः_४"
    }
   ],
   "notes": "The Sanskrit is vāg vai parācy avyākṛtāvadat, 'Speech aforetime spoke undifferentiated (avyākṛtā)', and the gods ask Indra to vyā-kṛ, 'to make distinct'; vyākaraṇa, 'grammar', comes from the same verb. Keith's footnote says parācī may mean 'turned away' but that the sense 'formerly' seems legitimate. The passage is one paragraph inside the stories of the Soma cups (the Aditi and Vāyu paragraphs come just before it). Wikisource prints the text without accents and with sandhi opened up, so the forms differ from the Vedic accented text."
  },
  {
   "id": "plato-protagoras",
   "people": "Greek (Plato)",
   "region": "Athens, Greece",
   "latitude": 37.98,
   "longitude": 23.73,
   "layers": "in stages",
   "scheme": "Voice jointed into names.",
   "map_story": "In the story Protagoras tells, man is made “naked, unshod, unbedded, unarmed”, and Prometheus steals fire and skill in the arts from Hephaestus and Athena and gives them to him. With that share of the divine, man alone of all creatures worships the gods. Then he turns the art on his own voice. In Lamb's translation, “he soon was enabled by his skill to articulate speech and words”. The Greek verb means to give a thing joints. After speech he invents dwellings, clothes, sandals, beds and the foods of the earth. Speech comes after fire and before everything else, and it is made by jointing a voice that was there already.",
   "map_source": "Plato, Protagoras 322a",
   "text_date": "c. 380 BCE (dramatic date c. 433 BCE)",
   "recorded": "Composed by Plato at Athens, Greece; the myth is put in the mouth of the sophist Protagoras of Abdera, addressing Socrates, Hippocrates and others at the house of Callias.",
   "original_language": "Ancient Greek (Attic)",
   "excerpts": [
    {
     "label": "Protagoras' myth: Epimetheus and Prometheus; fire and the arts given to man; man articulates speech and names, then builds houses, clothes and sandals",
     "citation": "Protagoras 320c-323a (Stephanus; the speech and names are at 322a)",
     "original": "ἀλλʼ, ὦ Σώκρατες, ἔφη, οὐ φθονήσω· ἀλλὰ πότερον ὑμῖν, ὡς πρεσβύτερος νεωτέροις, μῦθον λέγων ἐπιδείξω ἢ λόγῳ διεξελθών; πολλοὶ οὖν αὐτῷ ὑπέλαβον τῶν παρακαθημένων ὁποτέρως βούλοιτο οὕτως διεξιέναι. δοκεῖ τοίνυν μοι, ἔφη, χαριέστερον εἶναι μῦθον ὑμῖν λέγειν. ἦν γάρ ποτε χρόνος ὅτε θεοὶ μὲν ἦσαν, θνητὰ δὲ γένη οὐκ ἦν. ἐπειδὴ δὲ καὶ τούτοις χρόνος ἦλθεν εἱμαρμένος γενέσεως, τυποῦσιν αὐτὰ θεοὶ γῆς ἔνδον ἐκ γῆς καὶ πυρὸς μείξαντες καὶ τῶν ὅσα πυρὶ καὶ γῇ κεράννυται. ἐπειδὴ δʼ ἄγειν αὐτὰ πρὸς φῶς ἔμελλον, προσέταξαν Προμηθεῖ καὶ Ἐπιμηθεῖ κοσμῆσαί τε καὶ νεῖμαι δυνάμεις ἑκάστοις ὡς πρέπει. Προμηθέα δὲ παραιτεῖται Ἐπιμηθεὺς αὐτὸς νεῖμαι, νείμαντος δέ μου, ἔφη, ἐπίσκεψαι· καὶ οὕτω πείσας νέμει. νέμων δὲ τοῖς μὲν ἰσχὺν ἄνευ τάχους προσῆπτεν, τοὺς δʼ ἀσθενεστέρους τάχει ἐκόσμει· τοὺς δὲ ὥπλιζε, τοῖς δʼ ἄοπλον διδοὺς φύσιν ἄλλην τινʼ αὐτοῖς ἐμηχανᾶτο δύναμιν εἰς σωτηρίαν. ΣΩ. ἃ μὲν γὰρ αὐτῶν σμικρότητι ἤμπισχεν, πτηνὸν φυγὴν ἢ κατάγειον οἴκησιν ἔνεμεν· ἃ δὲ ηὖξε μεγέθει, τῷδε αὐτῷ αὐτὰ ἔσῳζεν· καὶ τἆλλα οὕτως ἐπανισῶν ἔνεμεν. ταῦτα δὲ ἐμηχανᾶτο εὐλάβειαν ἔχων μή τι γένος ἀϊστωθείη· ἐπειδὴ δὲ αὐτοῖς ἀλληλοφθοριῶν διαφυγὰς ἐπήρκεσε, πρὸς τὰς ἐκ Διὸς ὥρας εὐμάρειαν ἐμηχανᾶτο ἀμφιεννὺς αὐτὰ πυκναῖς τε θριξὶν καὶ στερεοῖς δέρμασιν, ἱκανοῖς μὲν ἀμῦναι χειμῶνα, δυνατοῖς δὲ καὶ καύματα, καὶ εἰς εὐνὰς ἰοῦσιν ὅπως ὑπάρχοι τὰ αὐτὰ ταῦτα στρωμνὴ οἰκεία τε καὶ αὐτοφυὴς ἑκάστῳ· καὶ ὑποδῶν τὰ μὲν ὁπλαῖς, τὰ δὲ θριξὶν καὶ δέρμασιν στερεοῖς καὶ ἀναίμοις. τοὐντεῦθεν τροφὰς ἄλλοις ἄλλας ἐξεπόριζεν, τοῖς μὲν ἐκ γῆς βοτάνην, ἄλλοις δὲ δένδρων καρπούς, τοῖς δὲ ῥίζας· ἔστι δʼ οἷς ἔδωκεν εἶναι τροφὴν ζῴων ἄλλων βοράν· καὶ τοῖς μὲν ὀλιγογονίαν προσῆψε, τοῖς δʼ ἀναλισκομένοις ὑπὸ τούτων πολυγονίαν, σωτηρίαν τῷ γένει πορίζων. ἅτε δὴ οὖν οὐ πάνυ τι σοφὸς ὢν ὁ Ἐπιμηθεὺς ἔλαθεν αὑτὸν καταναλώσας τὰς δυνάμεις εἰς τὰ ἄλογα· λοιπὸν δὴ ἀκόσμητον ἔτι αὐτῷ ἦν τὸ ἀνθρώπων γένος, καὶ ἠπόρει ὅτι χρήσαιτο. ἀποροῦντι δὲ αὐτῷ ἔρχεται Προμηθεὺς ἐπισκεψόμενος τὴν νομήν, καὶ ὁρᾷ τὰ μὲν ἄλλα ζῷα ἐμμελῶς πάντων ἔχοντα, τὸν δὲ ἄνθρωπον γυμνόν τε καὶ ἀνυπόδητον καὶ ἄστρωτον καὶ ἄοπλον· ἤδη δὲ καὶ ἡ εἱμαρμένη ἡμέρα παρῆν, ἐν ᾗ ἔδει καὶ ἄνθρωπον ἐξιέναι ἐκ γῆς εἰς φῶς. ἀπορίᾳ οὖν σχόμενος ὁ Προμηθεὺς ἥντινα σωτηρίαν τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ εὕροι, κλέπτει Ἡφαίστου καὶ Ἀθηνᾶς τὴν ἔντεχνον σοφίαν σὺν πυρί—ἀμήχανον γὰρ ἦν ἄνευ πυρὸς αὐτὴν κτητήν τῳ ἢ χρησίμην γενέσθαι—καὶ οὕτω δὴ δωρεῖται ἀνθρώπῳ. τὴν μὲν οὖν περὶ τὸν βίον σοφίαν ἄνθρωπος ταύτῃ ἔσχεν, τὴν δὲ πολιτικὴν οὐκ εἶχεν· ἦν γὰρ παρὰ τῷ Διί. τῷ δὲ Προμηθεῖ εἰς μὲν τὴν ἀκρόπολιν τὴν τοῦ Διὸς οἴκησιν οὐκέτι ἐνεχώρει εἰσελθεῖν—πρὸς δὲ καὶ αἱ Διὸς φυλακαὶ φοβεραὶ ἦσαν—εἰς δὲ τὸ τῆς Ἀθηνᾶς καὶ Ἡφαίστου οἴκημα τὸ κοινόν, ἐν ᾧ ἐφιλοτεχνείτην, λαθὼν εἰσέρχεται, καὶ κλέψας τήν τε ἔμπυρον τέχνην τὴν τοῦ Ἡφαίστου καὶ τὴν ἄλλην τὴν τῆς Ἀθηνᾶς δίδωσιν ἀνθρώπῳ, καὶ ἐκ τούτου εὐπορία μὲν ἀνθρώπῳ τοῦ βίου γίγνεται, Προμηθέα δὲ διʼ Ἐπιμηθέα ὕστερον, ᾗπερ λέγεται, κλοπῆς δίκη μετῆλθεν. ΣΩ. ἐπειδὴ δὲ ὁ ἄνθρωπος θείας μετέσχε μοίρας, πρῶτον μὲν διὰ τὴν τοῦ θεοῦ συγγένειαν ζῴων μόνον θεοὺς ἐνόμισεν, καὶ ἐπεχείρει βωμούς τε ἱδρύεσθαι καὶ ἀγάλματα θεῶν· ἔπειτα φωνὴν καὶ ὀνόματα ταχὺ διηρθρώσατο τῇ τέχνῃ, καὶ οἰκήσεις καὶ ἐσθῆτας καὶ ὑποδέσεις καὶ στρωμνὰς καὶ τὰς ἐκ γῆς τροφὰς ηὕρετο. οὕτω δὴ παρεσκευασμένοι κατʼ ἀρχὰς ἄνθρωποι ᾤκουν σποράδην, πόλεις δὲ οὐκ ἦσαν· ἀπώλλυντο οὖν ὑπὸ τῶν θηρίων διὰ τὸ πανταχῇ αὐτῶν ἀσθενέστεροι εἶναι, καὶ ἡ δημιουργικὴ τέχνη αὐτοῖς πρὸς μὲν τροφὴν ἱκανὴ βοηθὸς ἦν, πρὸς δὲ τὸν τῶν θηρίων πόλεμον ἐνδεής —πολιτικὴν γὰρ τέχνην οὔπω εἶχον, ἧς μέρος πολεμική— ἐζήτουν δὴ ἁθροίζεσθαι καὶ σῴζεσθαι κτίζοντες πόλεις· ὅτʼ οὖν ἁθροισθεῖεν, ἠδίκουν ἀλλήλους ἅτε οὐκ ἔχοντες τὴν πολιτικὴν τέχνην, ὥστε πάλιν σκεδαννύμενοι διεφθείροντο. Ζεὺς οὖν δείσας περὶ τῷ γένει ἡμῶν μὴ ἀπόλοιτο πᾶν, Ἑρμῆν πέμπει ἄγοντα εἰς ἀνθρώπους αἰδῶ τε καὶ δίκην, ἵνʼ εἶεν πόλεων κόσμοι τε καὶ δεσμοὶ φιλίας συναγωγοί. ἐρωτᾷ οὖν Ἑρμῆς Δία τίνα οὖν τρόπον δοίη δίκην καὶ αἰδῶ ἀνθρώποις· πότερον ὡς αἱ τέχναι νενέμηνται, οὕτω καὶ ταύτας νείμω; νενέμηνται δὲ ὧδε· εἷς ἔχων ἰατρικὴν πολλοῖς ἱκανὸς ἰδιώταις, καὶ οἱ ἄλλοι δημιουργοί· καὶ δίκην δὴ καὶ αἰδῶ οὕτω θῶ ἐν τοῖς ἀνθρώποις, ἢ ἐπὶ πάντας νείμω; ἐπὶ πάντας, ἔφη ὁ Ζεύς, καὶ πάντες μετεχόντων· οὐ γὰρ ἂν γένοιντο πόλεις, εἰ ὀλίγοι αὐτῶν μετέχοιεν ὥσπερ ἄλλων τεχνῶν· καὶ νόμον γε θὲς παρʼ ἐμοῦ τὸν μὴ δυνάμενον αἰδοῦς καὶ δίκης μετέχειν κτείνειν ὡς νόσον πόλεως. οὕτω δή, ὦ Σώκρατες, καὶ διὰ ταῦτα οἵ τε ἄλλοι καὶ Ἀθηναῖοι, ὅταν μὲν περὶ ἀρετῆς τεκτονικῆς ᾖ λόγος ἢ ἄλλης τινὸς δημιουργικῆς, ὀλίγοις οἴονται μετεῖναι συμβουλῆς, καὶ ἐάν τις ἐκτὸς ὢν τῶν ὀλίγων συμβουλεύῃ, οὐκ ἀνέχονται, ὡς σὺ φῄς—εἰκότως, ὡς ἐγώ φημι—",
     "original_source": "Perseus, ed. John Burnet, 1903, via PerseusDL/canonical-greekLit tlg0059.tlg022.perseus-grc2",
     "translation": "No, Socrates, I will not grudge it you; but shall I, as an old man speaking to his juniors, put my demonstration in the form of a fable, or of a regular exposition? Many of the company sitting by him instantly bade him treat his subject whichever way he pleased. Well then, he said, I fancy the more agreeable way is for me to tell you a fable. There was once a time when there were gods, but no mortal creatures. And when to these also came their destined time to be created, the gods moulded their forms within the earth, of a mixture made of earth and fire and all substances that are compounded with fire and earth. When they were about to bring these creatures to light, they charged Prometheus and Epimetheus to deal to each the equipment of his proper faculty. Epimetheus besought Prometheus that he might do the dealing himself; And when I have dealt, he said, you shall examine. Having thus persuaded him he dealt; and in dealing he attached strength without speed; to some, while the weaker he equipped with speed; and some he armed, while devising for others, along with an unarmed condition, some different faculty for preservation. Soc. To those which he invested with smallness he dealt a winged escape or an underground habitation; those which he increased in largeness he preserved by this very means; and he dealt all the other properties on this plan of compensation. In contriving all this he was taking precaution that no kind should be extinguished; and when he had equipped them with avoidances of mutual destruction, he devised a provision against the seasons ordained by Heaven, in clothing them about with thick-set hair and solid hides, sufficient to ward off winter yet able to shield them also from the heats, and so that on going to their lairs they might find in these same things a bedding of their own that was native to each; and some he shod with hoofs, others with claws and solid, bloodless hides. Then he proceeded to furnish each of them with its proper food, some with pasture of the earth, others with fruits of trees, and others again with roots; and to a certain number for food he gave other creatures to devour: to some he attached a paucity in breeding, and to others, which were being consumed by these, a plenteous brood, and so procured survival of their kind. Now Epimetheus, being not so wise as he might be, heedlessly squandered his stock of properties on the brutes; he still had left unequipped the race of men, and was at a loss what to do with it. As he was casting about, Prometheus arrived to examine his distribution, and saw that whereas the other creatures were fully and suitably provided, man was naked, unshod, unbedded, unarmed; and already the destined day was come, whereon man like the rest should emerge from earth to light. Then Prometheus, in his perplexity as to what preservation he could devise for man, stole from Hephaestus and Athena wisdom in the arts together with fire—since by no means without fire could it be acquired or helpfully used by any—and he handed it there and then as a gift to man. Now although man acquired in this way the wisdom of daily life, civic wisdom he had not, since this was in the possession of Zeus; Prometheus could not make so free as to enter the citadel which is the dwelling-place of Zeus, and moreover the guards of Zeus were terrible: but he entered unobserved the building shared by Athena and Hephaestus for the pursuit of their arts, and stealing Hephaestus’s fiery art and all Athena’s also he gave them to man, and hence it is that man gets facility for his livelihood, but Prometheus, through Epimetheus’ fault, later on (the story goes) stood his trial for theft. Soc. And now that man was partaker of a divine portion, he, in the first place, by his nearness of kin to deity, was the only creature that worshipped gods, and set himself to establish altars and holy images; and secondly, he soon was enabled by his skill to articulate speech and words, and to invent dwellings, clothes, sandals, beds, and the foods that are of the earth. Thus far provided, men dwelt separately in the beginning, and cities there were none; so that they were being destroyed by the wild beasts, since these were in all ways stronger than they; and although their skill in handiwork was a sufficient aid in respect of food, in their warfare with the beasts it was defective; for as yet they had no civic art, which includes the art of war. So they sought to band themselves together and secure their lives by founding cities. Now as often as they were banded together they did wrong to one another through the lack of civic art, and thus they began to be scattered again and to perish. So Zeus, fearing that our race was in danger of utter destruction, sent Hermes to bring respect and right among men, to the end that there should be regulation of cities and friendly ties to draw them together. Then Hermes asked Zeus in what manner then was he to give men right and respect: Am I to deal them out as the arts have been dealt? That dealing was done in such wise that one man possessing medical art is able to treat many ordinary men, and so with the other craftsmen. Am I to place among men right and respect in this way also, or deal them out to all? To all, replied Zeus; let all have their share: for cities cannot be formed if only a few have a share of these as of other arts. And make thereto a law of my ordaining, that he who cannot partake of respect and right shall die the death as a public pest. Hence it comes about, Socrates, that people in cities, and especially in Athens, consider it the concern of a few to advise on cases of artistic excellence or good craftsmanship, and if anyone outside the few gives advice they disallow it, as you say, and not without reason, as I think:",
     "translator": "W. R. M. Lamb, Loeb Classical Library (London: Heinemann; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1924)",
     "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0178:text=Prot.:section=322a",
     "rights": "public domain (Lamb 1924; Burnet 1903)"
    }
   ],
   "sources": [
    {
     "citation": "Plato, Protagoras 320c-322d, Greek (Burnet) and English (Lamb), Perseus",
     "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0178:text=Prot.:section=322a"
    }
   ],
   "notes": "Lamb renders the verb at 322a, diarthroun, as 'articulate'; the Greek means to give a thing joints (arthra). The excerpt runs from the opening of the myth through Zeus sending Hermes with shame and justice (322c-d) to Protagoras' application to the Athenian assembly (322e), where the telling's speech passage (322a) sits; the speech continues to 328d."
  },
  {
   "id": "pohnpei",
   "people": "Pohnpeians",
   "region": "Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia",
   "latitude": 6.88,
   "longitude": 158.22,
   "layers": "in stages",
   "scheme": "Few words, then more.",
   "map_story": "Luelen Bernart, writing the history of his island, divides it into three periods and measures them by how much people could say. “Now in the first period they had few words and their deeds were small.” The first people go naked, do no great work and do not know good from bad. In the second period they have a few more words. The third has the most, because by then the differences among the people have increased. One islander explained the first period by saying that words come from work, so people who do little have little to say.",
   "map_source": "The Book of Luelen 1977, pp. 25–26, 77",
   "text_date": "written 1934-1946; English edition 1977",
   "recorded": "Luelen Bernart, a Pohnpeian chronicler, wrote Pohnpeian history in three named periods; The Book of Luelen was translated by J. L. Fischer, S. H. Riesenberg and M. G. Whiting (1977). Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia.",
   "original_language": "Pohnpeian (English edition read)",
   "summary_long": "Luelen names three periods of Pohnpeian history: the first (Jaunalan), the second (Teleur, the Saudeleur dynasty) and the third (Matolenim, the rule of Isokelekel and the Nahnmwarki, which runs to the present). The direction is ascent: the people of this age are better than those of olden times. In the first period the people had few words, their deeds were small, they were naked and crawled under leaves like a pig that has just given birth, and they did not know good and bad because there were no punishments. In the second period they had a few more words and food was scarce but better than in the beginning; in the third, words were more numerous still because the differences among the people increased. An informant's gloss in the editors' Annotations says people had few words because words come from work. Luelen was a Protestant convert, and 'good and bad' may echo Genesis. Page numbers are those of the 1977 English edition; the Pohnpeian original was not read.",
   "excerpts": [
    {
     "label": "Three periods and their words",
     "citation": "Book of Luelen, ch. 49.5, p. 77",
     "original": "",
     "original_source": "English edition only",
     "translation": "Now in the first period they had few words and their deeds were small.",
     "translator": "Fischer, Riesenberg and Whiting 1977",
     "url": "https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/114853",
     "rights": "in copyright, short quotation"
    },
    {
     "label": "The first people",
     "citation": "Book of Luelen, ch. 20.1-2, pp. 25-26",
     "original": "",
     "original_source": "English edition only",
     "translation": "They had few words. Their words were not too numerous.",
     "translator": "Fischer, Riesenberg and Whiting 1977",
     "url": "https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/114853",
     "rights": "in copyright, short quotation"
    }
   ],
   "sources": [
    {
     "citation": "The Book of Luelen, tr. Fischer, Riesenberg, Whiting (1977), vol. 1 and Annotations",
     "url": "https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/114853"
    }
   ],
   "notes": "Reused from the Ages lane file (east-asia-pacific.json, 'pohnpei'), narrowed to the speech passages; summary-only apart from two short quotes (in copyright)."
  },
  {
   "id": "yi-mile-clay",
   "people": "Yi",
   "region": "Mile and Shilin, Yunnan, China",
   "latitude": 24.35,
   "longitude": 103.35,
   "layers": "mute, taught, in stages",
   "scheme": "Cry, then speech, then song.",
   "map_story": "People are made of clay. The sun warms them and they move. Breath is blown into them and they breathe. But they still cannot make a sound, and cannot speak. Two gods, Tuoluo and Shaluo, stand in front of them and shout, and make them shout back until a cry comes out. Then the gods give the lesson: “Learn from us: what we say, you say.” The clay people repeat what they hear, and so they learn to speak. After speech the gods teach them to sing. Voice arrives in three steps, and each one is copied from a teacher.",
   "map_source": "zqymyth id 465 (创世记)",
   "text_date": "published 20th century (Yi creation epic 创世记)",
   "recorded": "Yi of Mile, Luxi and Shilin, Yunnan, China; text 创世记 in the zqymyth database.",
   "original_language": "Chinese (rendering of Yi oral epic)",
   "summary_long": "People are made of clay. The sun warms them and they move; breath is blown into them and they breathe. Even so they still make no sound and cannot speak. Two gods, Tuoluo and Shaluo, stand before them and shout loudly, and then make the clay people shout back, until a cry comes out of them. The gods then give the lesson itself: learn from us, what we say you say. The clay people repeat what they hear, and so they learn to speak. After speech the gods teach them to sing. The text therefore has speech arrive in three stages, each copied from a teacher: first a sounding cry, then words, then song. It is the clearest staging of speech in the Yi corpus, and it is the opposite of the bamboo-shock Yi texts. Here nothing frightens the people into speaking; two named gods give a lesson by imitation, as a parent teaches a child. The sequence of body, breath, cry, speech and song is also the order in which a human infant acquires voice, and the text places the gods in the role of parents. A sibling Axi text (id 473) has speech come when a great wind blows into the clay people's mouths and their bellies rumble 'gua gua gua'.",
   "excerpts": [
    {
     "label": "Clay people learn to cry, speak and sing",
     "citation": "zqymyth id 465",
     "original": "人还不会出声，还不会说话",
     "original_source": "藏羌彝走廊多民族创世神话数据库 (zqymyth.com), id 465",
     "translation": "People still could not make a sound, could not speak.",
     "translator": "compiler's English",
     "url": "http://www.zqymyth.com/nd.jsp?id=465&fromMid=3&groupId=59",
     "rights": "in copyright, short quotation"
    },
    {
     "label": "Clay people learn to cry, speak and sing",
     "citation": "zqymyth id 465",
     "original": "跟着我们学吧，我们说什么,你们就说什么",
     "original_source": "藏羌彝走廊多民族创世神话数据库 (zqymyth.com), id 465",
     "translation": "Learn from us: what we say, you say.",
     "translator": "compiler's English",
     "url": "http://www.zqymyth.com/nd.jsp?id=465&fromMid=3&groupId=59",
     "rights": "in copyright, short quotation"
    }
   ],
   "sources": [
    {
     "citation": "藏羌彝走廊多民族创世神话数据库, id 465 (创世记)",
     "url": "http://www.zqymyth.com/nd.jsp?id=465&fromMid=3&groupId=59"
    }
   ],
   "notes": "zqymyth.com was unreachable from Chrome and curl on 2026-11-14 (error page), so quotes and summary come from the asia-pacific packet, whose Chinese quotes were read in-page on the earlier pass; Chinese quotes are trimmed to 25 characters or fewer."
  },
  {
   "id": "hani",
   "people": "Hani",
   "region": "Yuanyang, Honghe, Yunnan, China",
   "latitude": 23.2,
   "longitude": 102.8,
   "layers": "mute, in stages",
   "scheme": "From ghost-head to opened mind.",
   "map_story": "The genealogy of gods and men runs through a ladder of ancestors. An early one is a monster covered in long hair, with a ghost's head. He cannot speak and only stares about with wide eyes, and his kind huddle together in heaps. After him come ancestors who are alive as if dead, ones who cannot stand, and one with ten heads who cannot remember until nine are cut off. Nobody knows who their mother is. Then comes the woman Ninbeng. “Yoni'e's ears were deaf; Ninbeng could hear. Yoni'e's body was blocked; Ninbeng was opened.” Her name means opened, and so clever.",
   "map_source": "zqymyth id 899 (神和人的家谱)",
   "text_date": "recorded 20th century by 史军超 from narrator 卢朝贵",
   "recorded": "Hani of Yuanyang, Honghe, Yunnan, China; 神和人的家谱 (genealogy of gods and men), narrator 卢朝贵, recorder 史军超.",
   "original_language": "Chinese (rendering of Hani oral genealogy)",
   "summary_long": "The genealogy of gods and men runs through a ladder of ancestors. An early one is a monster covered in long hair, with a ghost's head instead of a man's. He cannot speak and only stares around with wide eyes, and his kind huddle together in heaps. After him come ancestors who are alive as if dead, ones who cannot stand, and Aqpei Tuma, who has ten heads and cannot remember anything until nine of them are cut off. After the cave-dwellers comes the woman Ninbeng. Her ancestor Yoni'e was deaf and blocked, but Ninbeng could hear and was opened. Her name means opened, and hence clever. After her comes Shimiwu, who can tell who the mother is, and then pairing and recognised fathers follow. The text lets us see speech and mind arrive by stages within a single genealogy, with hearing and the opening of the body (the ear, the passage) as the decisive step, and with the knowledge of motherhood and then fatherhood following later. There is no bamboo and no teacher; the change comes in the female ancestor, which the narrator explains as the reason for her name. It is the richest stage-by-stage account of the coming of mind and speech in the Southwest China corpus.",
   "excerpts": [
    {
     "label": "From ghost-head to the opened mind",
     "citation": "zqymyth id 899",
     "original": "他不会说话，只会睁大两只眼睛东张西望",
     "original_source": "藏羌彝走廊多民族创世神话数据库 (zqymyth.com), id 899",
     "translation": "he could not speak, only stared about with wide eyes",
     "translator": "compiler's English",
     "url": "http://www.zqymyth.com/nd.jsp?id=899&fromMid=3&groupId=59",
     "rights": "in copyright, short quotation"
    },
    {
     "label": "From ghost-head to the opened mind",
     "citation": "zqymyth id 899",
     "original": "约涅的耳朵是聋的，涅本就听见了",
     "original_source": "藏羌彝走廊多民族创世神话数据库 (zqymyth.com), id 899",
     "translation": "Yoni'e's ears were deaf; Ninbeng could hear.",
     "translator": "compiler's English",
     "url": "http://www.zqymyth.com/nd.jsp?id=899&fromMid=3&groupId=59",
     "rights": "in copyright, short quotation"
    },
    {
     "label": "From ghost-head to the opened mind",
     "citation": "zqymyth id 899",
     "original": "阿妈是哪个认不清",
     "original_source": "藏羌彝走廊多民族创世神话数据库 (zqymyth.com), id 899",
     "translation": "they could not tell who their mother was",
     "translator": "compiler's English",
     "url": "http://www.zqymyth.com/nd.jsp?id=899&fromMid=3&groupId=59",
     "rights": "in copyright, short quotation"
    }
   ],
   "sources": [
    {
     "citation": "藏羌彝走廊多民族创世神话数据库, id 899 (神和人的家谱)",
     "url": "http://www.zqymyth.com/nd.jsp?id=899&fromMid=3&groupId=59"
    }
   ],
   "notes": "zqymyth.com was unreachable from Chrome and curl on 2026-11-14 (error page), so quotes and summary come from the asia-pacific packet, whose Chinese quotes were read in-page on the earlier pass; Chinese quotes are trimmed to 25 characters or fewer."
  },
  {
   "id": "horace",
   "people": "Roman (Horace)",
   "region": "Rome, Italy",
   "latitude": 41.9,
   "longitude": 12.5,
   "layers": "mute, in stages",
   "scheme": "A dumb and filthy herd.",
   "map_story": "Horace describes the first living things to crawl out of the new earth: “mutum et turpe pecus”, a dumb and filthy herd. They fight over acorns and lairs, first with nails and fists, then with clubs, then with the weapons experience forges for them. They snatch at sex like beasts, and the stronger man cuts down his rival like a bull in the herd, for “before Helen the cunt was the foulest cause of war”. This goes on until they find words and names to mark their cries and feelings. Then they leave off war, wall towns, and make laws against the thief, the robber and the adulterer.",
   "map_source": "Horace, Satires 1.3.99–110",
   "text_date": "c. 35 BCE",
   "recorded": "Composed by Quintus Horatius Flaccus at Rome, Italy; Satires Book 1, satire 3, on why friends should forgive each other small faults, taking an Epicurean account of how justice began.",
   "original_language": "Latin (hexameter)",
   "excerpts": [
    {
     "label": "Animals crawl from the new earth, a mute and filthy herd; they fight, then find words and names; wars, towns, laws",
     "citation": "Satires 1.3.99-112",
     "original": "cum prorepserunt primis animalia terris,\nmutum et turpe pecus, glandem atque cubilia propter\nunguibus et pugnis, dein fustibus atque ita porro\npugnabant armis, quae post fabricaverat usus,\ndonec verba, quibus voces sensusque notarent,\nnominaque invenere; dehinc absistere bello,\noppida coeperunt munire et ponere leges,\nne quis fur esset neu latro neu quis adulter.\nnam fuit ante Helenam cunnus taeterrima belli\ncausa, sed ignotis perierunt mortibus illi,\nquos Venerem incertam rapientis more ferarum\nviribus editior caedebat ut in grege taurus.\niura inventa metu iniusti fateare necesse est,\ntempora si fastosque velis evolvere mundi.",
     "original_source": "Perseus (Smart/Whetham text of the Latin), via PerseusDL/canonical-latinLit phi0893.phi004.perseus-lat2",
     "translation": "When living things crawled out on the first-made earth, a mute and filthy herd, they fought for acorns and lairs with nails and fists, then with clubs, and so on with weapons that need had later forged, until they found words and names with which to mark their cries and feelings. From then on they began to give up war, to wall towns and lay down laws, that no one should be a thief or a robber or an adulterer. For before Helen a cunt was the foulest cause of war; but those men died deaths no one remembers, whom, as they snatched at sex wherever they found it, in the manner of beasts, the stronger cut down, as the bull does in the herd. You must admit that justice was invented from fear of injustice, if you will unroll the times and annals of the world.",
     "translator": "literal translation made for this dataset from the Latin",
     "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0062:book=1:poem=3",
     "rights": "Latin public domain; translation made for this dataset"
    }
   ],
   "sources": [
    {
     "citation": "Horace, Satires 1.3, Latin, Perseus",
     "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0062:book=1:poem=3"
    },
    {
     "citation": "Smart / Buckley, The Works of Horace (1863), via Perseus",
     "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0063:book=1:poem=3"
    },
    {
     "citation": "H. R. Fairclough, Satires, Epistles and Ars Poetica (Loeb, 1926), pp. 40-41, archive.org",
     "url": "https://archive.org/details/satiresepistlesa00horauoft"
    }
   ],
   "notes": "Literal translation: cunnus is 'cunt'. The older public-domain English bowdlerizes the line (Smart 1863 'a woman', Fairclough 1926 'a wench'), so it is not used. Fairclough notes that verba ... nomina may also mean 'verbs and nouns', the two main parts of speech. Horace follows Lucretius 5.1028-1090."
  },
  {
   "id": "diodorus",
   "people": "Greek (Diodorus Siculus)",
   "region": "Agyrium, Sicily, Italy",
   "latitude": 37.65,
   "longitude": 14.52,
   "layers": "mute, in stages",
   "scheme": "Confused voices, articulated slowly.",
   "map_story": "Diodorus opens his history of the world with the first-born humans. They live a disordered and beast-like life, wandering out to pasture one by one. Wild animals attack them, and fear teaches them to band together. Their voice is at first unintelligible and confused. In his words, “little by little they articulated words”, and by agreeing on a sign for each thing they make themselves understood to one another. Bands like this form all over the inhabited world, and each one settles its own signs by chance, which is why mankind does not have one language.",
   "map_source": "Diodorus Siculus 1.8.1–4",
   "text_date": "c. 60-30 BCE",
   "recorded": "Composed by Diodorus of Agyrium, Sicily, in Greek, as the opening account of the first men in Book 1 of the Library of History (Bibliotheke); he writes in Rome and Egypt and is generally thought to follow Hecataeus of Abdera and Democritean material.",
   "original_language": "Ancient Greek (Koine)",
   "excerpts": [
    {
     "label": "The first-born men live like beasts, band together from fear, and slowly articulate their unintelligible voice into words and symbols",
     "citation": "Library of History 1.8.1-4",
     "original": "Καὶ περὶ μὲν τῆς πρώτης τῶν ὅλων γενέσεως τοιαῦτα παρειλήφαμεν, τοὺς δὲ ἐξ ἀρχῆς γεννηθέντας τῶν ἀνθρώπων φασὶν ἐν ἀτάκτῳ καὶ θηριώδει βίῳ καθεστῶτας σποράδην ἐπὶ τὰς νομὰς ἐξιέναι, καὶ προσφέρεσθαι τῆς τε βοτάνης τὴν προσηνεστάτην καὶ τοὺς αὐτομάτους ἀπὸ τῶν δένδρων καρπούς, καὶ πολεμουμένους μὲν ὑπὸ τῶν θηρίων ἀλλήλοις δὲ βοηθεῖν ὑπὸ τοῦ συμφέροντος διδασκομένους, ἀθροιζομένους δὲ διὰ τὸν φόβον ἐπιγινώσκειν ἐκ τοῦ κατὰ μικρὸν τοὺς ἀλλήλων τύπους. τῆς φωνῆς δʼ ἀσήμου καὶ συγκεχυμένης οὔσης ἐκ τοῦ κατʼ ὀλίγον διαρθροῦν τὰς λέξεις, καὶ πρὸς ἀλλήλους τιθέντας σύμβολα περὶ ἑκάστου τῶν ὑποκειμένων γνώριμον σφίσιν αὐτοῖς ποιῆσαι τὴν περὶ ἁπάντων ἑρμηνείαν. τοιούτων δὲ συστημάτων γινομένων καθʼ ἅπασαν τὴν οἰκουμένην, οὐχ ὁμόφωνον πάντας ἔχειν τὴν διάλεκτον, ἑκάστων ὡς ἔτυχε συνταξάντων τὰς λέξεις· διὸ καὶ παντοίους τε ὑπάρξαι χαρακτῆρας διαλέκτων καὶ τὰ πρῶτα γενόμενα συστήματα τῶν ἁπάντων ἐθνῶν ἀρχέγονα γενέσθαι.",
     "original_source": "Diodori Bibliotheca historica, ed. F. Vogel (Leipzig: Teubner, 1888), vol. 1, p. 14, archive.org OCR (diodoribiblioth01diodgoog); obvious OCR errors corrected by eye (final sigma, theta, kappa, and four garbled words)",
     "translation": "[8.1] Concerning the first generation of the universe this is the account which we have received. But the first men to be born, he says, led an undisciplined and bestial life, setting out one by one to secure their sustenance and taking for their food both the tenderest herbs and the fruits of wild trees. Then, [2] since they were attacked by the wild beasts, they came to each other's aid, being instructed by expediency, and when gathered together in this way by reason of their fear, they gradually came to recognize their mutual characteristics. [3] And though the sounds which they made were at first unintelligible and indistinct, yet gradually they came to give articulation to their speech, and by agreeing with one another upon symbols for each thing which presented itself to them, made known among themselves the significance which was to be attached to each term. [4] But since groups of this kind arose over every part of the inhabited world, not all men had the same language, inasmuch as every group organized the elements of its speech by mere chance. This is the explanation of the present existence of every conceivable kind of language, and, furthermore, out of these first groups to be formed came all the original nations of the world.",
     "translator": "C. H. Oldfather, Diodorus of Sicily, vol. 1, Loeb Classical Library (London: Heinemann; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1933), as transcribed at LacusCurtius, which marks the text public domain; footnote numbers and page markers removed",
     "url": "https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/1A*.html#8",
     "rights": "public domain per LacusCurtius (Oldfather 1933; Thayer marks the transcription public domain)"
    }
   ],
   "sources": [
    {
     "citation": "Diodorus Siculus 1.8, Oldfather translation, LacusCurtius",
     "url": "https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/1A*.html"
    },
    {
     "citation": "Diodori Bibliotheca historica, ed. Vogel, Teubner 1888, vol. 1",
     "url": "https://archive.org/details/diodoribiblioth01diodgoog"
    }
   ],
   "notes": "The Greek verb at 8.3 is diarthroun ta lexeis, 'to articulate the words', the same joint-verb as Plato's Protagoras 322a. Booth's 1700 translation was not needed because the LacusCurtius transcription of Oldfather is marked public domain. The Greek text is OCR; the excerpt ends where the Teubner sentence ends (1.8.4)."
  },
  {
   "id": "vitruvius",
   "people": "Roman (Vitruvius)",
   "region": "Rome, Italy",
   "latitude": 41.95,
   "longitude": 12.42,
   "layers": "mute, shocked into speech, in stages",
   "scheme": "Speech born at the first fire.",
   "map_story": "In the old days, Vitruvius says, “Men in the old way were born like wild beasts in woods, caves and groves”, and they live on what grows wild. A storm rubs the branches of a thick wood together until it catches fire, and the people nearby run from the flames. When the fire dies down they creep back, find the warmth pleasant, feed it with wood and bring others, showing them by nods what it is good for. In that gathering they pour out sounds with their breath, fix on words by daily habit, and begin to talk to one another.",
   "map_source": "Vitruvius, De architectura 2.1.1",
   "text_date": "c. 30-15 BCE",
   "recorded": "Composed by Vitruvius Pollio, engineer to Augustus, at Rome, Italy, in De architectura Book 2 (On the origin of the dwelling house).",
   "original_language": "Latin",
   "excerpts": [
    {
     "label": "Men born like beasts; a storm-fire gathers them, and in that gathering they begin to speak",
     "citation": "De architectura 2.1.1-4",
     "original": "Homines vetere more ut ferae in silvis et speluncis et nemoribus nascebantur ciboque agresti vescendo vitam exigebant. interea quodam in loco ab tempestatibus et ventis densae crebritatibus arbores agitatae et inter se terentes ramos ignem excitaverunt, et eius flamma vehementi perterriti, qui circa eum locum fuerunt, sunt fugati. postea re quieta propius accedentes cum animadvertissent commoditatem esse magnam corporibus ignis teporem, ligna adicientes et îs conservantes alios adducebant et nutu monstrantes ostendebant, quas haberent ex eo utilitates. in eo hominum congressu cum profundebantur aliter atque aliter e spiritu voces, cotidiana consuetudine vocabula, ut obtigerant, constituerunt, deinde significando res saepius in usu ex eventu fari fortuito coeperunt et ita sermones inter se procreaverunt. Ergo cum propter ignis inventionem conventus initio apud homines et concilium et convictus esset natus, et in unum locum plures convenirent habentes ab natura praemium praeter reliqua animalia, ut non proni sed erecti ambularent mundique et astrorum magnificentiam aspicerent, item manibus et articulis quam vellent rem faciliter tractarent, coeperunt in eo coetu alii de fronde facere tecta, alii speluncas fodere sub montibus, nonnulli hirundinum nidos et aedificationes †earum imitantes de luto et virgulis facere loca, quae subirent. tunc observantes aliena tecta et adicientes suis cogitationibus res novas, efficiebant in dies meliora genera casarum. Cum essent autem homines imitabili docilique natura, cotidie inventionibus gloriantes alius alii ostendebant aedificiorum effectus, et ita exercentes ingenia certationibus in dies melioribus iudiciis efficiebantur. primumque furcis erectis et virgulis interpositis luto parietes texerunt. alii luteas glaebas arefacientes struebant parietes, materia eos iugumentantes, vitandoque imbres et aestus tegebant harundinibus et fronde. posteaquam per hibernas tempestates tecta non potuerunt imbres sustinere, fastigia facientes, luto inducto proclinatis tectis, stillicidia deducebant. Haec autem ex îs, quae supra scriptae sunt, originibus instituta esse possumus sic animadvertere, quod ad hunc diem nationibus exteris ex his rebus aedificia constituuntur, uti Gallia, Hispania, Lusitania, Aquitania scandulis robusteis aut stramentis. apud nationem Colchorum in Ponto propter silvarum abundantiam arboribus perpetuis planis dextra ac sinistra in terra positis, spatio inter eas relicto quanto arborum longitudines patiuntur, conlocantur in extremis partibus earum supra alterae transversae, quae circumcludunt medium spatium habitationis. tum insuper alternis trabibus ex quattuor partibus angulos iugumentantes et ita parietes arboribus statuentes ad perpendiculum imarum educunt ad altitudinem turres, intervallaque, quae relinquuntur propter crassitudinem materiae, schidiis et luto obstruunt. item tecta, recidentes ad extremos angulos transtra, traiciunt gradatim contrahentes, et ita ex quattuor partibus ad altitudinem educunt medio metas, quas fronde et luto tegentes efficiunt barbarico more testudinata turrium tecta.",
     "original_source": "Perseus, ed. Fritz Krohn, Teubner 1912, via PerseusDL/canonical-latinLit phi1056.phi001.perseus-lat2",
     "translation": "1. THE men of old were born like the wild beasts, in woods, caves, and groves, and lived on savage fare. As time went on, the thickly crowded trees in a certain place, tossed by storms and winds, and rubbing their branches against one another, caught fire, and so the inhabitants of the place were put to flight, being terrified by the furious flame. After it subsided, they drew near, and observing that they were very comfortable standing before the warm fire, they put on logs and, while thus keeping it alive, brought up other people to it, showing them by signs how much comfort they got from it. In that gathering of men, at a time when utterance of sound was purely individual, from daily habits they fixed upon articulate words just as these had happened to come; then, from indicating by name things in common use, the result was that in this chance way they began to talk, and thus originated conversation with one another. 2. Therefore it was the discovery of fire that originally gave rise to the coming together of men, to the deliberative assembly, and to social intercourse. And so, as they kept coming together in greater numbers into one place, finding themselves naturally gifted beyond the other animals in not being obliged to walk with faces to the ground, but upright and gazing upon the splendour of the starry firmament, and also in being able to do with ease whatever they chose with their hands and fingers, they began in that first assembly to construct shelters. Some made them of green boughs, others dug caves on mountain sides, and some, in imitation of the nests of swallows and the way they built, made places of refuge out of mud and twigs. Next, by observing the shelters of others and adding new details to their own inceptions, they constructed better and better kinds of huts as time went on. 3. And since they were of an imitative and teachable nature, they would daily point out to each other the results of their building, boasting of the novelties in it; and thus, with their natural gifts sharpened by emulation, their standards improved daily. At first they set up forked stakes connected by twigs and covered these walls with mud. Others made walls of lumps of dried mud, covering them with reeds and leaves to keep out the rain and the heat. Finding that such roofs could not stand the rain during the storms of winter, they built them with peaks daubed with mud, the roofs sloping and projecting so as to carry off the rain water. 4. That houses originated as I have written above, we can see for ourselves from the buildings that are to this day constructed of like materials by foreign tribes: for instance, in Gaul, Spain, Portugal, and Aquitaine, roofed with oak shingles or thatched. Among the Colchians in Pontus, where there are forests in plenty, they lay down entire trees flat on the ground to the right and the left, leaving between them a space to suit the length of the trees, and then place above these another pair of trees, resting on the ends of the former and at right angles with them. These four trees enclose the space for the dwelling. Then upon these they place sticks of timber, one after the other on the four sides, crossing each other at the angles, and so, proceeding with their walls of trees laid perpendicularly above the lowest, they build up high towers. The interstices, which are left on account of the thickness of the building material, are stopped up with chips and mud. As for the roofs, by cutting away the ends of the crossbeams and making them converge gradually as they lay them across, they bring them up to the top from the four sides in the shape of a pyramid. They cover it with leaves and mud, and thus construct the roofs of their towers in a rude form of the tortoise style.",
     "translator": "Morris Hicky Morgan, The Ten Books on Architecture (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1914)",
     "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0072:book=2:chapter=1",
     "rights": "public domain (Morgan 1914; Krohn 1912)"
    }
   ],
   "sources": [
    {
     "citation": "Vitruvius, De architectura 2.1.1-4, Latin (Krohn) and English (Morgan), Perseus",
     "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0072:book=2:chapter=1"
    }
   ],
   "notes": "The speech passage is the end of section 1; section 2 goes on to the upright gaze at the stars, the hands and the first huts. Morgan's 'utterance of sound was purely individual' renders cum profundebantur aliter atque aliter e spiritu voces, 'when voices were being poured out one way and another from the breath'; the words are then fixed 'from daily habits' (cotidiana consuetudine)."
  },
  {
   "id": "prometheus-bound",
   "people": "Greek (Aeschylus)",
   "region": "Athens, Greece",
   "latitude": 38.03,
   "longitude": 23.68,
   "layers": "mute, taught",
   "scheme": "Like the shapes of dreams.",
   "map_story": "Chained to his rock, Prometheus tells what mankind was before he helped it. They were nēpioi, infants, the word for babes too young to talk. They had eyes and ears and no use of them: “At first, seeing, they saw in vain; hearing, they did not hear; like the shapes of dreams they muddled everything at random all their long lives.” They lived underground like ants, in sunless caves. He made them mindful and masters of their wits, and taught them the risings and settings of the stars, number, and the combining of letters, with which to hold all things in memory.",
   "map_source": "Prometheus Bound 442–461",
   "text_date": "c. 460-430 BCE (authorship and date disputed)",
   "recorded": "Tragedy attributed to Aeschylus, performed at Athens, Greece; Prometheus, chained to a rock in Scythia, tells the chorus of Oceanids what he did for mankind.",
   "original_language": "Ancient Greek (Attic)",
   "excerpts": [
    {
     "label": "Prometheus tells what mankind was before: witless, seeing in vain, hearing without understanding; he taught them stars, number and letters",
     "citation": "Prometheus Bound 436-471",
     "original": "μή τοι χλιδῇ δοκεῖτε μηδʼ αὐθαδίᾳ\nσιγᾶν με· συννοίᾳ δὲ δάπτομαι κέαρ,\nὁρῶν ἐμαυτὸν ὧδε προυσελούμενον.\nκαίτοι θεοῖσι τοῖς νέοις τούτοις γέρα\nτίς ἄλλος ἢ ʼγὼ παντελῶς διώρισεν;\nἀλλʼ αὐτὰ σιγῶ· καὶ γὰρ εἰδυίαισιν ἂν\nὑμῖν λέγοιμι· τἀν βροτοῖς δὲ πήματα\nἀκούσαθʼ, ὥς σφας νηπίους ὄντας τὸ πρὶν\nἔννους ἔθηκα καὶ φρενῶν ἐπηβόλους.\nλέξω δέ, μέμψιν οὔτινʼ ἀνθρώποις ἔχων,\nἀλλʼ ὧν δέδωκʼ εὔνοιαν ἐξηγούμενος·\nοἳ πρῶτα μὲν βλέποντες ἔβλεπον μάτην,\nκλύοντες οὐκ ἤκουον, ἀλλʼ ὀνειράτων\nἀλίγκιοι μορφαῖσι τὸν μακρὸν βίον\nἔφυρον εἰκῇ πάντα, κοὔτε πλινθυφεῖς\nδόμους προσείλους, ᾖσαν, οὐ ξυλουργίαν·\nκατώρυχες δʼ ἔναιον ὥστʼ ἀήσυροι\nμύρμηκες ἄντρων ἐν μυχοῖς ἀνηλίοις.\nἦν δʼ οὐδὲν αὐτοῖς οὔτε χείματος τέκμαρ\nοὔτʼ ἀνθεμώδους ἦρος οὔτε καρπίμου\nθέρους βέβαιον, ἀλλʼ ἄτερ γνώμης τὸ πᾶν\nἔπρασσον, ἔστε δή σφιν ἀντολὰς ἐγὼ\nἄστρων ἔδειξα τάς τε δυσκρίτους δύσεις.\nκαὶ μὴν ἀριθμόν, ἔξοχον σοφισμάτων,\nἐξηῦρον αὐτοῖς, γραμμάτων τε συνθέσεις,\nμνήμην ἁπάντων, μουσομήτορʼ ἐργάνην.\nκἄζευξα πρῶτος ἐν ζυγοῖσι κνώδαλα\nζεύγλαισι δουλεύοντα σάγμασὶν θʼ, ὅπως\nθνητοῖς μεγίστων διάδοχοι μοχθημάτων\nγένοινθʼ , ὑφʼ ἅρμα τʼ ἤγαγον φιληνίους\nἵππους, ἄγαλμα τῆς ὑπερπλούτου χλιδῆς.\nθαλασσόπλαγκτα δʼ οὔτις ἄλλος ἀντʼ ἐμοῦ\nλινόπτερʼ ηὗρε ναυτίλων ὀχήματα.\nτοιαῦτα μηχανήματʼ ἐξευρὼν τάλας\nβροτοῖσιν, αὐτὸς οὐκ ἔχω σόφισμʼ ὅτῳ\nτῆς νῦν παρούσης πημονῆς ἀπαλλαγῶ.\nΧορός",
     "original_source": "Perseus, ed. H. W. Smyth, 1922, via PerseusDL/canonical-greekLit tlg0085.tlg003.perseus-grc2",
     "translation": "No, do not think it is from pride or even from wilfulness that I am silent. Painful thoughts devour my heart as I behold myself maltreated in this way. And yet who else but I definitely assigned their prerogatives to these upstart gods? But I do not speak of this; for my tale would tell you nothing except what you know. Still, listen to the miseries that beset mankind—how they were witless before and I made them have sense and endowed them with reason. I will not speak to upbraid mankind but to set forth the friendly purpose that inspired my blessing. First of all, though they had eyes to see, they saw to no avail; they had ears, but they did not understand ; but, just as shapes in dreams, throughout their length of days, without purpose they wrought all things in confusion. They had neither knowledge of houses built of bricks and turned to face the sun nor yet of work in wood; but dwelt beneath the ground like swarming ants, in sunless caves. They had no sign either of winter or of flowery spring or of fruitful summer, on which they could depend but managed everything without judgment, until I taught them to discern the risings of the stars and their settings, which are difficult to distinguish. Yes, and numbers, too, chiefest of sciences, I invented for them, and the combining of letters, creative mother of the Muses’ arts, with which to hold all things in memory. I, too, first brought brute beasts beneath the yoke to be subject to the collar and the pack-saddle, so that they might bear in men’s stead their heaviest burdens; and to the chariot I harnessed horses and made them obedient to the rein, to be an image of wealth and luxury. It was I and no one else who invented the mariner’s flaxen-winged car that roams the sea. Wretched that I am—such are the arts I devised for mankind, yet have myself no cunning means to rid me of my present suffering.",
     "translator": "Herbert Weir Smyth, Aeschylus, vol. 1, Loeb Classical Library (London: Heinemann; New York: Putnam, 1922)",
     "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0012:card=436",
     "rights": "public domain (Smyth 1922)"
    }
   ],
   "sources": [
    {
     "citation": "Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound 436-471, Greek and English (Smyth 1922), Perseus",
     "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0012:card=436"
    }
   ],
   "notes": "The telling's phrase 'nepioi', babes too young to talk, is at line 443 in Smyth's 'witless' (nepious); Smyth's prose gives 'they saw to no avail; they had ears, but they did not understand'. The speech is the poem's only place where letters (grammaton synthesis, 459) and memory are listed with number among the gifts; speech itself is not given a line."
  },
  {
   "id": "euripides",
   "people": "Greek (Euripides)",
   "region": "Athens, Greece",
   "latitude": 37.93,
   "longitude": 23.78,
   "layers": "taught, in stages",
   "scheme": "Understanding first, then a tongue.",
   "map_story": "Theseus, king of Athens, rejects the view that life holds more bad than good. He praises the god, whichever god it was, who took human life out of confusion and beastliness and set it in order. The gifts come in a fixed sequence: “first he put understanding in us, then gave the tongue, messenger of words, so that we could know a voice.” After those two come crops for food and rain from the sky to grow them, shelter against winter and against the heat, ships to trade in, and seers to read what is hidden. Mind is first and speech is second.",
   "map_source": "Euripides, Suppliants 201–204",
   "text_date": "c. 423 BCE",
   "recorded": "Tragedy composed by Euripides at Athens, Greece; Theseus, king of Athens, answers the Argive herald and Adrastus on whether human life holds more good than bad.",
   "original_language": "Ancient Greek (Attic)",
   "excerpts": [
    {
     "label": "Theseus: a god lifted life out of chaos and brutishness, first giving understanding, then the tongue as messenger of words",
     "citation": "Suppliants 195-218",
     "original": "ἄλλοισι δὴ ʼπόνησʼ ἁμιλληθεὶς λόγῳ\nτοιῷδʼ. ἔλεξε γάρ τις ὡς τὰ χείρονα\nπλείω βροτοῖσίν ἐστι τῶν ἀμεινόνων·\nἐγὼ δὲ τούτοις ἀντίαν γνώμην ἔχω,\nπλείω τὰ χρηστὰ τῶν κακῶν εἶναι βροτοῖς·\nεἰ μὴ γὰρ ἦν τόδʼ, οὐκ ἂν ἦμεν ἐν φάει.\nαἰνῶ δʼ ὃς ἡμῖν βίοτον ἐκ πεφυρμένου\nκαὶ θηριώδους θεῶν διεσταθμήσατο,\nπρῶτον μὲν ἐνθεὶς σύνεσιν, εἶτα δʼ ἄγγελον\nγλῶσσαν λόγων δούς, ὥστε γιγνώσκειν ὄπα,\nτροφήν τε καρποῦ τῇ τροφῇ τʼ ἀπʼ οὐρανοῦ\nσταγόνας ὑδρηλάς, ὡς τά γʼ ἐκ γαίας τρέφῃ\nἄρδῃ τε νηδύν· πρὸς δὲ τοῖσι χείματος\nπροβλήματʼ, αἶθρον ἐξαμύνασθαι θεοῦ,\nπόντου τε ναυστολήμαθʼ, ὡς διαλλαγὰς\nἔχοιμεν ἀλλήλοισιν ὧν πένοιτο γῆ.\nἃ δʼ ἔστʼ ἄσημα κοὐ σαφῶς γιγνώσκομεν,\nἐς πῦρ βλέποντες καὶ κατὰ σπλάγχνων πτυχὰς\nμάντεις προσημαίνουσιν οἰωνῶν τʼ ἄπο.\nἆρʼ οὐ τρυφῶμεν θεοῦ κατασκευὴν βίῳ\nδόντος τοιαύτην, οἷσιν οὐκ ἀρκεῖ τάδε;\nἀλλʼ ἡ φρόνησις τοῦ θεοῦ μεῖζον σθένειν\nζητεῖ, τὸ γαῦρον δʼ ἐν φρεσὶν κεκτημένοι\nδοκοῦμεν εἶναι δαιμόνων σοφώτεροι.",
     "original_source": "Perseus, ed. Gilbert Murray, Oxford 1913, via PerseusDL/canonical-greekLit tlg0006.tlg008.perseus-grc2",
     "translation": "Full oft have I argued out this subject with others. For there are who say, there is more bad than good in human nature, to the which I hold a contrary view, that good o’er bad predominates in man, for if it were not so, we should not exist. He hath my praise, whoe’er of gods brought us to live by rule from chaos and from brutishness, first by implanting reason, and next by giving us a tongue to declare our thoughts, so as to know the meaning of what is said, bestowing fruitful crops, and drops of rain from heaven to make them grow, wherewith to nourish earth’s fruits and to water her lap; and more than this, protection from the wintry storm, and means to ward from us the sun-god’s scorching heat; the art of sailing o’er the sea, so that we might exchange with one another whatso our countries lack. And where sight fails us and our knowledge is not sure, the seer foretells by gazing on the flame, by reading signs in folds of entrails, or by divination from the flight of birds. Are we not then too proud, when heaven hath made such preparation for our life, not to be content therewith? But our presumption seeks to lord it over heaven, and in the pride of our hearts we think we are wiser than the gods.",
     "translator": "E. P. Coleridge, The Plays of Euripides (London: George Bell and Sons, 1891; 1906 reprint)",
     "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0108:card=195",
     "rights": "public domain (Coleridge 1891; Murray 1913)"
    }
   ],
   "sources": [
    {
     "citation": "Euripides, Suppliants 195-218, Greek (Murray) and English (Coleridge), Perseus",
     "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0108:card=195"
    }
   ],
   "notes": "The Greek at 201-204 is aino d' hos hemin biotos ek pephurmenou kai theriodous diestathmesato, proton men enthes synesin, eita d' angelon glossan logon dous. Coleridge renders angelon glossan logon as 'a tongue to declare our thoughts'; the Greek has the tongue as 'messenger of words'. Coleridge's numbering sits a few lines below the Greek's."
  },
  {
   "id": "lucretius",
   "people": "Roman (Lucretius)",
   "region": "Rome, Italy",
   "latitude": 41.85,
   "longitude": 12.58,
   "layers": "mute, in stages",
   "scheme": "Nature squeezes out the names.",
   "map_story": "The first humans of Lucretius roam like beasts. Later they get huts, skins and fire, a woman settles with one man, and children soften them. Then come words. “But nature drove them to utter the various sounds of the tongue, and use squeezed out the names of things”, in the same way that dogs, horses and birds make different cries in fear, pain and joy. He turns on the common belief that some one person handed out names and taught men their first words, and calls it folly. He rejects the teacher and keeps the ancestors who could not speak.",
   "map_source": "Lucretius, De rerum natura 5.1028–1090",
   "text_date": "c. 55 BCE",
   "recorded": "Composed by Titus Lucretius Carus at Rome, Italy, in Book 5 of De rerum natura, as the Epicurean account of how humans arose from the earth and rose from beasts.",
   "original_language": "Latin (hexameter)",
   "excerpts": [
    {
     "label": "Men stammer, then nature and use squeeze out the names; the rejected namegiver",
     "citation": "De rerum natura 5.1019–1090 (Leonard's order; his text runs lines 1019–1027 before 1028–1090 without the intervening passage shown)",
     "original": "tunc et amicitiem coeperunt iungere aventes\nfinitimi inter se nec laedere nec violari,\net pueros commendarunt muliebreque saeclum,\nvocibus et gestu cum balbe significarent\nimbecillorum esse aequum misererier omnis.\nnec tamen omnimodis poterat concordia gigni,\nsed bona magnaque pars servabat foedera caste;\naut genus humanum iam tum foret omne peremptum\nnec potuisset adhuc perducere saecla propago.\nAt varios linguae sonitus natura subegit\nmittere et utilitas expressit nomina rerum,\nnon alia longe ratione atque ipsa videtur\nprotrahere ad gestum pueros infantia linguae,\ncum facit ut digito quae sint praesentia monstrent.\nsentit enim vim quisque suam quod possit abuti.\ncornua nata prius vitulo quam frontibus extent,\nillis iratus petit atque infestus inurget.\nat catuli pantherarum scymnique leonum\nunguibus ac pedibus iam tum morsuque repugnant,\nvix etiam cum sunt dentes unguesque creati.\nalituum porro genus alis omne videmus\nfidere et a pennis tremulum petere auxiliatum.\nproinde putare aliquem tum nomina distribuisse\nrebus et inde homines didicisse vocabula prima,\ndesiperest. nam cur hic posset cuncta notare\nvocibus et varios sonitus emittere linguae,\ntempore eodem alii facere id non quisse putentur?\npraeterea si non alii quoque vocibus usi\ninter se fuerant, unde insita notities est\nutilitatis et unde data est huic prima potestas,\nquid vellet facere ut sciret animoque videret?\ncogere item pluris unus victosque domare\nnon poterat, rerum ut perdiscere nomina vellent.\nnec ratione docere ulla suadereque surdis,\nquid sit opus facto, facilest; neque enim paterentur\nnec ratione ulla sibi ferrent amplius auris\nvocis inauditos sonitus obtundere frustra.\npostremo quid in hac mirabile tantoperest re,\nsi genus humanum, cui vox et lingua vigeret,\npro vario sensu varia res voce notaret?\ncum pecudes mutae, cum denique saecla ferarum\ndissimilis soleant voces variasque ciere,\ncum metus aut dolor est et cum iam gaudia gliscunt.\nquippe [et]enim licet id rebus cognoscere apertis.\ninritata canum cum primum magna Molossum\nmollia ricta fremunt duros nudantia dentes,\nlonge alio sonitu rabies [re]stricta minatur,\net cum iam latrant et vocibus omnia complent;\nat catulos blande cum lingua lambere temptant\naut ubi eos lactant, pedibus morsuque potentes\nsuspensis teneros imitantur dentibus haustus,\nlonge alio pacto gannitu vocis adulant,\net cum deserti baubantur in aedibus, aut cum\nplorantis fugiunt summisso corpore plagas.\ndenique non hinnitus item differre videtur,\ninter equas ubi equus florenti aetate iuvencus\npinnigeri saevit calcaribus ictus Amoris\net fremitum patulis sub naribus edit ad arma,\net cum sic alias concussis artibus hinnit?\npostremo genus alituum variaeque volucres,\naccipitres atque ossifragae mergique marinis\nfluctibus in salso victum vitamque petentes,\nlonge alias alio iaciunt in tempore voces,\net quom de victu certant praedaque repugnant.\net partim mutant cum tempestatibus una\nraucisonos cantus, cornicum ut saecla vetusta\ncorvorumque gregis ubi aquam dicuntur et imbris\nposcere et inter dum ventos aurasque vocare.\nergo si varii sensus animalia cogunt,\nmuta tamen cum sint, varias emittere voces,\nquanto mortalis magis aequumst tum potuisse\ndissimilis alia atque alia res voce notare!",
     "original_source": "The Latin Library, https://www.thelatinlibrary.com/lucretius/lucretius5.shtml (the lacuna after 1012 is marked in the text)",
     "translation": "Then, too, did neighbours 'gin to league as friends,\nEager to wrong no more or suffer wrong,\nAnd urged for children and the womankind\nMercy, of fathers, whilst with cries and gestures\nThey stammered hints how meet it was that all\nShould have compassion on the weak. And still,\nThough concord not in every wise could then\nBegotten be, a good, a goodly part\nKept faith inviolate--or else mankind\nLong since had been unutterably cut off,\nAnd propagation never could have brought\nThe species down the ages.\n[...]\nBut nature 'twas\nUrged men to utter various sounds of tongue\nAnd need and use did mould the names of things,\nAbout in same wise as the lack-speech years\nCompel young children unto gesturings,\nMaking them point with finger here and there\nAt what's before them. For each creature feels\nBy instinct to what use to put his powers.\nEre yet the bull-calf's scarce begotten horns\nProject above his brows, with them he 'gins\nEnraged to butt and savagely to thrust.\nBut whelps of panthers and the lion's cubs\nWith claws and paws and bites are at the fray\nAlready, when their teeth and claws be scarce\nAs yet engendered. So again, we see\nAll breeds of winged creatures trust to wings\nAnd from their fledgling pinions seek to get\nA fluttering assistance. Thus, to think\nThat in those days some man apportioned round\nTo things their names, and that from him men learned\nTheir first nomenclature, is foolery.\nFor why could he mark everything by words\nAnd utter the various sounds of tongue, what time\nThe rest may be supposed powerless\nTo do the same? And, if the rest had not\nAlready one with other used words,\nWhence was implanted in the teacher, then,\nFore-knowledge of their use, and whence was given\nTo him alone primordial faculty\nTo know and see in mind what 'twas he willed?\nBesides, one only man could scarce subdue\nAn overmastered multitude to choose\nTo get by heart his names of things. A task\nNot easy 'tis in any wise to teach\nAnd to persuade the deaf concerning what\n'Tis needful for to do. For ne'er would they\nAllow, nor ne'er in anywise endure\nPerpetual vain dingdong in their ears\nOf spoken sounds unheard before. And what,\nAt last, in this affair so wondrous is,\nThat human race (in whom a voice and tongue\nWere now in vigour) should by divers words\nDenote its objects, as each divers sense\nMight prompt?--since even the speechless herds, aye, since\nThe very generations of wild beasts\nAre wont dissimilar and divers sounds\nTo rouse from in them, when there's fear or pain,\nAnd when they burst with joys. And this, forsooth,\n'Tis thine to know from plainest facts: when first\nHuge flabby jowls of mad Molossian hounds,\nBaring their hard white teeth, begin to snarl,\nThey threaten, with infuriate lips peeled back,\nIn sounds far other than with which they bark\nAnd fill with voices all the regions round.\nAnd when with fondling tongue they start to lick\nTheir puppies, or do toss them round with paws,\nFeigning with gentle bites to gape and snap,\nThey fawn with yelps of voice far other then\nThan when, alone within the house, they bay,\nOr whimpering slink with cringing sides from blows.\nAgain the neighing of the horse, is that\nNot seen to differ likewise, when the stud\nIn buoyant flower of his young years raves,\nGoaded by winged Love, amongst the mares,\nAnd when with widening nostrils out he snorts\nThe call to battle, and when haply he\nWhinnies at times with terror-quaking limbs?\nLastly, the flying race, the dappled birds,\nHawks, ospreys, sea-gulls, searching food and life\nAmid the ocean billows in the brine,\nUtter at other times far other cries\nThan when they fight for food, or with their prey\nStruggle and strain. And birds there are which change\nWith changing weather their own raucous songs--\nAs long-lived generations of the crows\nOr flocks of rooks, when they be said to cry\nFor rain and water and to call at times\nFor winds and gales. Ergo, if divers moods\nCompel the brutes, though speechless evermore,\nTo send forth divers sounds, O truly then\nHow much more likely 'twere that mortal men\nIn those days could with many a different sound\nDenote each separate thing.",
     "translator": "William Ellery Leonard, 1916 (Project Gutenberg #785; Leonard's verse follows the Latin sense by sense, not line for line)",
     "url": "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/785",
     "rights": "public domain"
    }
   ],
   "sources": [
    {
     "citation": "Lucretius, De rerum natura 5, Latin, The Latin Library",
     "url": "https://www.thelatinlibrary.com/lucretius/lucretius5.shtml"
    },
    {
     "citation": "Lucretius, On the Nature of Things, trans. W. E. Leonard, 1916, Project Gutenberg #785",
     "url": "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/785"
    }
   ],
   "notes": "Lines are numbered 925–1090 in the standard (Munro/Bailey) count; the one-line lacuna after 1012 is marked. Leonard's English is blank verse that runs sense by sense and so is not line-for-line with the Latin. Narrowed from the Ages of Man excerpt to the speech passage: the Latin begins at 5.1019 (neighbours' compacts, babbling signs) and runs to 1090; the English omits a long block that Leonard's text prints between the compacts and 'But nature 'twas' (the kings-and-fire passage), marked [...]."
  },
  {
   "id": "hopi",
   "people": "Hopi",
   "region": "Oraibi, Arizona, United States",
   "latitude": 35.87,
   "longitude": -110.64,
   "layers": "taught, in stages",
   "scheme": "Two goddesses teach a language.",
   "map_story": "The Hard Being Women of the east and the west make a woman and a man out of clay and sing them to life. The pair look at the tablets the goddesses show them and do not know what they mean. The goddess of the east rubs the palms of her hands on the woman's palms and then the man's, and they understand. “Hereupon the deities taught these two a language.” Spider Woman goes on making couples and gives a different language to each. Later, at the emergence from the underworld, the Mocking-bird hands each people the language it will speak.",
   "map_source": "Voth 1905, pp. 2–3, 11",
   "text_date": "Oraibi account c. 1893-1903; Shupaulavi account c. 1893-1903; published 1905",
   "recorded": "H. R. Voth recorded the creation account of the Hard Being Women (no. 1) from Qoyawaima of Oraibi, Third Mesa, Arizona, United States, and \"Coming of the Hopi from the Under-world\" (no. 3) from Lomavantiwa of Shupaulavi, Second Mesa; both published in The Traditions of the Hopi, Field Columbian Museum Publication 96, Anthropological Series VIII (Chicago, 1905).",
   "original_language": "Hopi, recorded in English",
   "excerpts": [
    {
     "label": "The Hard Being Women make the first man and woman from clay; the goddesses teach them a language; Spider Woman gives each pair its own",
     "citation": "Voth, Traditions of the Hopi, Field Columbian Museum Pub. 96, 1905, no. 1, pp. 2-3",
     "original_source": "English only (Voth's rendering of the telling by Qoyawaima of Oraibi)",
     "translation": "Hereupon the deity of the west proceeded to make very many birds of different kinds and form, placing them again under the same cover under which the Wren had been brought to life. They again sang a song over them. Presently the birds began to move under the cover. The goddess removed the cover and found under it all kinds of birds and fowls. \"Why do you want us so quickly ?\" the latter asked. \"Yes, we want you to inhabit this world.\" Hereupon the two deities taught every kind of bird the sound that it should make, and then the birds scattered out in all directions.\n\nHereupon the Huruing Wuhti of the west made of clay all dif ferent kinds of animals, and they were brought to life in the same manner as the birds. They also asked the same question: \"Why do you want us so quickly?\" \"We want you to inhabit this earth,\" was the reply given them, whereupon they were taught by their crea tors their different sounds or languages, after which they proceeded forth to inhabit the different parts of the earth. They now concluded that they would create man. The deity of the east made of clay first a woman and then a man, who were brought to life in exactly the same manner as the birds and animals before them. They asked the same question, and were told that they should live -upon this earth and should understand everything. Hereupon the Huruing Wuhti of the east made two tablets of some hard substance, whether stone or clay tradition does not say, and drew upon them with the wooden stick certain characters, handing these tablets to the newly created man and woman, who looked at them, but did not know what they meant. So the deity of the east rubbed with the palms of her hands, first the palms of the woman and then the palms of the man, by which they were enlightened so that they understood the writing on the tablets.\n\nHereupon the deities taught these two a language. After they had taught them the language, the goddess of the east took them out of the kiva and led them over a rainbow, to her home in the east. Here they stayed four days, after which Huruing Wuhti told them to go now and select for themselves a place and live there. The two proceeded forth saying that they would travel around a while and wherever they would find a good field they would remain. Finding a nice place at last, they built a small, simple house, similar to the old houses of the Hopi. Soon the Huruing Wuhti of the west began to think of the matter again, and said to herself: \"This is not the way yet that it should be. We are not yet done,\" and communicated her thoughts to the Huruing Wuhti of the east. By this time Spider Woman had heard about all this matter and she concluded to anticipate the others and also create some beings. So she also made a man and woman of clay, covered them up, sang over them, and brought to life her handiwork. But these two proved to be Spaniards. She taught them the Spanish language, also giving them similar tablets and imparting knowledge to them by rubbing their hands in the same manner as the woman of the East had done with the \"White Men.\" Hereupon she created two burros, which she gave to the Spanish man and woman. The latter settled down close by. After this, Spider Woman continued to create people in the same manner as she had created the Spaniards, always a man and a woman, giving a different language to each pair. But all at once she found that she had forgotten to create a woman for a certain man, and that is the reason why now there are always some single men.",
     "translator": "H. R. Voth, 1905 (archive.org OCR, hyphenation repaired, footnote and page headers removed)",
     "url": "https://archive.org/details/traditionshopi00vothrich",
     "rights": "public domain"
    },
    {
     "label": "The Emergence: the Mocking-bird hands out the languages",
     "citation": "Voth 1905, no. 3, pp. 10-12 (paragraphs 1, 2 and 4 of the telling; the tree-planting paragraph omitted)",
     "translation": "A long time ago the people were living below. There were a great many of them, but they were often quarreling with one another. Some of them were very much depraved. They abused the women and the maidens, and that led to very many contentions. So the chiefs, who were worried and angry over this, had a council and concluded that they would try to find another place to live. So they first sent out a bird named M6tsni, to find a place of exit from this world. He flew up high but was too weak and returned without having been successful. They then sent the Mocking-bird (Yahpa). He was strong and flew up very high and found a place of exit. Returning, he reported this to the chiefs.\n\n[...]\n\nIn the meanwhile the chiefs had caused a great flood. Many Balolookongwuus2 came out of the ground with the water, and a great portion of the people were destroyed. When the Mocking-bird had made his report to the chiefs the latter said : ''All right, that is good. We are going away from here. ' ' They then announced through the crier that in four days they would leave, and that the women should prepare some food, and after they had eaten on the fourth day they would all assemble at the place right under the opening which the Mocking-bird had found. This was done.\n\n[...]\n\nHereupon Spider Woman, Pook6nghoya, his brother Baltiongawhoya, and the Mocking-bird that had found the opening, climbed up on the calavi in the order mentioned. After they had emerged through the opening, Pook6nghoya embraced the calaVi, his brother the reed, both holding them firmly that they should not shake when the people were climbing up. The Mocking-bird sat close by and sang a great many songs, the songs that are still chanted at the Wtfwuchim ceremony. Spider Woman was also sitting close by watching the proceedings. Now the people began to climb up, some on the calavi, others on the 16oqo, still others on the ahkavu and on the bakavi. As soon as they emerged, the Mocking-bird assigned them their places and gave them their languages. To one he would say: \"You shall be a Hopi, and that language you shall speak.\" To another : \"You shall be a Navaho, and you shall speak that language.\" And to a third: \"You shall be an Apache,\" \"a Mohave,\" \"a Mexican,\" etc., including the White Man. The language spoken in the under world had been that of the following Pueblo Indians : Kawdhykaka, Akokavi, Katihcha, Kotiyti; these four branches of the Pueblo Indians speaking essentially the same language.",
     "translator": "recorded in English by H. R. Voth, 1905 (OCR text; hyphenation repaired)",
     "url": "https://archive.org/details/traditionshopi00vothrich",
     "rights": "public domain",
     "original_source": "English only (Voth's rendering of the telling by Lomavantiwa of Shupaulavi)"
    }
   ],
   "sources": [
    {
     "citation": "H. R. Voth, The Traditions of the Hopi, Field Columbian Museum Anthropological Series VIII (Chicago, 1905)",
     "url": "https://archive.org/details/traditionshopi00vothrich"
    }
   ],
   "notes": "Speech comes at three points: the goddesses teach the first clay pair a language after rubbing their palms so that they understand the tablets; Spider Woman gives a different language to each pair she makes; at the Emergence the Mocking-bird (Yahpa) assigns each people its tongue. Voth's note on no. 1: some Hopi say the first pair were the ancestors of the White Man and that the language taught them is the White Man's present language."
  },
  {
   "id": "yao",
   "people": "Yao",
   "region": "Libo, Guizhou, China",
   "latitude": 25.4,
   "longitude": 107.9,
   "layers": "taught",
   "scheme": "Grandmother Wugao teaches talk.",
   "map_story": "The maker of people is a grandmother, Wugao; the first syllable of her name is the Yao word for grandmother. She moulds people out of clay and brings them to life by shouting and dancing around them. Living is not enough, and she takes them in hand like children. “Every day she moulded clay people, taught them to walk, taught them to talk, taught them to work.” She does not finish and withdraw. She makes a new batch each day and teaches each one the same three things in the same order, which is the order a child learns them from its mother.",
   "map_source": "zqymyth id 748 (务告造人, recorded 1987)",
   "text_date": "recorded 1987; 中国民间故事集成·贵州卷 pp. 13-14",
   "recorded": "Yao of Libo, Qiannan, Guizhou, China; 务告造人, narrator 韦老根, recorded 1987.",
   "original_language": "Chinese (rendering of Yao oral telling)",
   "summary_long": "The maker of people is a grandmother, Wugao; the first syllable of her name is the Yao word for grandmother. She moulds people out of clay and brings them to life by shouting and dancing around them. Living is not enough. She takes them in hand like children and, every day, moulds clay people and teaches them to walk, to talk and to work. She does not finish and withdraw. She makes a new batch each day and teaches each batch the same three things in the same order, which is the order in which a child learns them from its mother. Speechlessness is not stated outright in the source; it is implied by the teaching. The packet rates this one as medium strength for that reason. Its interest lies in the identity of the teacher: a woman, a grandmother, who produces and then raises people daily, so that humanity is made again with every batch and taught speech by an ancestress. It stands close to the Iban Salampandai, a female maker who still forms every child.",
   "excerpts": [
    {
     "label": "Grandmother Wugao teaches talk",
     "citation": "zqymyth id 748",
     "original": "教它们走路，教它们说话，教它们做事",
     "original_source": "藏羌彝走廊多民族创世神话数据库 (zqymyth.com), id 748",
     "translation": "taught them to walk, taught them to talk, taught them to work",
     "translator": "compiler's English",
     "url": "http://www.zqymyth.com/nd.jsp?id=748&fromMid=3&groupId=59",
     "rights": "in copyright, short quotation"
    }
   ],
   "sources": [
    {
     "citation": "藏羌彝走廊多民族创世神话数据库, id 748 (务告造人, recorded 1987)",
     "url": "http://www.zqymyth.com/nd.jsp?id=748&fromMid=3&groupId=59"
    }
   ],
   "notes": "zqymyth.com was unreachable from Chrome and curl on 2026-11-14 (error page), so quotes and summary come from the asia-pacific packet, whose Chinese quotes were read in-page on the earlier pass; Chinese quotes are trimmed to 25 characters or fewer."
  },
  {
   "id": "yabarana",
   "people": "Yabarana",
   "region": "Manapiare, Amazonas, Venezuela",
   "latitude": 5.33,
   "longitude": -66.05,
   "layers": "mute, taught",
   "scheme": "The bullfrog mother gives speech.",
   "map_story": "The first people are unfinished. They have no lower bodies and cannot breed, they have no fire, and they have no words. The mother of the hero Mayowoca, a woman in the form of a bullfrog, looks at them and sees that they cannot speak and have no fire. She gives them both. In the Spanish of the collector, “les enseñó a entenderse por medio de sonidos articulados con sus bocas”: she taught them to understand one another by articulate sounds of their mouths. Fire and language come to mankind in the same visit, from the same mother.",
   "map_source": "Wilbert 1959, in Armellada 1975, pp. 211–217",
   "text_date": "collected 1950s; published 1959 and 1975 (reprint)",
   "recorded": "Collected among the Yabarana (Cariban) of the Manapiare and Ventuari rivers, Amazonas, Venezuela, by Johannes Wilbert, 'Mitos de los indios yabarana'; reprinted in Armellada and Bentivenga, Literaturas indígenas venezolanas (Caracas: Monte Ávila, 1975), pp. 211-217.",
   "original_language": "Spanish (Wilbert's rendering of Yabarana narrative)",
   "summary_long": "The Yabarana tell of a first human pair who are not finished: the body ends at the lower belly, they eat with the mouth and void by the windpipe near the Adam's apple, and they do not reproduce. Two superhuman brothers, Mayowoca and Ochi, are alive beside them. Mayowoca gives the pair legs by massaging and modelling them like clay, after which they can walk and reproduce. Speech and fire come in a separate short story. Mayowoca's mother wants to meet the people her son has made and has often heard him praise. She changes into a bullfrog (rana-buey) and goes out to find them. After living with them for a short time she notices that they cannot speak and have no fire. She spits fire out of her mouth and shows it to them so that they come to warm themselves at it. There, beside the fire, she teaches them to understand one another by articulate sounds made with their mouths. Speech therefore comes from a woman in an animal's body, at the same moment as fire, and is taught rather than discovered. The longer Mayowoca story goes on to the stolen sun-bird, the flood that follows its release, and a count of the worlds (fire, flood, ours, a future fourth), but it does not return to speech.",
   "excerpts": [
    {
     "label": "Mayowoca's mother, as a bullfrog, sees that they cannot speak and have no fire, and teaches them articulate sounds",
     "citation": "Wilbert, 'Mayowoca y Ochi', section 'Cómo los hombres recibieron el fuego y la lengua o el idioma', p. 217",
     "original": "observó que no podían hablar y que no tenían fuego … les enseñó a entenderse por medio de sonidos articulados con sus bocas",
     "original_source": "Wilbert, digital edition (Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes), read in full",
     "translation": "she saw that they could not speak and had no fire … she taught them to understand one another by means of articulate sounds of their mouths",
     "translator": "Own English translation",
     "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/2020/http://www.biblioteca.org.ar/libros/89569.pdf",
     "rights": "in copyright, short quotation"
    },
    {
     "label": "She spits out fire from her mouth",
     "citation": "Wilbert, same section, p. 217",
     "original": "escupió de su boca el fuego",
     "original_source": "same",
     "translation": "she spat fire out of her mouth",
     "translator": "Own English translation",
     "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/2020/http://www.biblioteca.org.ar/libros/89569.pdf",
     "rights": "in copyright, short quotation"
    },
    {
     "label": "The first humans were half-bodies",
     "citation": "Wilbert, 'Mayowoca y Ochi', p. 211",
     "original": "la mitad inferior no existía",
     "original_source": "same",
     "translation": "the lower half did not exist",
     "translator": "Own English translation",
     "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/2020/http://www.biblioteca.org.ar/libros/89569.pdf",
     "rights": "in copyright, short quotation"
    }
   ],
   "sources": [
    {
     "citation": "Johannes Wilbert, 'Mitos de los indios yabarana', in Armellada and Bentivenga, Literaturas indígenas venezolanas (Caracas: Monte Ávila, 1975), pp. 211-217 (Wayback copy of the digital edition)",
     "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/2020/http://www.biblioteca.org.ar/libros/89569.pdf"
    }
   ],
   "notes": "In copyright: three short quotations and a summary. Page numbers are the bracketed numbers in the digital edition; the speech story follows the bracketed [217]."
  },
  {
   "id": "iban",
   "people": "Iban (Sea Dayak)",
   "region": "Sarawak, Malaysia",
   "latitude": 1.6,
   "longitude": 111.5,
   "layers": "mute, in stages",
   "scheme": "Stone and iron men stay mute.",
   "map_story": "The maker of men is a female spirit, Salampandai, who hammers out every child at her anvil to this day. The god Petara orders her to make a man. First “she made one of stone, but it could not speak and Petara refused to accept it.” She sets to work again and fashions one of iron. That one cannot speak either and is thrown out. The third time she makes one of clay, and it has the power of speech. Petara is pleased and accepts it as the ancestor of men. The test of a human being is passed on the third try.",
   "map_source": "Perham, in Ling Roth 1896, p. 176",
   "text_date": "1896",
   "recorded": "Iban (Sea Dayak) of Sarawak, Malaysia (Borneo); Archdeacon J. Perham's account of Dayak religion, printed in Henry Ling Roth, The Natives of Sarawak and British North Borneo I (1896).",
   "original_language": "English (missionary report)",
   "excerpts": [
    {
     "label": "Salampandai, maker of men",
     "citation": "Ling Roth 1896, vol. 1, p. 176 (Perham)",
     "original": "",
     "original_source": "English only",
     "translation": "Salampandai is a female spirit, and the maker of men, some say by her own independent power, some by command of Petara. The latter relate that in the beginning Petara commanded her to make a man, and she made one of stone, but it could not speak and Petara refused to accept it. She set to work again and fashioned one of iron, but neither could that speak, and so was rejected. The third time she made one of clay which had the power of speech, and Petara was pleased, and said: \"Good is the man you have made, let him be the ancestor of men.\" And so Salampandai ever afterwards formed human beings, and is forming them now, at her anvil in the unseen regions. There she hammers out children as they are born into the world, and when each one is formed it is presented to Petara, who asks: \"What would you like to handle and use?\" If it answer: \"The parang, the sword and spear,\" Petara pronounces it a boy; but if it answer: \"Cotton and the...",
     "translator": "J. Perham, in H. Ling Roth, 1896",
     "url": "https://archive.org/details/nativesofsarawak01roth",
     "rights": "public domain"
    }
   ],
   "sources": [
    {
     "citation": "H. Ling Roth, The Natives of Sarawak and British North Borneo, vol. 1 (1896), p. 176",
     "url": "https://archive.org/details/nativesofsarawak01roth"
    }
   ],
   "notes": "The excerpt ends where the compiler stopped copying; the following lines (the child's answer 'Cotton and the spindle' makes it a girl) are not reproduced. Page number is from the packet; the local text capture lacks page markers at this spot."
  },
  {
   "id": "enkidu",
   "people": "Babylonian (Gilgamesh)",
   "region": "Uruk, Iraq",
   "latitude": 31.32,
   "longitude": 45.64,
   "layers": "taught",
   "scheme": "A woman broadens his wisdom.",
   "map_story": "The goddess Aruru fingers some clay and makes Enkidu in the wilderness, with hair sprouting over his whole body. He grazes with the gazelles and drinks at the water-hole with the herds. A hunter brings the courtesan Shamhat to the water-hole, and she sees “a monster (all) savage from out of the depths of the desert”. She has sex with him for six days and seven nights. When he gets up the animals run from him and his knees fail, but he “hath broaden'd (his) wisdom”. He sits at the woman's feet and listens to what she says. She sets bread and mead before him, which he does not know how to take, and after seven bumpers he anoints himself and becomes human.",
   "map_source": "Thompson 1928, Tablets I–II",
   "text_date": "Standard Babylonian epic c. 1200-1000 BCE, from Old Babylonian roots c. 1800 BCE; Thompson's Nineveh-tablet text is 7th c. BCE",
   "recorded": "Akkadian epic of Gilgamesh, known from tablets in the library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh, Iraq; Enkidu is made on the steppe by the goddess Aruru, and the seduction and speech episode is in Tablet I (Thompson's columns iii-v of the first tablet).",
   "original_language": "Akkadian",
   "excerpts": [
    {
     "label": "Aruru moulds Enkidu from clay on the steppe: hair, no people, no land, grazing with the gazelles",
     "citation": "Epic of Gilgamish, Tablet I (Thompson 1928, pp. 10-11)",
     "translation": "So when the goddess Aruru heard this, in her mind she imagined\n(Straightway, this) Concept of Anu, and, washing her hands, (then) Aruru\nFinger’d some clay, on the desert she moulded (it): (thus) on the desert\nEnkidu made she, a warrior, (as he were) born (and) begotten,\n(Yea), of Ninurta the double, and put forth the whole of his body\nHair: in the way of a woman he snooded his locks (in a fillet) ;\nSprouted luxuriant growth of his hair-like (the awns of) the barley,\nNor knew he people nor land; he was clad in a garb like Sumuqane.\nE’en with gazelles did he pasture on herbage, along with the cattle\nDrank he his fill, with the beasts did his heart delight at the water.",
     "translator": "R. Campbell Thompson, The Epic of Gilgamish: A New Translation (London: Luzac, 1928), verse; the archive.org OCR (the stray corner-brackets of the text, page headers and footnotes) cleaned by eye and script, and the elided apostrophes restored",
     "url": "https://archive.org/details/thompson-1928-gilgamesh",
     "rights": "public domain (Thompson 1928; published 1928, in the US public domain)"
    },
    {
     "label": "The courtesan and the monster: six days and seven nights, the animals flee; he 'hath broaden'd his wisdom', sits at the woman's feet and hears her words; he answers her",
     "citation": "Epic of Gilgamish, Tablet I, columns iv-v (Thompson 1928, pp. 12-14)",
     "translation": "Forth went the hunter, took with him a courtesan-girl, a hetaera,\n(So) did they start on their travels, went forth on their journey (together),\n(Aye), at the term of three days arrived at the pleasaunce appointed.\nSate they down in their ambush (?), the hunter and the hetaera,\nOne day, two days they sat by the place where (the beasts) drank (their) water.\n(Then) at last came the cattle to take their fill in their drinking.\nThither the animals came that their hearts might delight in the water,\n(Aye), there was Enkidu also, he whom the mountains had gender'd,\nE'en with gazelles did he pasture on herbage, along with the cattle\nDrank he his fill, with the beasts did his heart delight at the water,\nSo beheld him the courtesan-girl, the lusty great fellow,\n(O but) a monster (all) savage from out of the depths of the desert!\n“’Tis he, O girl! O, discover thy beauty, thy comeliness shew (him),\nSo that thy loveliness he may possess—(O), in no wise be bashful,\nRavish the soul of him—(certes), as soon as his eye on thee falleth,\nHe, forsooth, will approach thee, and thou—O, loosen thy mantle,\nSo that he clasp thee, and (then) with the wiles of a woman shalt ply him;\n(Wherefore) his animals, bred in his desert, will (straightway) deny him,\n(Since) to his breast he hath held thee.”\nThe girl, displaying her bosom,\nShew’d him her comeliness, (yea) so that he of her beauty possess’d him,\nBashful she was not, (but) ravish 'd the soul of him, loosing her mantle,\nSo that he clasp’d her, (and then) with the wiles of a woman she plied him,\nHolding her unto his breast.\n(‘Twas thus that) Enkidu dallied\nSix days, (aye) seven nights, with the courtesan-girl in his mating.\nSated at length with her charms, he turn’d his face to his cattle,\nO the gazelles, (how) they scamper’d away, as soon as they saw him!\nHim, yea, Enkidu,—fled from his presence the beasts of the desert!\nEnkidu losing his innocence—so, when the cattle fled from him,\nFailed his knees, and he slack’d in his running, (not) as aforetime:\nNatheless he (thus) hath attain'd his full growth and hath broaden’d (his)\nwisdom.\nSat he again at the feet of the woman, the woman his features\nScanning, and, while she was speaking, his ears heard (the words) she was\nsaying:\n“Comely thou art, e’en like to a god, O Enkidu, shalt be,\nWhy with the beasts (of the field) dost thou (ever) range over the desert ?\nUp! for I'll lead thee to Erech, the high-wall’d—(in sooth), to the Temple\nSacred, the dwelling of Anu and Ishtar, where, highest in power,\nGilgamish is, and prevaileth o’er men like an aurochs.”\nHer counsel e'en as she spake it found favour, (for) conscious he was of his longing\nSome companion to seek; so unto the courtesan spake he:\n“Up, then, O girl, to the Temple, the holy (and) sacred, invite me,\nMe, to the dwelling of Anu and Ishtar, where, highest in power,\nGilgamish is, and prevaileth o’er men like an aurochs—for I, too,",
     "translator": "R. Campbell Thompson, 1928, as above",
     "url": "https://archive.org/details/thompson-1928-gilgamesh",
     "rights": "public domain"
    }
   ],
   "sources": [
    {
     "citation": "R. Campbell Thompson, The Epic of Gilgamish (London: Luzac, 1928), Tablet I",
     "url": "https://archive.org/details/thompson-1928-gilgamesh"
    }
   ],
   "notes": "Thompson's verse uses round brackets for words added to complete the sense; corner-brackets for doubtful restorations were lost in the OCR and are not shown. His footnotes record variants such as 'while she was speaking' (lit. 'the woman spake unto him, yea, unto Enkidu'). In the passage that matters, Enkidu loses the animals, is 'broadened' in wisdom, sits at the woman's feet and listens to her words, and then speaks to her ('Up, then, O girl, to the Temple'); the text names no moment at which speech was learned. No Akkadian is given."
  },
  {
   "id": "norse",
   "people": "Norse",
   "region": "Iceland",
   "latitude": 64.1,
   "longitude": -21.9,
   "layers": "mute, taught",
   "scheme": "Logs given breath, mind, speech.",
   "map_story": "Three gods walking on the shore find Ask and Embla, two logs of little might and without fate. They lack everything that makes a person: “Breath they had not, mind they had not, nor blood nor voice nor goodly hue.” Each god gives a share. In the poem Odin gives breath, Hœnir gives mind, and Lóðurr gives blood and colour. Snorri's prose retelling counts it out differently and names speech: the first son of Borr gives breath and life, the second wit and movement, and the third gives face, speech, hearing and sight. All mankind descends from the pair.",
   "map_source": "Völuspá 17–18; Gylfaginning 9",
   "text_date": "poem c. 1000 CE (Codex Regius c. 1270; Hauksbók c. 1310); Snorri's Gylfaginning c. 1220",
   "recorded": "Anonymous Old Norse poem, put in the mouth of a seeress (völva) addressing Odin; composed in Iceland or Norway around the conversion period and preserved in the Codex Regius, c. 1270. Snorri Sturluson summarises and quotes it in Gylfaginning, Iceland, c. 1220.",
   "original_language": "Old Norse (Old Icelandic)",
   "excerpts": [
    {
     "label": "Ask and Embla found without soul, sense, heat or colour",
     "citation": "Völuspá 17–18",
     "original": "17.\nUnz þrír kvámu\nór því liði\nöflgir ok ástkir\næsir at húsi,\nfundu á landi\nlítt megandi\nAsk ok Emblu\nörlöglausa.\n\n18.\nÖnd þau ne áttu,\nóð þau ne höfðu,\nlá né læti\nné litu góða;\nönd gaf Óðinn,\nóð gaf Hœnir,\nlá gaf Lóðurr\nok litu góða.",
     "original_source": "Old Norse, Sophus Bugge's text in normalised spelling, Icelandic Wikisource, https://is.wikisource.org/wiki/V%C3%B6lusp%C3%A1",
     "translation": "17.\nThen from the throng | did three come forth,\nFrom the home of the gods, | the mighty and gracious;\nTwo without fate | on the land they found,\nAsk and Embla, | empty of might.\n\n18.\nSoul they had not, | sense they had not,\nHeat nor motion, | nor goodly hue;\nSoul gave Othin, | sense gave Hönir,\nHeat gave Lothur | and goodly hue.",
     "translator": "Henry Adams Bellows, The Poetic Edda, 1923 (stanza numbers are Bellows's)",
     "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/2022/https://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/poe/poe03.htm",
     "rights": "public domain",
     "note": "The poem's third god is Lóðurr in the Old Norse text and Bellows; Snorri (Gylfaginning 9) makes the gift three-fold with Odin, Vili and Vé (the sons of Borr)."
    },
    {
     "label": "Snorri on how the first people were made (Ask and Embla, from two trees)",
     "citation": "Snorri Sturluson, Gylfaginning 9",
     "original": "Þá mælti Gangleri: \"Mikit þótti mér þeir hafa þá snúit til leiðar, er jörð ok himinn var gert ok sól ok himintungl váru sett ok skipt dægrum, ok hvaðan kómu mennirnir, þeir er heim byggja?\"\nÞá mælti Hárr: \"Þá er þeir gengu með sævarströndu Borssynir, fundu þeir tré tvau ok tóku upp trén ok sköpuðu af menn. Gaf inn fyrsti önd ok líf, annarr vit ok hræring, þriði ásjónu, mál ok heyrn ok sjón, gáfu þeim klæði ok nöfn. Hét karlmaðrinn Askr, en konan Embla, ok ólst þaðan af mannkindin, sú er byggðin var gefinn undir Miðgarði.",
     "original_source": "Old Norse, heimskringla.no, https://heimskringla.no/wiki/Gylfaginning",
     "translation": "Then said Gangleri: \"Much indeed they had accomplished then, methinks, when earth and heaven were made, and the sun and the constellations of heaven were fixed, and division was made of days; now whence come the men that people the world?\" And Harr answered: \"When the sons of Borr were walking along the sea-strand, they found two trees, and took up the trees and shaped men of them : the first gave them spirit and life; the second, wit and feeling; the third, form, speech, hearing, and sight. They gave them clothing and names: the male was called Askr, and the female Embla, and of them was mankind begotten, which received a dwelling-place under Midgard.",
     "translator": "Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur, The Prose Edda, 1916",
     "url": "https://archive.org/details/proseedda00snor",
     "rights": "public domain"
    }
   ],
   "sources": [
    {
     "citation": "H. A. Bellows, The Poetic Edda (New York: American-Scandinavian Foundation, 1923), Voluspo, pp. 3–28",
     "url": "https://archive.org/details/poeticedda00belluoft"
    },
    {
     "citation": "Bellows 1923 as transcribed on sacred-texts.com (via Wayback)",
     "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/2022/https://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/poe/poe03.htm"
    },
    {
     "citation": "Völuspá, Bugge's text in normalised spelling, Icelandic Wikisource",
     "url": "https://is.wikisource.org/wiki/V%C3%B6lusp%C3%A1"
    },
    {
     "citation": "A. G. Brodeur, The Prose Edda by Snorri Sturluson (New York: American-Scandinavian Foundation, 1916), Gylfaginning IX and XIV",
     "url": "https://archive.org/details/proseedda00snor"
    },
    {
     "citation": "Snorri Sturluson, Gylfaginning, Old Norse text, heimskringla.no",
     "url": "https://heimskringla.no/wiki/Gylfaginning"
    }
   ],
   "notes": "Reused from the Ages of Man file (voluspa). In stanza 18 the Old Norse list is önd, óðr, lá, læti, litr; Bellows renders 'soul, sense, heat, motion, goodly hue', so the English does not show læti ('voice, sound, bearing') as such; the map's 'voice' follows the Old Norse word. Snorri's prose (Gylfaginning 9) names speech outright among the third god's gifts. Half-lines in the English are separated by ' | '."
  },
  {
   "id": "dai",
   "people": "Dai",
   "region": "Jinghong, Xishuangbanna, Yunnan, China",
   "latitude": 22.0,
   "longitude": 100.8,
   "layers": "mute, taught",
   "scheme": "Given language, then named people.",
   "map_story": "A divine couple, Busangai and his wife Yasangai, mould a man and a woman out of clay. The clay couple come alive and walk about, and that is all they do. “Yet they had no language and could not speak. Busangai and Yasangai gave them language, taught them to speak and to think, and named them ‘people’.” Language, speaking and thinking are handed over in one act by the same two teachers, and the name comes last. Until they can speak and use their brains the clay couple have no name, and the word for a human being is the last gift.",
   "map_source": "zqymyth id 923 (布桑该雅桑该)",
   "text_date": "published in 中国民间故事集成·云南卷, pp. 82-85",
   "recorded": "Dai of Jinghong, Xishuangbanna, Yunnan, China; 布桑该雅桑该, in the Yunnan volume of the Chinese folk-story anthology.",
   "original_language": "Chinese (rendering of Dai oral telling)",
   "summary_long": "A divine couple, Busangai (male) and Yasangai (female), mould a man and a woman out of clay. The clay couple come alive and walk about, and that is all they do. They have no language and cannot speak. The divine couple then give them language, teach them to speak and to use their brains, and give them a special name: 'people'. Language, speech and thought are handed over in one act by the same two teachers, and the name comes last. Until they can speak and think the clay couple have no name, and the word for human being is the final gift. The Dai text is parallel to the Yi clay tellings and to the Yao Wugao, with the difference that the teachers are a married pair who combine a male and a female maker, and that speech is bound with thinking. A second Dai text (id 660) has clay people begin to speak after a breath and an incantation, and is a duplicate of this episode.",
   "excerpts": [
    {
     "label": "Language given, then the name 'people'",
     "citation": "zqymyth id 923",
     "original": "他们还没有语言，不会说话",
     "original_source": "藏羌彝走廊多民族创世神话数据库 (zqymyth.com), id 923",
     "translation": "they had no language yet and could not speak",
     "translator": "compiler's English",
     "url": "http://www.zqymyth.com/nd.jsp?id=923&fromMid=3&groupId=59",
     "rights": "in copyright, short quotation"
    },
    {
     "label": "Language given, then the name 'people'",
     "citation": "zqymyth id 923",
     "original": "教他们说话和动脑筋",
     "original_source": "藏羌彝走廊多民族创世神话数据库 (zqymyth.com), id 923",
     "translation": "taught them to speak and to use their brains",
     "translator": "compiler's English",
     "url": "http://www.zqymyth.com/nd.jsp?id=923&fromMid=3&groupId=59",
     "rights": "in copyright, short quotation"
    }
   ],
   "sources": [
    {
     "citation": "藏羌彝走廊多民族创世神话数据库, id 923 (布桑该雅桑该)",
     "url": "http://www.zqymyth.com/nd.jsp?id=923&fromMid=3&groupId=59"
    }
   ],
   "notes": "zqymyth.com was unreachable from Chrome and curl on 2026-11-14 (error page), so quotes and summary come from the asia-pacific packet, whose Chinese quotes were read in-page on the earlier pass; Chinese quotes are trimmed to 25 characters or fewer."
  },
  {
   "id": "miao-clarke",
   "people": "Miao",
   "region": "Guizhou, China",
   "latitude": 26.6,
   "longitude": 107.5,
   "layers": "mute, taught",
   "scheme": "Made dumb, then given speech.",
   "map_story": "A missionary account of the Miao of Guizhou gives their creator, Shiang Ko Lau, a few plain sentences, taken from what the Miao told the missionary G. W. Clarke. He opens heaven and earth and gives arable land and grain. Then he makes people, and his first attempt is silent: “The first men he made were dumb; then he gave them power to speak.” Nothing is said of bamboo or fire in this version. The maker finishes the body first and adds the voice in a second act. The other Miao tellings turn that second act into a story about fire.",
   "map_source": "Machle 1911, p. 10 (after G. W. Clarke)",
   "text_date": "1911 (Clarke's essay earlier)",
   "recorded": "Miao-tsz (Miao) of Guizhou, China, as reported by the missionary G. W. Clarke (China Inland Mission) and quoted by E. C. Machle in The Aboriginal Tribes of China, a paper to the Canton Missionary Conference, 1911.",
   "original_language": "English (missionary summary)",
   "excerpts": [
    {
     "label": "The creator Shiang Ko Lau",
     "citation": "Machle 1911, p. 10, quoting Rev. G. W. Clarke",
     "original": "",
     "original_source": "English only",
     "translation": "Rev. G. W. Clarke, of the C. I. Mission, in his essay on the Miao-tsz, says \"They have a confused idea of the Creator, whose name is Shiang Ko Lau. He lived in the world 3,800 years ago, and died, where, is not known; they believe that he lives above. His father's name was Keo Chiang Tai. He opened heaven and earth, and gave arable land and grain. The first men he made were dumb; then he gave them power to speak. He gave us all things to enjoy. There are no pictures, images, or temples to his honour. Though he is a real object of worship, they have no set times for adoring him. His favour is invoked at betrothals marriages, and when laying the foundations of a house or bridge.\"",
     "translator": "G. W. Clarke (quoted by E. C. Machle), 1911",
     "url": "https://archive.org/details/aboriginaltribes00mach",
     "rights": "public domain"
    }
   ],
   "sources": [
    {
     "citation": "E. C. Machle, The Aboriginal Tribes of China, Canton Missionary Conference, 1911, p. 10",
     "url": "https://archive.org/details/aboriginaltribes00mach"
    }
   ],
   "notes": "Machle's page also says almost all of the aboriginal peoples worship the dog-god Poon Ku Kaw Shan, 'the first man'. Excerpt trimmed before the sacrifice list. The pagination is from the compiler's reading of the archive.org text."
  },
  {
   "id": "selknam",
   "people": "Selk'nam (Ona)",
   "region": "Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego, Argentina and Chile",
   "latitude": -53.8,
   "longitude": -68.5,
   "layers": "taught",
   "scheme": "Kenos taught the ancestors speech.",
   "map_story": "Temaukel sends Kenos, the first man, to put the world in order. It is the time of the ancestors, the howenh, and among the things Kenos brings them is speech. The narrative the Selk'nam told Martin Gusinde between 1919 and 1924 says it in one plain sentence: “Kenos taught our ancestors of old to use speech.” In that age no one died for good: “All rejoiced when someone awoke from the sleep (of old age) and rose up young.” Death came later, and after it the time when Moon-Woman ruled the women.",
   "map_source": "Gusinde, ed. Wilbert 1975, narrative 1",
   "text_date": "recorded 1919-24; published 1931 (German), 1975 (English)",
   "recorded": "Told to the missionary-ethnologist Martin Gusinde by Selk'nam (Ona) people of Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego, Argentina and Chile, between 1919 and 1924; published in Die Feuerland-Indianer I (1931) and in English as J. Wilbert (ed.), Folk Literature of the Selknam Indians (UCLA Latin American Center, 1975), narrative 1.",
   "original_language": "Selk'nam, recorded in German; quoted from the English edition",
   "summary_long": "In the Selk'nam account given to Martin Gusinde between 1919 and 1924, the supreme being Temaukel sends Kenos, the first man, to put the world in order. The age he works in is the time of the ancestors, the howenh, the first people. Among the things Kenos brings them is speech, and the narrative states it in a single plain sentence: Kenos taught the ancestors of old to use it. The telling does not say the ancestors were dumb before this, and it describes no shock or stage; speech is one of the gifts of order that comes with the first man's arrival, and it is taught, not discovered. The same age is one in which no one dies for good: when an old person falls asleep, everyone rejoices when he wakes and rises up young. Death comes later, and after it comes the time when Moon-Woman ruled the women. Speech therefore sits at the head of a sequence of changes, before death and before the women's rule, in the far south of the continent, on the Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego, in what is now Argentina and Chile. The source is a short, clear sentence rather than a full scene, so the telling is best read alongside the fuller Terena, Yabarana and Acoma accounts.",
   "excerpts": [
    {
     "label": "Kenos teaches the ancestors speech",
     "citation": "Gusinde, in Wilbert (ed.) 1975, narrative 1",
     "original_source": "English edition (Wilbert 1975), seen by search-inside in an earlier pass, not re-read",
     "translation": "Kenos taught our ancestors of old to use speech.",
     "translator": "Johannes Wilbert (ed.), 1975",
     "url": "https://archive.org/details/folkliteratureof0000gusi_u1o8",
     "rights": "in copyright, short quotation"
    },
    {
     "label": "In the time of the ancestors no one died for good",
     "citation": "Gusinde, in Wilbert (ed.) 1975, narrative 1",
     "original_source": "same",
     "translation": "All rejoiced when someone awoke from the sleep (of old age) and rose up young.",
     "translator": "Johannes Wilbert (ed.), 1975",
     "url": "https://archive.org/details/folkliteratureof0000gusi_u1o8",
     "rights": "in copyright, short quotation"
    }
   ],
   "sources": [
    {
     "citation": "Martin Gusinde, Die Feuerland-Indianer I (Mödling 1931); English in Johannes Wilbert (ed.), Folk Literature of the Selknam Indians (Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center, 1975), narrative 1",
     "url": "https://archive.org/details/folkliteratureof0000gusi_u1o8"
    }
   ],
   "notes": "The English edition is a lending copy; the two quotations were verified in an earlier pass by search-inside and not re-read this session."
  },
  {
   "id": "genesis-eden",
   "people": "Hebrew Bible (Genesis)",
   "region": "Judah, Israel and Palestine",
   "latitude": 31.78,
   "longitude": 35.23,
   "layers": "taught",
   "scheme": "A serpent and a woman converse.",
   "map_story": "Adam names the animals alone, and no one answers him. The first exchange of words in the Bible comes in the garden, when the serpent puts a question to the woman and she replies. Dante, asking around 1304 who was the first human being to speak, has to admit what the text says: “mulierem invenitur ante omnes fuisse locutam”, a woman is found to have spoken before all others, when she answered the devil's questioning. He adds that it is more reasonable to believe the man spoke first. By the end of the conversation she has eaten, and both know they are naked.",
   "map_source": "Genesis 2:19–3:7; Dante, De vulgari eloquentia 1.4.2–3",
   "text_date": "Genesis in its final form c. 6th-5th c. BCE; Dante, De vulgari eloquentia c. 1304-05 CE",
   "recorded": "Genesis: Hebrew Bible (Torah), composed in stages in Judah. Dante: written in Latin in exile, in Italy, c. 1304-05, as the first treatise on the vernacular, and the earliest surviving discussion of who first spoke.",
   "original_language": "Biblical Hebrew (Genesis); Medieval Latin (Dante)",
   "excerpts": [
    {
     "label": "Adam names the animals and finds no helper; the serpent asks, the woman answers; their eyes are opened",
     "citation": "Genesis 2:18-3:7",
     "original": "2:18 וַיֹּ֙אמֶר֙ יְהֹוָ֣ה אֱלֹהִ֔ים לֹא־ט֛וֹב הֱי֥וֹת הָֽאָדָ֖ם לְבַדּ֑וֹ אֶֽעֱשֶׂה־לּ֥וֹ עֵ֖זֶר כְּנֶגְדּֽוֹ׃\n2:19 וַיִּ֩צֶר֩ יְהֹוָ֨ה אֱלֹהִ֜ים מִן־הָֽאֲדָמָ֗ה כׇּל־חַיַּ֤ת הַשָּׂדֶה֙ וְאֵת֙ כׇּל־ע֣וֹף הַשָּׁמַ֔יִם וַיָּבֵא֙ אֶל־הָ֣אָדָ֔ם לִרְא֖וֹת מַה־יִּקְרָא־ל֑וֹ וְכֹל֩ אֲשֶׁ֨ר יִקְרָא־ל֧וֹ הָֽאָדָ֛ם נֶ֥פֶשׁ חַיָּ֖ה ה֥וּא שְׁמֽוֹ׃\n2:20 וַיִּקְרָ֨א הָֽאָדָ֜ם שֵׁמ֗וֹת לְכׇל־הַבְּהֵמָה֙ וּלְע֣וֹף הַשָּׁמַ֔יִם וּלְכֹ֖ל חַיַּ֣ת הַשָּׂדֶ֑ה וּלְאָדָ֕ם לֹֽא־מָצָ֥א עֵ֖זֶר כְּנֶגְדּֽוֹ׃\n2:21 וַיַּפֵּל֩ יְהֹוָ֨ה אֱלֹהִ֧ים ׀ תַּרְדֵּמָ֛ה עַל־הָאָדָ֖ם וַיִּישָׁ֑ן וַיִּקַּ֗ח אַחַת֙ מִצַּלְעֹתָ֔יו וַיִּסְגֹּ֥ר בָּשָׂ֖ר תַּחְתֶּֽנָּה׃\n2:22 וַיִּ֩בֶן֩ יְהֹוָ֨ה אֱלֹהִ֧ים ׀ אֶֽת־הַצֵּלָ֛ע אֲשֶׁר־לָקַ֥ח מִן־הָֽאָדָ֖ם לְאִשָּׁ֑ה וַיְבִאֶ֖הָ אֶל־הָֽאָדָֽם׃\n2:23 וַיֹּ֘אמֶר֮ הָֽאָדָם֒ זֹ֣את הַפַּ֗עַם עֶ֚צֶם מֵֽעֲצָמַ֔י וּבָשָׂ֖ר מִבְּשָׂרִ֑י לְזֹאת֙ יִקָּרֵ֣א אִשָּׁ֔ה כִּ֥י מֵאִ֖ישׁ לֻֽקְחָה־זֹּֽאת׃\n2:24 עַל־כֵּן֙ יַֽעֲזׇב־אִ֔ישׁ אֶת־אָבִ֖יו וְאֶת־אִמּ֑וֹ וְדָבַ֣ק בְּאִשְׁתּ֔וֹ וְהָי֖וּ לְבָשָׂ֥ר אֶחָֽד׃\n2:25 וַיִּֽהְי֤וּ שְׁנֵיהֶם֙ עֲרוּמִּ֔ים הָֽאָדָ֖ם וְאִשְׁתּ֑וֹ וְלֹ֖א יִתְבֹּשָֽׁשׁוּ׃\n3:1 וְהַנָּחָשׁ֙ הָיָ֣ה עָר֔וּם מִכֹּל֙ חַיַּ֣ת הַשָּׂדֶ֔ה אֲשֶׁ֥ר עָשָׂ֖ה יְהֹוָ֣ה אֱלֹהִ֑ים וַיֹּ֙אמֶר֙ אֶל־הָ֣אִשָּׁ֔ה אַ֚ף כִּֽי־אָמַ֣ר אֱלֹהִ֔ים לֹ֣א תֹֽאכְל֔וּ מִכֹּ֖ל עֵ֥ץ הַגָּֽן׃\n3:2 וַתֹּ֥אמֶר הָֽאִשָּׁ֖ה אֶל־הַנָּחָ֑שׁ מִפְּרִ֥י עֵֽץ־הַגָּ֖ן נֹאכֵֽל׃\n3:3 וּמִפְּרִ֣י הָעֵץ֮ אֲשֶׁ֣ר בְּתוֹךְ־הַגָּן֒ אָמַ֣ר אֱלֹהִ֗ים לֹ֤א תֹֽאכְלוּ֙ מִמֶּ֔נּוּ וְלֹ֥א תִגְּע֖וּ בּ֑וֹ פֶּן־תְּמֻתֽוּן׃\n3:4 וַיֹּ֥אמֶר הַנָּחָ֖שׁ אֶל־הָֽאִשָּׁ֑ה לֹֽא־מ֖וֹת תְּמֻתֽוּן׃\n3:5 כִּ֚י יֹדֵ֣עַ אֱלֹהִ֔ים כִּ֗י בְּיוֹם֙ אֲכׇלְכֶ֣ם מִמֶּ֔נּוּ וְנִפְקְח֖וּ עֵֽינֵיכֶ֑ם וִהְיִיתֶם֙ כֵּֽאלֹהִ֔ים יֹדְעֵ֖י ט֥וֹב וָרָֽע׃\n3:6 וַתֵּ֣רֶא הָֽאִשָּׁ֡ה כִּ֣י טוֹב֩ הָעֵ֨ץ לְמַאֲכָ֜ל וְכִ֧י תַֽאֲוָה־ה֣וּא לָעֵינַ֗יִם וְנֶחְמָ֤ד הָעֵץ֙ לְהַשְׂכִּ֔יל וַתִּקַּ֥ח מִפִּרְי֖וֹ וַתֹּאכַ֑ל וַתִּתֵּ֧ן גַּם־לְאִישָׁ֛הּ עִמָּ֖הּ וַיֹּאכַֽל׃\n3:7 וַתִּפָּקַ֙חְנָה֙ עֵינֵ֣י שְׁנֵיהֶ֔ם וַיֵּ֣דְע֔וּ כִּ֥י עֵֽירֻמִּ֖ם הֵ֑ם וַֽיִּתְפְּרוּ֙ עֲלֵ֣ה תְאֵנָ֔ה וַיַּעֲשׂ֥וּ לָהֶ֖ם חֲגֹרֹֽת׃\n",
     "original_source": "Miqra according to the Masorah (Hebrew text via Sefaria, from he.wikisource), https://www.sefaria.org/Genesis",
     "translation": "2:18 And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.\n2:19 And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.\n2:20 And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.\n2:21 And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;\n2:22 And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.\n2:23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.\n2:24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.\n2:25 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.\n3:1 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?\n3:2 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:\n3:3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.\n3:4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:\n3:5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.\n3:6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.\n3:7 And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.\n",
     "translator": "King James Version, 1611 (Project Gutenberg #10)",
     "url": "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10",
     "rights": "public domain (translation); Hebrew text CC-BY-SA (Miqra according to the Masorah)"
    },
    {
     "label": "Dante asks who spoke first: 'a woman is found to have spoken before all others', but Adam must be meant; his first word was El",
     "citation": "Dante Alighieri, De vulgari eloquentia 1.4-1.5 (c. 1304-05)",
     "original": "1. Soli homini datum fuit ut\nloqueretur, ut ex premissis manifestum est. Nunc quoque\ninvestigandum esse existimo cui hominum primum locutio data sit,\net quid primitus locutus fuerit, et ad quem, et ubi, et quando,\nnec non et sub quo ydiomate primiloquium emanavit.\n2. Secundum quidem quod in\nprincipio Genesis loquitur, ubi de primordio mundi Sacratissima\nScriptura pertractat, mulierem invenitur ante omnes fuisse\nlocutam, scilicet presumptuosissimam Evam, cum dyabolo\nsciscitanti respondit: ‘De fructu lignorum que sunt in\nparadiso vescimur; de fructu vero ligni quod est in medio\nparadisi precepit nobis Deus ne comederemus nec tangeremus, ne\nforte moriamur’. \n3. Sed quanquam mulier in\nscriptis prius inveniatur locuta, rationabilius tamen est ut\nhominem prius locutum fuisse credamus, et inconvenienter putatur\ntam egregium humani generis actum non prius a viro quam a femina\nprofluxisse. Rationabiliter ergo credimus ipsi Ade prius datum\nfuisse loqui ab Eo qui statim ipsum plasmaverat.\n4. Quid autem prius vox primi\nloquentis sonaverit, viro sane mentis in promptu esse non titubo\nipsum fuisse quod ‘Deus’ est, scilicet El, vel\nper modum interrogationis vel per modum responsionis. Absurdum\natque rationi videtur orrificum ante Deum ab homine quicquam\nnominatum fuisse, cum ab ipso et in ipsum factus fuisset homo.\nNam sicut post prevaricationem humani generis quilibet exordium\nsue locutionis incipit ab ‘heu’, rationabile est quod\nante qui fuit inciperet a gaudio; et cum nullum gaudium sit extra\nDeum, sed totum in Deo, et ipse Deus totus sit gaudium,\nconsequens est quod primus loquens primo et ante omnia dixisset\n‘Deus’.\n5. Oritur et hinc ista questio,\ncum dicimus superius per viam responsionis hominem primum fuisse\nlocutum, si responsio fuit ad Deum: nam, si ad Deum fuit, iam\nvideretur quod Deus locutus extitisset, quod contra superius\nprelibata videtur insurgere. \n6. Ad quod quidem dicimus quod\nbene potuit respondisse Deo interrogante, nec propter hoc Deus\nlocutus est ipsa quam dicimus locutionem. Quis enim dubitat\nquicquid est ad Dei nutum esse flexibile, quo quidem facta, quo\nconservata, quo etiam gubernata sunt omnia? Igitur cum ad tantas\nalterationes moveatur aer imperio nature inferioris, que ministra\net factura Dei est, ut tonitrua personet, ignem fulgoret, aquam\ngemat, spargat nivem, grandinea lancinet, nonne imperio Dei\nmovebitur ad quedam sonare verba, ipso distinguente qui maiora\ndistinxit? Quid ni?\n7. Quare ad hoc et ad quedam\nalia hec sufficere credimus.\nV\n1. Opinantes autem non sine\nratione, tam ex superioribus quam inferioribus sumpta, ad ipsum\nDeum primitus primum hominem direxisse locutionem, rationabiliter\ndicimus ipsum loquentem primum, mox postquam afflatus est ab\nanimante Virtute, incunctanter fuisse locutum. Nam in homine\nsentiri humanius credimus quam sentire, dumunodo sentiatur et\nsentiat tanquam homo. Si ergo faber ille atque perfectionis\nprincipium et amator afflando primum nostrum omni perfectione\ncomplevit, rationabile nobis apparet nobilissimum animal non ante\nsentire quam sentiri cepisse.\n2. Si quis vero fatetur contra\nobiciens quod non oportebat illum loqui, cum solus adhuc homo\nexisteret, et Deus omnia sine verbis archana nostra discernat\netiam ante quam nos, - cum illa reverentia dicimus qua uti\noportet cum de eterna Voluntate aliquid iudicamus, quod licet\nDeus sciret, immo presciret (quod idem est quantum ad Deum)\nabsque locutione conceptum primi loquentis, voluit tamen et ipsum\nloqui, ut in explicatione tante dotis gloriaretur ipse qui gratis\ndotaverat. Et ideo divinitus in nobis esse credendum est quod in\nactu nostrorum effectuum ordinato letamur.\n3. Et hinc penitus elicere\npossumus locum illum ubi effutita est prima locutio: quoniam, si\nextra paradisum afflatus est homo, extra, si vero intra, intra\nfuisse locum prime locutionis convicimus.",
     "original_source": "The Latin Library, https://www.thelatinlibrary.com/dante/vulgar.shtml (chapters IV-V)",
     "translation": "Speech was given to man alone, as is plain from what has been said above. And now I think we ought also to investigate to whom of mankind speech was first given, and what was the first thing he said, and to whom, where, and when he said it; and also in what language this first speech came forth. Now, according to what we read in the beginning of Genesis, where the most sacred Scripture is treating of the origin of the world, we find that a woman spoke before all others, I mean that most presumptuous’ Eve, when in answer to the inquiry of the devil she said, ‘We eat of the fruit of the trees which are in Paradise, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of Paradise God has commanded us not to eat, nor to touch it, lest peradventure we die.’ But though we find it written that the woman spoke first, it is, however, reasonable for us to suppose that the man spoke first ; and it is unseemly to think that so excellent an act of the human race proceeded even earlier from woman than from man. We therefore reasonably believe that speech was given to Adam first by him who had just formed him. Now I have no doubt that it is obvious to a man of sound mind that the first thing the voice of the first speaker uttered was the equivalent of God, namely El, whether in the way of a question or in the way of an answer. It seems absurd and repugnant to reason that anything should have been named by man before God, since man had been made by him and for him. For as, since the transgression of the human race, every one begins his first attempt at speech with a cry of woe, it is reasonable that he who existed before that transgression should begin with joy; and since there is no joy without God, but all joy is in God, and God himself is wholly joy, it follows that the first speaker said first and before anything else ‘God.’ Here also this question arises from our saying above that man spoke first by way of answer: If an answer, was it addressed to God? For if so it would seem that God had already spoken, which appears to make against what has been said above. To which we reply that he might well have made answer when God questioned him ; but it does not follow from this that God uttered what we call speech. For who doubts that whatsoever is can be bent according to the will of God? For by him all things were made, by him they are preserved, and by him also they are governed. Therefore since the air is made to undergo such great disturbances by the ordinance of that lower nature which is the minister and workmanship of God, that it causes the thunder to peal, the lightning to flash, the water to drop, and scatters the snow and hurls down the hail, shall it not be moved to utter certain words rendered distinct by him who has distinguished greater things ? Why not? Wherefore we consider that these observations are a sufficient answer to this difficulty, and to some others.\n\nTaking then (not without reason drawn as well from the foregoing considerations as from those which follow) that the first man directed his speech first of all to the Lord himself, we may reasonably say that this first speaker at once, after having been inspired by the vivifying power, spoke without hesitation. For in man we believe it to be more characteristic of humanity to be heard than to hear, provided he be heard and hear as a man. If, therefore, that workman and origin and lover of perfection by his breath made the first of us complete in all perfection, it appears to us reasonable that this most noble of animals did not begin to hear before he began to be heard. But if any one raises the objection that there was no need for him to speak, as he was, so far, the only human being, whilst God discerns all our secret thoughts without any words of ours, even before we do ourselves, we say with that reverence which we ought to use in judging anything respecting the eternal will, that though God knew, nay, even fore-knew (which is the same thing in respect of God) the thought of the first man who spoke, without any words being said, still he wished that the man should also speak, in order that, in the unfolding of so great a gift, he himself who had freely bestowed it might glory. And therefore it is to be believed that it is by God’s appointment that we rejoice in the well-ordered play of our emotions. Hence also we can fully determine the place where our first speech was uttered ; for if man was inspired with life outside Paradise, he first spoke outside; but if within, we have proved that the place of his first speech was within.",
     "translator": "A. G. Ferrers Howell, in A Translation of the Latin Works of Dante Alighieri (Temple Classics, London: J. M. Dent, 1904); the scan's OCR was corrected by eye for obvious misreadings, line-number brackets and marginal glosses were removed, and chapter 4 (to 'some others') is followed by chapter 5",
     "url": "https://archive.org/details/30081000492714",
     "rights": "public domain"
    }
   ],
   "sources": [
    {
     "citation": "Genesis 2-3, Hebrew (Miqra according to the Masorah) and KJV",
     "url": "https://www.sefaria.org/Genesis.2"
    },
    {
     "citation": "Dante, De vulgari eloquentia 1.4-1.6, Latin, The Latin Library",
     "url": "https://www.thelatinlibrary.com/dante/vulgar.shtml"
    },
    {
     "citation": "Howell 1904, Temple Classics, archive.org",
     "url": "https://archive.org/details/30081000492714"
    }
   ],
   "notes": "Genesis never says the woman or man spoke first; the narrator says only that the man named the animals (2:19-20, 'no helper found') and then the serpent speaks to the woman (3:1). Dante, reading Genesis 3:1-3 as the first recorded speech, concedes it is the woman's and then argues the man spoke first. Dante's chapter 4 claim that the first word was 'El' is retracted in Paradiso 26.133-136. The Hebrew text is from the Ages of Man file (Miqra according to the Masorah, CC-BY-SA via Sefaria)."
  },
  {
   "id": "kiche",
   "people": "K'iche' Maya",
   "region": "Highland Guatemala",
   "latitude": 15.03,
   "longitude": -91.15,
   "layers": "mute, in stages",
   "scheme": "Squawks, mindless talk, then speech.",
   "map_story": "The Makers, the Plumed Serpent among them, want beings who will speak to them. The animals can only squawk, cackle and cry out, each differently, and are told they will be changed because they could not speak. The Makers try a man of mud: “aunque hablaba, no tenia entendimiento”, though he spoke, he had no understanding, and he dissolves. They try people of wood, who talk like men but come out stupid, without heart, and are destroyed. Last come the people of maize, ground by the grandmother Xmucané. They speak, hear and see everything, and they thank the Makers for mouth and face.",
   "map_source": "Popol Vuh, Ximénez ed. Scherzer 1857, pp. 9–12, 81",
   "text_date": "c. 1554-58 (K'iche' text); Francisco Ximenez's K'iche' copy and Spanish version c. 1701-03; printed 1857 (Scherzer) and 1861 (Brasseur)",
   "recorded": "K'iche' Maya nobles wrote the Popol Vuh in alphabetic K'iche' at Chichicastenango (Santo Tomas), highland Guatemala, c. 1554-58, from an older painted book; the Dominican Francisco Ximenez copied it and made a Spanish version in the early 1700s (Newberry Library, Ayer MS 1515). Carl Scherzer printed Ximenez's Spanish in 1857; Brasseur de Bourbourg printed the K'iche' with his French translation in 1861.",
   "original_language": "K'iche' Maya (colonial orthography), with Ximenez's Spanish",
   "excerpts": [
    {
     "label": "The animals that could not speak, the mud man, the wooden people, the flood and the revolt of the grinding stones (Ximenez's Spanish, Part I, chs. 3-4)",
     "citation": "Popol Vuh, Part I; Ximenez's Spanish as printed in Scherzer, Las historias del origen de los Indios de esta provincia de Guatemala, Vienna 1857, pp. 9-15",
     "original": "Entonces se les dijo otra vez por el criador y formador á los venados y á las aves: hablad, gritad, no hagáis yol, yol\" ; no gritéis, hablad cada uno en su especie en cada diferencia. Se les fue dicho á los venados y pájaros, á los leones, tigres y culebras: decid nuestro nombre, alabadnos, decid que somos vuestras madres y vuestros padres, Huracán, Chipa -caculha, Raxa-caculha, Uguxcah, Uguxleu, formadores, criadores, madres y padres; hablad, invocadnos, saludadnos, se les fué dicho. Y no pudieron hablar como los hombres, sino que chillaron, cacarearon y gritaron, diciendo voh, vohu ; no pareció su habla, sino que cada uno gritó y chilló diferentemente; y cuando los formadores oyeron que no hablaron, dijeron otra vez entre sí; no se pudo acabar que dijesen nuestro nombre porque somos nosotros sus formadores y criadores: no está bien, dijeron entre sí aquellos formadores, y se les fué dicho, seréis trocados porque no pudisteis hablar , y así mudamos nuestra palabra: vuestra comida, pasto y vuestro dormitorio y habitación serán las barrancas y montes, porque no acabasteis de saludarnos, no nos invocasteis. Todavía hay quien nos invoque, haremos otra vez quien nos obedezca, tomad este oficio ; vuestra carne será mascada, y de eso serviréis; se les fué dicho, que se les notificó á todos los animales chicos y grandes que hay sobre la tierra. Y entonces quisieron otra vez probar su dia y quisieron reprobar otra vez, y quisieron juntar otra vez su salutación, y ya no se entendieron su habla entre sí mismos , de ninguna suerte sea justo , ni se pudo hacer, y así fueron ultrajadas y desechadas sus carnes, tributaron, fueron comidos y muertos todos los animales que hay aquí sobre la tierra. Y así probaron otra vez otras criaturas por el criador, y pruébese otra vez, ya se acercó la sembradura, y amanecimiento , bagamos sustentador nuestro y mantenedor nuestro, como seremos invocados, y que se acuerden de nosotros sobre la tierra, ya probamos nuestras primeras hechuras y formaduras, y no se pudo componer que nos alabasen, y nos aclararan, y así probemos su ser hecho ú obedecer sustentado nuestro, dijeron que fué formado y hecho la tierra. Todo fué hecho, su cuerpo, y no pareció bien, sino que se desbarataba y estaba blando y apelmazado , y desmadejado, y se desmoronaba y se humedecía, no se movía su cabeza, sino que en una parte se estaba su cara, era ciego, y no miraba para atrás, aunque hablaba, no tenia entendimiento sino que se revenía en el agua, no era fuerte. Y dijeron otra vez los hacedores y formadores, será peor después, y no andará y no se multiplicará, que fuere hecho solo de su entendimiento, lo dijeron, y entonces lo desbarataron y lo volvieron á amazar, su formadura y fábrica, y dijeron: ¿como lo haremos otra vez que pueda alabarnos é invocarnos? dijeron que consultaron otra vez , lo diremos á la Xpiyacoc y Xmucane, y á Hun-ahpu-vuch, y á Hun-ahpu-uhú, probemos otra vez nuestro dia. Su ser formado dijeron unos á otros, los formadores y fabricadores, y entonces lo dijeron á la Xpiyacoc, y á Xmucane, y después su ser dicho aquello á los adivinos, abuela del dia ó sol, y de la luna, que así eran llamados por los hacedores y fabricadores, y estos eran los nombres de Xpiyacoc y Xcumane. Y dijeron aquel Huracán con Tepeu y Cucumatz que le dijeron al del sol ó adivino, al formador adivino alcanzó, y se unió de ello otra vez se haga nuestro hombre formado, y nuestro hombre edificado, otra vez sustentado y alimentado que nos invoque y que se acuerde de nosotros ; entrad en la consulta abuela y abuelo nuestro, Xpiyacoc y Xcumane, como se podrá sembrar y aclarar, nuestro ser invocado, nuestro ser adorado, nuestro ser acordado por el hombre formado y edificado, y por el hombre nuestro pobre, y así se diga, mostrad vuestro nombre Hun-ahpu-vuch, Hun-ahpu-uhú, dos veces madre, dos veces padre, grande pizote, el de los chalchigüites, el del toriron, el de la tabla, otro no, el del toltecat, abuela del sol, abuela de la luna, así seáis dichos por nuestros formados y criaturas; echad suertes con maises y con tzités y sea solo hecho, si saldrá, si labraremos y lo tallaremos, su boca y su cara de palo, se les fué dicho á los adivinos. Y luego su echadura de las suertes, su ser saludado lo que sortearon con el mais y el tzite á sol, á formadura, dijeron una vieja y un viejo á ellos, y el viejo era el de las suertes del tzité, y se llamaba Xpiyacoc, y la vieja adivina del sol y de la formadura, se llamaba Chiracan-xmucane, y dijeron que empezaron á adivinar el sol solo se junten y se unen, decid nuestra nueva, nuestro oido, hablad, parlad, si es conveniente sea labrado el palo por los formadores y si es este el que se ha de sustentar y alimentar, que se siembre y aclare, di tú mais, tú tzité, tú sol, tú formadura, llamad y seguid, le dijo al mais y al tzité, al sol y á la formadura, y tú corazón del cielo tened vergüenza, no afrentéis á Tepeu y á Cucumatz, y entonces respondiendo el tzité y el mais dijeron la verdad: hacedlo así que así estará bien, y hablará el palo en labrándolo, y luego fué hecha la imagen del hombre de palo, y habló como hombre. Y esto fué el hombre que hicieron, y se multiplicaron, tuvieron hijos é hijas; empero, salieron tontos, sin corazón, sin entendimiento, y así no se acordaron mas de su criador, sino que en vano estuvieron y anduvieron sobre la tierra, y así no se acordaron mas del corazón del cielo, y así dijeron de hocicos, empero esto fué solo probar, á pararlos y hacer la gente, hablaban, empero estaba seca su cara, estaban abromados y pesados en pies y manos, no tenían sangre, ni sudor, ni gordura, estaban secas y pálidas sus mejillas, estaban sus pies amarillos y secas las manos , y amarilla su carne, y así no se acordaron mas de su criador y hacedor, el que los habia criado; y estos eran ya muchos y se multiplicaron sobre la tierra. Y después fueron acabados y destruidos y muertos, todos estos hombres de palo. Fué consultado por el corazón del cielo , y se hizo un gran diluvio que vino sobre ellos; de palo de corcho era la carne de los hombres y de esa materia fueron hechos y labrados por el criador; y las mugeres fueron hechas de corazón de espadaña, y esa fué la voluntad del criador, hacerlas de esa materia. Empero, no hicieron memoria ni agradecieron al criador que les crió, el haberlos criado, y así fueron muertos y anegados; vino gran resina y pez del cielo, y un pájaro llamado: Xecotcovuch, vino y les sacó los ojos; y vino otro que se llamaba Camulotz, y les cortó las cabezas; y vino otro animal llamado Cotzbalam, y les comió sus carnes, y el que se llama Tucumbalam, que les quebró los huesos y los nervios y los hicieron harina; y esto fué en castigo y escarmiento porque no hicieron gracias delante de su madre y padre y Señor : el corazón del cielo que se llama Huracán. Y por ellos se obscureció la faz de la tierra y empezó una llovizna de noche y de dia, y vino todo género de animales chicos y grandes, y los palos y las piedras, y les dieron en rostro, y afrentaron, y todos hablaron, las piedras de moler, comales, platos, cajetes, ollas, perros y tinajas, todos cuantos huvo les afrentaron, y les dijeron: muy mal nos tratastes, nos mordistes, y así os morderemos ahora, dijeron los perros, y las gallinas y las piedras de moler dijeron: fuimos muy atormentados por vosotros todos, todos los dias á la tarde, á la mañana; siempre haciendo koli, holi, hu~ qui, huqui\" (esto es el sonido de la piedra y el chiflido que 'hace al moler), y este fué nuestro trabajo en vuestras 'caras y fuerais bien quistos y pues no lo fuisteis ahora probareis nuestras fuerzas , moleremos vuestras carnes, y haremos harina vuestros cuerpos. Esto les dijeron las piedras de moler, y los perros dijeron que hablaron , porque no nos dabais nuestra comida, sino que solo estábamos mirándoos, y nos corríais y nos arrojabais, y siempre estaba prevenido un palo para darnos que comíais, y así nos tratabais porque no hablábamos. ¿Quizás no hubierais muerto ahora ; porque no mirasteis por vosotros? así nos perdimos, ahora probaréis nuestros dientes que están en nuestra boca, os comeremos, dijeron los perros que les dijeron en rostro, y los comales y las ollas les hablaron en esta forma: dolor y pena nos disteis, nuestras bocas y nuestros rostros tisnados, siempre estábamos cociendo sobre el fuego, nos quemasteis y sentimos el dolor; probaréis ahora, y os quemaremos, dijeron las ollas, todas dándoles en rostro, y las piedras que eran tenamastes con furia; venga el fuego, nuestras cabezas puestas para la olla, nos hicisteis, y nos causasteis dolor, y andaban corriendo desatinados, y queriendo subirse sobre las casas, y se les caia la casa, y venían abajo, y querían subir sobre los palos, y los arrojaban los palos, y queriendo meterse en los hoyos, y se les cerraban, y así fueron destruidos y aniquilados y afrentados todos. Y así fué dicho : señal de esta gente son los monos que ahora andan por los montes, y por eso quedaron por señal, porque solo fueron de palo, hechos por el criador, y el mono por eso se parece al hombre porque es señal de otro género de hombres hechos de palo.",
     "original_source": "Ximenez's Spanish version (c. 1701-03) in Scherzer 1857, from an OCR of the archive.org scan; hyphenation repaired, a few OCR slips corrected; the K'iche' of this passage is printed in Brasseur 1861, pp. 18-28, but its OCR is too broken to give a reliable text here",
     "translation": "Then the maker and former said again to the deer and the birds: \"Speak, cry out, do not say 'yol, yol'; do not shriek; speak, each in his own kind, each according to his difference.\" So the deer, the birds, the lions, the tigers and the snakes were told: \"Say our name, praise us, say that we are your mothers and your fathers, Huracan, Chipa-caculha, Raxa-caculha, Uguxcah, Uguxleu, formers, makers, mothers and fathers; speak, call upon us, salute us,\" they were told. And they could not speak like men, but squealed, clucked and screamed, saying \"voh, vohu\"; their speech did not appear, but each one screamed and squealed in a different way. And when the formers heard that they did not speak, they said again among themselves: \"It could not be brought about that they say our name, for we are their formers and makers. This is not good,\" said those formers among themselves. And the animals were told: \"You shall be changed, because you could not speak, and so we change our word: your food, your pasture, your sleeping place and your dwelling shall be the ravines and the mountains, because you did not finish saluting us, you did not call upon us. There is still someone who will call upon us. We shall make another who will obey us. Take this office: your flesh shall be chewed, and by that you shall serve.\" So they were told, and it was notified to all the animals, small and large, that are upon the earth. And then they wished to try their day again, they wished to try again, they wished to put their salutation together again; and they no longer understood one another's speech, in no way could it be made right, nor could it be done, and so their flesh was abused and cast aside, and all the animals that are here upon the earth were eaten and killed.\n\nAnd so the maker tried other creatures once more. \"Let us try again; the sowing is near and the dawn. Let us make a sustainer and a nourisher of ourselves. How shall we be invoked, and remembered on the earth? We tried our first making and forming, and it could not be arranged that they should praise us and give us light. So let us try to make a being who obeys, a sustainer of us,\" they said; and the earth was formed. Everything was made, the body, and it did not seem good: it came apart, and was soft and clotted and unravelled, and crumbled and was damp; its head did not move, and its face stayed on one side; it was blind and did not look behind; though it spoke, it had no understanding, but dissolved in the water, and was not strong. And the makers and formers said again, \"It will be worse afterward: it will not walk and will not multiply.\" So they undid it, and kneaded again their forming and making, and said: \"How shall we make it again so that it can praise us and invoke us?\" They consulted again: \"Let us tell it to Xpiyacoc and Xmucane, and to Hun-ahpu-vuch and Hun-ahpu-uhu: let us try our day again.\" So the formers and makers said to one another, and then they told it to Xpiyacoc and to Xmucane, and afterwards to the diviners, the grandmother of the day or sun and of the moon, for so they were called by the makers and formers, and these were the names of Xpiyacoc and Xmucane.\n\nAnd Huracan, with Tepeu and Cucumatz, said to the one of the sun, the diviner, the former-diviner: \"Let our formed man be made again, and our built man, sustained and nourished again, that he may invoke us and remember us. Enter into the counsel, our grandmother and grandfather Xpiyacoc and Xmucane: how shall it be sown and brought to light, that we be invoked, that we be adored, that we be remembered by the formed and built man, by our poor man? So let it be said: show your name, Hun-ahpu-vuch, Hun-ahpu-uhu, twice mother, twice father, great coati, the one of the green stones, of the toriron, of the table, no other, the Toltecat, grandmother of the sun, grandmother of the moon; so you shall be called by those we formed and by our creatures. Cast lots with maize and with tzite, and let it be done: whether it will come out, whether we shall carve and shape his mouth and his face of wood.\" This was said to the diviners. And then they cast their lots, with the maize and the tzite, for the sun, for the forming; an old woman and an old man said it to them, and the old man was the one of the lots of tzite and was called Xpiyacoc, and the old diviner of the sun and of the forming was called Chiracan-xmucane. They said that they began to divine: \"Let the maize and the tzite join and unite; say our news, our hearing; speak, talk: is it fitting that the wood be carved by the formers, and is this the one who is to be sustained and nourished, that it be sown and brought to light? Say, you maize, you tzite, you sun, you forming: call and follow.\" So he spoke to the maize and the tzite, to the sun and the forming. \"And you, Heart of Heaven, be ashamed; do not insult Tepeu and Cucumatz.\" And then the tzite and the maize answered and said the truth: \"Do it so, for so it will be good, and the wood will speak when it is carved.\"\n\nAnd then the image of the man of wood was made, and it spoke like a man. This was the man they made, and they multiplied; they had sons and daughters. But they came out foolish, without heart, without understanding, and so they no longer remembered their maker, but were and walked about in vain upon the earth; and so they no longer remembered the Heart of Heaven, and went on their snouts. But this was only a trial, to set them up and make people. They spoke, but their faces were dry; they were stiff and heavy in the feet and hands; they had no blood, nor sweat, nor fat; their cheeks were dry and pale, their feet yellow and their hands dry, and their flesh yellow. And so they no longer remembered their maker and doer, who had made them; and these were already many, and they multiplied upon the earth.\n\nAnd afterward they were finished, and destroyed, and killed, all these men of wood. The Heart of Heaven consulted, and a great flood was made, which came upon them. The flesh of the men was of cork-wood, and of that material they were carved by the maker; and the women were made of the heart of bulrush, and that was the will of the maker, to make them of that material. But they made no remembrance and gave no thanks to the maker who made them, and so they were killed and drowned. A great resin and pitch came from the sky, and a bird called Xecotcovach came and tore out their eyes; and another came who was called Camulotz, and cut off their heads; and another animal came called Cotzbalam, and ate their flesh; and the one called Tucumbalam broke their bones and sinews and ground them to flour. This was punishment and warning, because they did not give thanks before their mother and father and Lord, the Heart of Heaven, called Huracan. And because of them the face of the earth grew dark, and a drizzle began, by night and by day. And every kind of animal, small and large, came, and the sticks and the stones struck them in the face and insulted them; and all spoke: the grinding stones, the griddles, the plates, the bowls, the pots, the dogs and the jars, everything there was insulted them and said to them: \"You treated us very badly; you bit us; so now we shall bite you,\" said the dogs. And the hens and the grinding stones said: \"We were much tormented by you, all of you, every day, in the evening and in the morning, always going 'holi, holi, huqui, huqui' (this is the sound of the stone and the whistling it makes when grinding); and this was our labour in your faces. You would have been well loved, and since you were not, now you shall try our strength: we shall grind your flesh, and make flour of your bodies.\" This the grinding stones said to them. And the dogs said, speaking: \"Because you did not give us our food, but we only stood looking at you, and you ran at us and threw us out, and a stick was always ready to give us when you ate, and so you treated us because we did not speak. Perhaps you would not have died now; but you did not look to yourselves. So we were lost. Now you shall try our teeth that are in our mouths: we shall eat you,\" said the dogs, and told them so to their faces. And the griddles and the pots spoke to them in this way: \"Pain and grief you gave us; our mouths and our faces are sooty; we were always cooking on the fire, you burned us, and we felt the pain. Now you shall try it, and we shall burn you,\" said the pots, all striking them in the face; and the hearthstones, in a fury: \"Let the fire come, our heads set to the pot, you made us, and you caused us pain.\" And they went running about distracted, and wanted to climb up on the houses, and the houses fell down under them; and they wanted to climb up the trees, and the trees threw them off; and they wanted to get into holes, and the holes closed on them; and so they were destroyed and annihilated and insulted, all of them. And so it was said: the sign of this people are the monkeys that now go about in the mountains, and for that they remained as a sign, because they were only made of wood by the maker; and the monkey resembles man for that reason, because it is the sign of another kind of men, made of wood.",
     "translator": "English by this lane directly from Ximenez's Spanish (no public-domain English translation of this passage was found); the Spanish is a compressed version of the K'iche' and its syntax is loose, so the English follows it closely",
     "url": "https://archive.org/details/lashistoriasdelo00sche",
     "rights": "original public domain; English translation by the lane"
    },
    {
     "label": "The maize people: Paxil and Cayala, the nine drinks, the four men, their sight and the breath on their eyes (K'iche', Part III, chs. 1-3)",
     "citation": "Popol Vuh, Part III, chs. 1-3 (Brasseur: Troisieme partie, ch. 1-3), K'iche' p. 194-204",
     "original": "Vae eut u tiqeric ta x-naohix vinak, ta x-tzukux puch ri ch'oc u tiohil vinak. X-e cha eut ri Alom, Qaholom, e Tzakol, Bitol, Tepeu, Gucumatz, qui bi : Mi-x-yopihicuzakiric; mi-x-tzak utzinic, mi pu x-ga= leic tzukul, cool, zakil al, zakil qahol; mi-x-gale vinak, u vinakil u vach uîeu, x-e cha . X-molomanic, x-ulic; x-be qui naoh chi gekumal, chi agabal : ta x-qui tzukuh, x-qui pukuh puch x-e naohi-nie x-e bizon puch varah Quehecul x-el vi aponoc qui naoh zakil calai : x-qui riqo, x-qui canaizah puch ri x-oc u tiohil vinak. Xa zca-quin chic mavi ca vachin gih, iq, chumil pa qui vi e Tzakol, Bitol. Pan Paxil, Pan Cayala u bi x-pe vi gana hal, zaki hal. Are ca qui bi chicop va qamol r'eeha : Yae, Ulïu, Qel, Hoh, e cahib chi chicop x-biyn u tzihelgana bal, zaki bal chique, chila que pe-vi pan Paxil, x-qut u beel PaxiL Are eut x-qui riqo riy echa are eut x-oc u tiohil vinak tzak, viuak bit, ba eut u quiqel, u quiqel vinak x-uxic, are x-occumal Alom, Qaholom ri hal. Quehecut x-e quicot vi rumal ri u riqitahic utzilab buyub, nohinak chi guz, tzatz chi gana hal, zaki liai, tzatz naipucb chi pek, chicaco; mavi abilan tulul,cavex, ginom, tapai, abache, cab; nohinak quilab echa chu pan ri tinamit pan Paxil, pan Cayala, u bi. Qo-vi echa u vachineironohel, chuti echa, nima echa; chuli ticon, nima ticon , x-qut u beel cuma chicop, Ta x-queex eut ri gana hal, zaki hal, beleheb eu uqaal x-u ban Xmucane, echa x-oquic, r'ucha, r'openal x-vinakir, u gabchial u ganaal vinak x-uxic. Ta x-qui ban ri Alom, Qaholom, Tepeuh, Gucumatz que uchaxic. Qatecut x-qui coh pa tzih u tzukic, u bitic ka nabe chuch, cahau : xa gana hal, zaki hal u tiohil, xa echa r'akan, u gab vinak; ri e ka nabe cahau, e çahib chi vi-nak tzak, xa echa oquinak qui tiohii. CAPAH CHI.TZIH. Vae qui bi nabe vinak x-e tzakic, x-e bitic; are nabe vinak ri Balam-Quitze : u cab Balam-Agab ; r'ox chicut Mahucutah, u cab eut Iqi-Balam, are eu qui bi ri ka nabe chuch, cahau. Xa tzak, xa bit que u chaxic; ma habi qui chuch, ma-habi qui cahau ; xa utuquel achih chi ka byih. Mana ixok x-ealanic, ma-naipu x-e qaholanic rumal ri Ahtzak, Ah-bit, ri Alom, Qaholom. Xa puz, xa naual qui tzakic, qui bitic rumal ri Tzakol, B.itol, Alom, Qaholom, Tépeu, Gucumatz : ta x-e vinak-vachin eut e vinak x-euxic; x-e chauic, x-e tzihon pueh, x-e mucunic, x-e taon pueh, x-e binic, x-e chapanic, e utzilah vinak e chaom, achihil vach qui vachibal. Qo quxlal x-uxic : x-e mucum naipuch huzuc x-opon qui mucubal; x-quiz qu'ilo; x-quiz qu'etamah ronohel xecah, uvc que mucunic libahchi chi qui zolvachih, chi /olmucuh puch u pam cah, u paru uleu. Muhucatahil nachi qu'ilix-tah ronohel, ma que bin-ta na-on nabe; qate ta chi qu'il ri u xecah, xavi chire e qo-vi ta que mucunic. Tzatz qu'etamabalx-uxic; x-iqou qui vachibal pache, pa abah, pa cho, pa palo, pa huyub, pa tagah : quitzili vi e logolah vinak ri Balam-Quitze, Balam-Agab, Mahu-outah, Iqi-Balam. Ta x-e tzonox eut rumal ri Ahtzak, Ahbit : Huchalic y qohei qu'y nao? Ma qu'yx mucunic, ma qu'yx taonic, ma utz y chabal ruq y binibal? Qu'yx mucuna nacut, ch'yv'ila u xecah ma calah huyub, tagah; qu'yv'ilo ch'y tiha nacut, x-e u chaxic. Qatepuch x-quiz qu'il ronohel u xe cah : qatecut qui qamouanic ri chire Tzakol, Bitol : Quitzih vi chi camul qamo, oxmul qamo! Mi-x-oh vinakiric, mi pux-oh chiy-nic, x-oh vachinic, koh chauic, koh taonic, koh bizonic, koh zilabic : utz ca ka nao x-k'etamah nah, nakah ; Mi pu x-k'ilo nim, chutin upa cahupa uleu. Qamo eut ch'yve; mi-x-oh vinakiric, Ahtzak, Ahbit, mi-x-oh uxic, at k'atit, at ka marn, x-e eha, ta x-qui qamouali qui tzakic qui bitic. X-qiz qu'etamah ronohel, x-qui mucuh cah-tzuk, cah xucut u pam cah, u pam uleu. Ma eu utz x-qui tao ri Ahtzak, ri Ahbit : Mavi utz ri mi-x-qui byih ka tzak, ka bit. Mi-x-qu'etamah ronohel nim chutin, que eha. | Quehe chicut u qamic chic qui naoh Alom, Qaholom : Hucha chic chi ka ban chique? Xata nakah ch'opon vi qui mucubal, xata zcaquin u vach uleu chi qu'ilo. Mavi utz rica qui biyh. Ma-pa xa tzak, xa bit qui bi ? Xalabe e qabauil que uxi chic, uve mavi que pogotahic que quiritahic ta ch'auax-oc, ta zakir-oc, uve mavi chi quiaric. Ta ch'uxoc. Xa ka yoho chi zcaquin chic qo chi ca r'ah : mavi utz ca ]^a nao. Xa-pa x-chi hunamatah qui banoh kuq ri naht c'opon vi k'etamabal qu'ilon ronohel ? X-e uchaxic rumal u Qux Cah , Hurakan , Chîpi-Cakulha, Raxa-Cakulha, Tepeu, Gucumatz, Alom, Qaho-lom, Xpiyacoc, Xmucane, Tzakol, Bitol, que u chaxic ta x-qui ban eut u qoheic chic qui tzak qui bit. Xa eu x-u abax u bak qui vach ruinai ri u Qux cah, x-moyie queheri x-uxlabix u vach lemo : x-moyomobic u bak qui vach ; xa nakah chic x-e mucun vi, xere chi ca~ lah ri e qo-vi. Quehecut u zachic qiretamabal ruq ronohel qui naobal e cahib chi vinak, u xe u tiqaribal. Quehecut qui tzakic, qui bitic nabe ka mam, ka cahau rumal u Qux cah, u Qux uleu.",
     "original_source": "K'iche' text as printed in Brasseur de Bourbourg, Popol Vuh: le livre sacre, Paris 1861, pp. 194-204 (his orthography), from an OCR of the archive.org scan; footnotes removed; occasional OCR slips and a few lost line-ends remain",
     "translation": "Now this is the beginning of when man was thought of, and what should enter into the flesh of man was sought. Then spoke the Begetters, the Makers and Formers, whose names are Tepeu and Gucumatz: \"The dawn is near; the work is finished; the sustainer, the nourisher, the child of light, the child of civilization is ennobled; man is honoured, humankind upon the face of the earth,\" they said. They came and gathered in great number; in the darkness, in the night, they joined their wise counsels; they sought, and shaking their heads they consulted, thinking what they would do. In this way came out the wise decisions of those enlightened ones: they found, and it was shown them, what should enter into the flesh of man. Little remained before the sun, the moon and the stars would appear above them, above the Maker and the Former.\n\nAt Paxil, at Cayala, as the place is called, came the ears of yellow maize and the ears of white maize. And these are the names of the animals that went to seek the food: the Fox (Yac), the Coyote (Utiu), the Parakeet (Qel) and the Crow (Hoh), four animals who brought the news of the ears of yellow maize and white maize that came from Paxil, and who showed them the road to Paxil. And there they found the food that entered into the flesh of the formed man, the made man; this was his blood, this became the blood of man, this maize that entered into him through the Begetter and the Giver of Being.\n\nSo they rejoiced at having arrived at that excellent land, so full of savoury things, where the yellow maize and the white maize abounded, where the pek and the cacao abounded too; where the sapotes, the anonas, the jocotes, the nances and the ahaches could not be counted, and the honey; all was full of the best foods in that town of Paxil and Cayala, for so it was named. There were foods of every kind, small and large, small plants and large plants, to which the animals had shown the road. Then they began to grind the yellow maize and the white maize, and Xmucane made nine drinks from them; and this food, entering the body, gave strength and vigour and made the flesh and the muscles of man. That is what the Begetter and the Giver of Being, Tepeu and Gucumatz, did. At once they began to speak of making and forming our first mother and our first father: of yellow maize and white maize alone was their flesh, and of food alone were the legs and the arms of man. These were our first fathers, the four men who were formed, and into whom the food entered to make their flesh.\n\nThese are the names of the first men who were made and formed: the first man was Balam-Quitze; the second Balam-Acab; the third Mahucutah; and the fourth Iqi-Balam; and these are the names of our first mothers and fathers. They were called simply things made and formed: they had neither mother nor father, and we call them simply men. No woman gave them birth, and they were not begotten by the Builder and Former, the Begetter and Giver of Being; but their making and forming, by the Creator and Former, by Tepeu and Gucumatz, was a marvel, a true enchantment. Appearing as men, men they were: they spoke and reasoned, they saw and heard, they walked and touched; they were perfect and handsome men, and their figure was the figure of a man. Thought existed in them, and they saw; and at once their gaze rose: their sight embraced everything; they knew the whole world, and when they contemplated it, their sight turned in an instant from the vault of heaven to look again at the surface of the earth. The things most hidden they saw all at will, without needing to move beforehand; and when afterward they cast their sight upon this world, they saw in the same way all it contains. Great was their wisdom; their genius extended over the woods, the rocks, the lakes, the seas, the mountains and the valleys. Truly admirable men were Balam-Quitze, Balam-Acab, Mahucutah and Iqi-Balam.\n\nThen they were questioned by the Builder and the Former: \"What do you think of your being? Do you not see, do you not hear? Is your speech not good, and your walk? Look then, and see beneath the sky whether the mountains and the plains appear. Try to see them now,\" they were told. And after that they saw all there is beneath the sky; then they gave thanks to the Creator and the Former: \"Truly we give you thanks, twice and three times! We have received existence, we have received a mouth and a face, we speak, we hear, we think, we walk; we feel and know equally well what is far and what is near. We see all things great and small, in the sky and on the earth. Thanks to you we have been created, O Builder, O Former; we are, O our grandmother, O our grandfather,\" they said, giving thanks for their existence and formation. And they finished measuring and seeing all that exists in the four corners and the four angles of the sky and the earth.\n\nBut the Builder and the Former did not hear these things with pleasure. \"It is not good, what our creatures say: they know all things, great and small,\" they said. So counsel was taken again among the Begetter and the Giver of Being: \"What shall we do with them now? Let their sight reach only a little, let them see only a little of the face of the earth. It is not good, what they say. Are they not merely creatures, made things? But they will be gods, if they do not procreate and multiply at the time of the sowing, when the day dawns. So be it. Let us only dim them a little, so that something is lacking to them: it is not good, what we see. Would they perhaps be equal to us, who made them, whose wisdom reaches far and knows all?\" So said the Heart of Heaven, Hurakan, Chipi-Caculha, Raxa-Caculha, Tepeu, Gucumatz, the Begetter and Giver of Being, Xpiyacoc, Xmucane, the Builder and the Former; so they spoke, working again upon the nature of their creature and formation.\n\nThen a mist was breathed into their eyes by the Heart of Heaven, and it veiled them like the face of a mirror when one breathes on it and it clouds over: the globes of their eyes were darkened; they saw only what was near, and only that remained clear to them. So their wisdom was destroyed, and all the knowledge of the four men, its principle and its beginning. So our first grandfathers and fathers were formed and created by the Heart of Heaven, the Heart of the Earth.",
     "translator": "English by this lane from Brasseur's French and Ximenez's Spanish (both public domain), which follow the K'iche'; not a translation from the K'iche' itself",
     "url": "https://archive.org/details/popolvuhlelivres00bras",
     "rights": "original public domain; English translation by the lane"
    },
    {
     "label": "The same maize passage in Ximenez's Spanish (to the breath on their eyes)",
     "citation": "Ximenez's Spanish in Scherzer 1857, pp. 79-83",
     "original": "Y aquí empieza cuando se dispuso hacer el hombre, y el buscar cosa, que fuese carne del hombre, y dijeron los criadores y los formadores, Tepeu y Cucumatz, que así se llamaban: ya se acercó el tiempo del amanecer, y de que se acabe de perfeccionar todo, todo, y de ser hechos los sustentados nuestros, esclarecidos vasallos , se han secado los hombres vivientes de la tierra, dijeron. Se juntaron y vinieron de montón, y fueron á aconsejarse en la obscuridad de la noche, y buscando se aconsejaron y consultaron y se entristecieron aquí, y así salió á luz su sabiduría á la claridad, y hallaron lo que buscaban , que fuese carne del hombre , y faltaba ya poco para que amaneciese el sol, luna y estrellas sobre los formadores. De Paxil y de Cayala, que así se llamaban, vinieron las mazorcas amarillas y blancas; y estos eran los nombres de los animales que trajeron la comido: el gato de monte, el lobo, el chocoy y el cuervo; estos cuatro animales manifestaron las mazorcas amarillas y blancas á ellos, y como se traían de Paxil, que era el paraíso , y enseñaron el camino para Paxil, y esto fué lo que hallaron la comida, y de esto se hizo la carne del hombre que fué formado , y esta fué la sangre del hombre , y esto fué puesto por los criadores, aquellas mazorcas. Y así se alegraron por haber hallado una hermosa tierra, llena de dulzuras, de muchas mazorcas amarillas y blancas, mucho pataste y cacao: no eran contables los zapotes, las anonas, jocotes, nances, matazanos, miel, que todo estaba llena de suaves bastimentos en aquel pueblo de Paxil y de Cayala, que así se llamaba, y habia bastimento de todas suertes , chico y grande , plantas pequeñas y grandes, y fué manifestado el camino por los animales. Y moliendo entonces las mazorcas amarillas y las blancas, hizo la Xcumane nueve bebidas, y entraron de comida y bebida, y luego se crió la gordura y grosura del hombre, cuando lo hicieron los formadores, que se llamaban Tepeu y Cucumatz, y luego pusieron en plática el criar á nuestros primeros padres y madres, y solo fueron mazorcas amarillas y blancas su carne , y solo comida fueron sus brazos y piernas de los hombres, nuestros primeros padres, que fueron cuatro los criados, y solo comida fué su carne de ellos. Estos fueron los nombres de los primeros hombres que fueron formados: el primer hombre se llamaba Balam-quitzé; el segundo Balam-acab ; el tercero Mahucutah y el cuarto Yquibalam. Y estos son los nombres de nuestros primeros padres y madres, solo formaduras y criaturas son dichos, no tuvieron padres ni madres, solo los llamamos hombres, que no nacieron de mujeres, ni tampoco fueron engendrados por el criador, sino que por milagro fueron formados y criados por el criador , que se llamaba Tepeu y Cucumatz , y cuando fueron hechos hombres ó á su imagen, fueron hombres que hablaron y parlaron, vieron y oyeron, anduvieron y palparon, eran buenos hombres y hermosos , y sus semejanzas fueron de hombres y tuvieron respiración; y mirando, llegó su vista á verlo todo, y supieron todo cuánto hay en el mundo, y cuando miraban, luego volvian á ver, y revolvían la vista á todo lo que está en el cielo y lo que hay en la tierra, y no habia cosa que les pudiese impedir la vista de todo cuánto hay. Y no habian menester andar ni correr nuestros primeros padres, para ver todo lo que hay en el cielo, sino que en una parte se estaban cuando lo veían todo: mucha era su sabiduría y sobrepujo su semejanza á los árboles, á las piedras, á la laguna, al mar, al monte, y al llano, y eran muy preciosos hombres el Balam-quitzé , Balam-acab, Mahucutah y Yquibalam. Y entonces fueron preguntados por el criador: ¿cómo es vuestro estado? ¿ois, por ventura? ¿veis, por ventura? ¿por ventura, es bueno vuestro andar y hablar? ¿mirad y ved todo el mundo? ¿veis claramente los cerros y los llanos? ¡Probad á verlo todo! les fué dicho, y luego lo vieron todo cuanto habia en el mundo, y luego dieron gracias al criador y formador, diciendo : de verdad os damos muchas veces gracias, porque nos habéis criado hombres, nos disteis boca, cara, y que habláramos y oyésemos; nos meneamos y andamos y tenemos gusto, y supimos todo lo que está distante y cerca, y también vemos lo grande y lo pequeño, el cielo y la tierra, y así m os damos gracias que nos criasteis, y fuimos criados y formados; tú eres nuestra abuela y nuestro abuelo, dijeron, dando gracias de su creación, y acabaron de saberlo todo y de verlo hasta los cuatro rincones del cielo y de la tierra, y lo que habia dentro del cielo y dentro de la tierra. Y no les pareció bien esto á los formadores y criadores: no está bien esto, que dijeron nuestras criaturas, que dicen y saben cuanto hay, chico y grande. Y así otra vez consultaron los criadores: ¿qué haremos otra vez con estos, que solo lo que está cerca vean, sino que un poco de la faz de la tierra vean sus ojos? porque no es bueno esto que dicen. ¿Por ventura, no son solamente criaturas? ¿por ventura, han de ser ellos también dioses? ¿Y si no se multiplican cuando ya sea tiempo de que amanezca, y si no se aumentan? Desbaratárnosles un poco, porque todavia les falta que hacer: no está bueno esto que vemos: ¿por ventura hemos de igualarnos todos que sabemos todo cuanto hay, y lo vemos todo? les fué dicho por el corazón del cielo, Huracán, Chipi-* caculha, Raxa-caculha, Tepeu y Cucumatz criador, y al viejo Xpiyacoc y á la Xmucane, que son llamados criadores; y después dispusieron de otra suerte á sus criaturas. Y luego les fué echado vaho en los ojos por aquel que era el corazón del cielo, y se los empañó así como si soplando un espejo que le empaña, así le empañó los ojos, y así solo pudo ver lo que estaba cerca, solo aquello le estaba claro, y así fué perdida la sabiduría y entendimiento de los cuatro hombres primeros, y así fueron formados nuestros primeros padres por el corazón del cielo y de la tierra.",
     "original_source": "Ximenez's Spanish version as printed in Scherzer 1857 (OCR text; hyphenation repaired)",
     "url": "https://archive.org/details/lashistoriasdelo00sche",
     "rights": "public domain"
    },
    {
     "label": "At Tulan, in the East: one tongue, then the speech of the peoples is changed",
     "citation": "Popol Vuh, Ximenez's Spanish in Scherzer 1857, pp. 84-85 and 87",
     "original": "Y allí mismo estuvieron en aquella dulzura los hombres blancos y negros, y hubo muchas lenguas y de dos orejas, y hay diferentes generaciones en el mundo, y hay patrias de algunos hombres que no se han visto sus caras, y no tienen casas, sino que como locos se andan por todos los montes; esto dijeron menospreciando las patrias de otros, dijeron, allá donde vieron el Oriente. Y entonces no idolatraban, sino que eran todos de una lengua, y solo guardaban el mandato del criador corazón del cielo y de la tierra, y solo aguardaban que naciese el sol.\n\n[…]\n\nY entonces entraron todos los pueblos, los de Ravinal, los Cacchiqueles, los de Quiquinaha, con dos de Yaqui, que ahora se llaman así; y allí se les mudó el lenguage á los pueblos, y hablaron diferentemente, y no se entendían entre sí, cuando vinieron de Tulanzú, y allí se dividieron : unos se fueron hacia el Oriente, y muchos se vinieron aquí.",
     "original_source": "Scherzer 1857, archive.org OCR (hyphenation repaired, page numbers removed), https://archive.org/details/lashistoriasdelo00sche",
     "translation": "And there, in that sweetness, were the white men and the black, and there were many tongues, and people of two ears, and there are different generations in the world, and there are lands of some men whose faces have not been seen, and they have no houses but go about all the mountains like madmen; this they said, despising the lands of others, they said, there where they saw the East. And at that time they did not worship idols, but were all of one tongue, and only kept the command of the maker, the heart of the sky and of the earth, and only waited for the sun to be born.\n\n[…]\n\nAnd then all the peoples entered, those of Ravinal, the Cakchiqueles, those of Quiquinaha, with two of Yaqui, who are now so called; and there the language of the peoples was changed for them, and they spoke differently, and they did not understand one another when they came from Tulanzú, and there they divided: some went toward the East, and many came here.",
     "translator": "Own English translation of Ximenez's Spanish for this dataset",
     "url": "https://archive.org/details/lashistoriasdelo00sche",
     "rights": "original public domain; English translation by the lane"
    }
   ],
   "sources": [
    {
     "citation": "Carl Scherzer, Las historias del origen de los Indios de esta provincia de Guatemala (Vienna, 1857), Ximenez's Spanish",
     "url": "https://archive.org/details/lashistoriasdelo00sche"
    },
    {
     "citation": "Charles Etienne Brasseur de Bourbourg, Popol Vuh: Le livre sacre et les mythes de l'antiquite americaine (Paris, 1861), K'iche' with French",
     "url": "https://archive.org/details/popolvuhlelivres00bras"
    }
   ],
   "notes": "Speech in three stages: animals that only squawk and cackle, a mud man who talks without understanding and wooden people who talk without heart, then the maize people who speak, see and hear. After that, at Tulan, one language is changed into many. The English of Delia Goetz and Sylvanus Morley (1950), Dennis Tedlock (1985, 1996) and Allen Christenson (2003) is in copyright and is not quoted. The K'iche' of the mud and wood passage (Brasseur 1861, pp. 18-28) was seen but its OCR is too fragmentary to reproduce; it should be re-read from the scan."
  },
  {
   "id": "enmerkar",
   "people": "Sumerian",
   "region": "Uruk, Iraq",
   "latitude": 31.4,
   "longitude": 45.55,
   "layers": "in stages",
   "scheme": "One tongue, where no snake is.",
   "map_story": "A spell inside the poem of Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta describes a day with no fear in it: “On that day when there is no snake, when there is no scorpion, when there is no hyena, when there is no lion”, man has no rival. On such a day the lands, named one by one from Šubur to the Martu land, are to address the god Enlil together in a single language. Then Enki, lord of Eridu, “chosen for wisdom”, “shall change the speech in their mouths, as many as he had placed there”. The time of one speech and the time without the snake are the same time.",
   "map_source": "Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta 134–155 (ETCSL 1.8.2.3)",
   "text_date": "Old Babylonian copies c. 1800 BCE (composition probably late 3rd millennium BCE)",
   "recorded": "Sumerian literary composition copied by scribes at Nippur and elsewhere in southern Iraq; Enmerkar, lord of Unug (Uruk), has his messenger recite the spell to the lord of Aratta.",
   "original_language": "Sumerian",
   "excerpts": [
    {
     "label": "The incantation of Nudimmud: the day when there is no snake, when all the lands address Enlil in one language, until Enki changes the speech",
     "citation": "Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta (ETCSL t.1.8.2.3), lines 134-155",
     "original": "134 e2-nun-e2-nun-ba / cir3 kug nam-cub tuku-a-ba\n135 nam-cub dnu-dim2-mud-da-ke4 e-ne-ra / dug4-mu-na-ab\n136 ud-ba muc nu-jal2-am3 jiri2 / nu-jal2-am3\n137 kir4 nu-jal2-am3 ur-mah / nu-jal2-am3\n138 ur-gir15 ur-bar-ra / nu-jal2-am3\n139 ni2 tej3-ja2 su zi-zi-i / nu-jal2-am3\n140 lu2-ulu3lu gaba cu jar nu-tuku\n141 ud-ba kur cuburki ha-ma-ziki\n142 eme ha-mun ki-en-gi kur gal me / nam-nun-na-ka\n143 ki-uri kur me-te jal2-la\n144 kur mar-tu u2-sal-la / nu2-a\n145 an-ki nijin2-na uj3 saj / sig10-ga\n146 den-lil2-ra eme / 1-am3 he2-en-na-da-ab-dug4\n147 ud-ba a-da en a-da nun a-da lugal-la\n148 den-ki a-da en a-da nun a-da / lugal-la\n149 a-da en-e a-da nun-e a-da lugal-la\n150 den-ki en / he2-jal2-la en dug4-ga zid-da\n151 en jectug2-ga igi jal2 / kalam-ma-ke4\n152 mas-su dijir-re-e-ne-ke4\n153 jectug2-ge pad3-da en eridugki-ga-ke4\n154 ka-ba eme i3-kur2 en-na mi-ni-in-jar-ra\n155 eme nam-lu2-ulu3 1 / i3-me-[am2]",
     "original_source": "ETCSL composite text, in the ETCSL ASCII transliteration (c = sh, j = ng)",
     "translation": "134-155 \"Chant to him the holy song, the incantation sung in its chambers -- the incantation of Nudimmud: \"On that day when there is no snake, when there is no scorpion, when there is no hyena, when there is no lion, when there is neither dog nor wolf, when there is thus neither fear nor trembling, man has no rival! At such a time, may the lands of Cubur and Hamazi, the many-tongued, and Sumer, the great mountain of the me of magnificence, and Akkad, the land possessing all that is befitting, and the Martu land, resting in security -- the whole universe, the well-guarded people -- may they all address Enlil together in a single language! For at that time, for the ambitious lords, for the ambitious princes, for the ambitious kings, Enki, for the ambitious lords, for the ambitious princes, for the ambitious kings, for the ambitious lords, for the ambitious princes, for the ambitious kings -- Enki, the lord of abundance and of steadfast decisions, the wise and knowing lord of the Land, the expert of the gods, chosen for wisdom, the lord of Eridug, shall change the speech in their mouths, as many as he had placed there, and so the speech of mankind is truly one.\" \"",
     "translator": "ETCSL translation (J. A. Black et al.), Oxford 1998-2006",
     "url": "https://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/section1/tr1823.htm",
     "rights": "ETCSL, Black, Cunningham, Fluckiger-Hawker, Robson, Taylor and Zolyomi, The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature, Oxford 1998-2006; freely available online with citation (treated as open-licensed per the editor's brief)"
    }
   ],
   "sources": [
    {
     "citation": "ETCSL t.1.8.2.3, Enmerkar and the lord of Aratta, lines 134-155",
     "url": "https://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/section1/tr1823.htm"
    }
   ],
   "notes": "Reused from the Ages of Man file (sumer). The ETCSL translation is open-access with citation (Oxford 1998-2006); transliteration uses the ETCSL ASCII convention (c = sh, j = ng)."
  },
  {
   "id": "wa-cangyuan",
   "people": "Wa",
   "region": "Cangyuan, Yunnan, China",
   "latitude": 23.15,
   "longitude": 99.25,
   "layers": "mute, in stages",
   "scheme": "Few, and unable to speak.",
   "map_story": "People come out of a hole in the earth called Yanghe. “At that time few people had come out, and moreover they could not speak.” They live among the wild animals and are hardly different from them. What divides them is work. People use their strength and labour, and day by day they grow less like the beasts, until they can speak and can keep grain, which they have kept down to today. The beasts will not labour, and they stay beasts. The Wa do not name a teacher. Speech comes slowly to those who work for their food.",
   "map_source": "zqymyth id 525 (T-21-020, 1981)",
   "text_date": "collected c. 1950s-70s; published 1981 in 《中国少数民族民间故事选》",
   "recorded": "Wa of Cangyuan, Lincang, Yunnan, China; T-21-020 人类是怎样生存到现在的, arranged by 潘春辉 (same text as T-21-002, id 260).",
   "original_language": "Chinese (rendering of Wa oral telling)",
   "summary_long": "People come out of a hole in the earth called Yanghe. At that time few people had come out, and moreover they could not speak. They live among the wild animals and are hardly different from them. What divides them from the beasts is work. People use their strength and labour, and from day to day they grow more unlike the animals, until they can speak and can keep grain, which they have kept down to the present. The animals will not labour and they stay animals. The Wa do not name a teacher or a shock: speech arrives slowly, by labour, as part of the same process that gives them grain.",
   "excerpts": [
    {
     "label": "Few people, and they could not speak",
     "citation": "zqymyth id 525",
     "original": "那时，人出来得很少，而且不会说话",
     "original_source": "藏羌彝走廊多民族创世神话数据库 (zqymyth.com), id 525",
     "translation": "At that time few people had come out, and moreover they could not speak.",
     "translator": "compiler's English",
     "url": "http://www.zqymyth.com/nd.jsp?id=525&fromMid=3&groupId=59",
     "rights": "in copyright, short quotation"
    },
    {
     "label": "Few people, and they could not speak",
     "citation": "zqymyth id 525",
     "original": "人会说话，也把谷子留到今天",
     "original_source": "藏羌彝走廊多民族创世神话数据库 (zqymyth.com), id 525",
     "translation": "People could speak, and they kept grain down to today.",
     "translator": "compiler's English",
     "url": "http://www.zqymyth.com/nd.jsp?id=525&fromMid=3&groupId=59",
     "rights": "in copyright, short quotation"
    }
   ],
   "sources": [
    {
     "citation": "藏羌彝走廊多民族创世神话数据库, id 525 (T-21-020, 1981)",
     "url": "http://www.zqymyth.com/nd.jsp?id=525&fromMid=3&groupId=59"
    }
   ],
   "notes": "zqymyth.com was unreachable from Chrome and curl on 2026-11-14 (error page), so quotes and summary come from the asia-pacific packet, whose Chinese quotes were read in-page on the earlier pass; Chinese quotes are trimmed to 25 characters or fewer. The Ages-of-Man Wa entry (Ceinos Arcones 2016, in east-asia-pacific.json) covers a different Wa telling about three humanities and holds no speech passage, so nothing was reused from it."
  },
  {
   "id": "yi-one-eyed",
   "people": "Yi",
   "region": "Mile and Shilin, Yunnan, China",
   "latitude": 24.5,
   "longitude": 103.3,
   "layers": "mute, in stages",
   "scheme": "The one-eyed, speechless generation.",
   "map_story": "The Yi count three generations of mankind by their eyes. The first people, the Ladie, have a single eye. “This one-eyed generation could not speak, still less farm.” They live as the wild animals do. People eat beasts and beasts eat people; they fight one another constantly, and sometimes people eat people. In that age monkeys and humans cannot be told apart. The one-eyed people are destroyed and a second generation takes their place, with eyes set upright in their faces. The third generation, with level eyes, is the one living now. Speech belongs only to the later peoples.",
   "map_source": "zqymyth id 459 (独眼睛时代)",
   "text_date": "published 20th century (《云南省民族民间文学》)",
   "recorded": "Yi of Mile and Shilin, Yunnan, China; 彝家的古根·独眼睛时代, in a Yunnan folk-literature collection.",
   "original_language": "Chinese (rendering of Yi oral telling)",
   "summary_long": "The Yi count three generations of humankind by the arrangement of their eyes. The first, the Ladie, are one-eyed. The text says they could not speak and still less could they farm. They lived as wild beasts live. People ate the beasts and the beasts ate people; they fought constantly, and sometimes people ate people. In that age monkeys and humans could not be told apart. The one-eyed generation is destroyed and a second generation takes its place, with eyes set upright in the face. The third generation, with level eyes, is the one living now. Speech is thus assigned to the later peoples, and the first age is a time of mutes, cannibals and beast-men. This is the telling that ties the speech motif to the Ages-of-Man pattern of descending or ascending generations: a first generation without speech or agriculture that is wiped out and replaced by a better one.",
   "excerpts": [
    {
     "label": "The one-eyed generation could not speak",
     "citation": "zqymyth id 459",
     "original": "这一代独眼人，不会说话，更不会种田",
     "original_source": "藏羌彝走廊多民族创世神话数据库 (zqymyth.com), id 459",
     "translation": "This one-eyed generation could not speak, still less farm.",
     "translator": "compiler's English",
     "url": "http://www.zqymyth.com/nd.jsp?id=459&fromMid=3&groupId=59",
     "rights": "in copyright, short quotation"
    },
    {
     "label": "The one-eyed generation could not speak",
     "citation": "zqymyth id 459",
     "original": "独眼睛的时代，猴子和人分不清",
     "original_source": "藏羌彝走廊多民族创世神话数据库 (zqymyth.com), id 459",
     "translation": "In the one-eyed age, monkeys and people could not be told apart.",
     "translator": "compiler's English",
     "url": "http://www.zqymyth.com/nd.jsp?id=459&fromMid=3&groupId=59",
     "rights": "in copyright, short quotation"
    }
   ],
   "sources": [
    {
     "citation": "藏羌彝走廊多民族创世神话数据库, id 459 (独眼睛时代)",
     "url": "http://www.zqymyth.com/nd.jsp?id=459&fromMid=3&groupId=59"
    }
   ],
   "notes": "zqymyth.com was unreachable from Chrome and curl on 2026-11-14 (error page), so quotes and summary come from the asia-pacific packet, whose Chinese quotes were read in-page on the earlier pass; Chinese quotes are trimmed to 25 characters or fewer."
  },
  {
   "id": "yi-hnewo",
   "people": "Yi (Nuosu)",
   "region": "Liangshan, Sichuan, China",
   "latitude": 28.1,
   "longitude": 102.6,
   "layers": "mute, in stages",
   "scheme": "A pair of mute things.",
   "map_story": "The Nuosu epic Hnewo Teyy tells how the ancestor-fire falls from the sky, and how the makers try to bring people out of what it leaves. The first result is a failure: “there were born a pair of mute things, short and ugly, unable to speak”. The epic asks whether such things can become people and answers that they cannot become ancestors. More attempts fail after them, with silver and gold, with cloud, and with a fool whose body is pine wood. Only later do the snow-born tribes arrive, and real human beings among them.",
   "map_source": "zqymyth id 477 (勒俄特依, tr. 冯元蔚)",
   "text_date": "epic transmitted orally; Chinese translation by 冯元蔚 (published 20th century)",
   "recorded": "Nuosu Yi of Liangshan, Sichuan, China; the epic 勒俄特依 (Hnewo Teyy), section on the snow-born tribes, Chinese translation by 冯元蔚.",
   "original_language": "Chinese (translation of Nuosu epic)",
   "summary_long": "The Nuosu epic tells how the ancestor-fire falls from the sky and how the makers try to bring people out of what it leaves. The first result is a failure: a pair of mute things is born, short and ugly, unable to speak. The epic puts the question whether such creatures can become people and answers that they cannot become ancestors. After them come further failed attempts, with silver and gold, with cloud, and with a fool whose body is pine wood. Only later do the snow-born tribes arrive, and real human beings among them. The passage is a failed pre-human creation rather than a first humanity proper, but it makes speech a test of whether a creature can be an ancestor. A mute thing, however living, does not qualify.",
   "excerpts": [
    {
     "label": "A pair of mute things",
     "citation": "zqymyth id 477",
     "original": "生出一对哑物，既矮小，又难看，不会说话",
     "original_source": "藏羌彝走廊多民族创世神话数据库 (zqymyth.com), id 477",
     "translation": "there were born a pair of mute things, short and ugly, unable to speak",
     "translator": "compiler's English",
     "url": "http://www.zqymyth.com/nd.jsp?id=477&fromMid=3&groupId=59",
     "rights": "in copyright, short quotation"
    },
    {
     "label": "A pair of mute things",
     "citation": "zqymyth id 477",
     "original": "不能变成先人",
     "original_source": "藏羌彝走廊多民族创世神话数据库 (zqymyth.com), id 477",
     "translation": "They could not become ancestors.",
     "translator": "compiler's English",
     "url": "http://www.zqymyth.com/nd.jsp?id=477&fromMid=3&groupId=59",
     "rights": "in copyright, short quotation"
    }
   ],
   "sources": [
    {
     "citation": "藏羌彝走廊多民族创世神话数据库, id 477 (勒俄特依, tr. 冯元蔚)",
     "url": "http://www.zqymyth.com/nd.jsp?id=477&fromMid=3&groupId=59"
    }
   ],
   "notes": "zqymyth.com was unreachable from Chrome and curl on 2026-11-14 (error page), so quotes and summary come from the asia-pacific packet, whose Chinese quotes were read in-page on the earlier pass; Chinese quotes are trimmed to 25 characters or fewer."
  },
  {
   "id": "umul",
   "people": "Sumerian",
   "region": "Eridu, Iraq",
   "latitude": 30.82,
   "longitude": 45.99,
   "layers": "mute",
   "scheme": "Enki's creature cannot speak.",
   "map_story": "Mankind has just been made, and the gods Enki and Ninmah are drinking beer and competing. She makes a series of damaged people, and he finds each one a place and a living. Then Enki makes a creature of his own, Umul, and challenges her to do the same for it. Ninmah goes up to it and tries: she “went nearer to Umul asked him questions but he could not speak. She offered him bread to eat but he could not reach out for it.” It cannot sit or lie down. She says it is neither alive nor dead. The poem sets a creature without speech beside the first humans as the thing that went wrong.",
   "map_source": "Enki and Ninmah 83–101 (ETCSL 1.1.2)",
   "text_date": "Old Babylonian copies c. 1800 BCE (composition probably Ur III, c. 2000 BCE)",
   "recorded": "Sumerian myth copied by scribes at Nippur and elsewhere in southern Iraq; set at a feast of Enki and Ninmah at Eridu, after the gods have made mankind.",
   "original_language": "Sumerian",
   "excerpts": [
    {
     "label": "Enki fashions Umul; Ninmah questions him, 'but he could not speak', offers him bread, and finds him neither alive nor dead",
     "citation": "Enki and Ninmah (ETCSL 1.1.2), lines 79-101",
     "original": "83den-ki-ke4 me-dim2 saj-ja2 X-ga? ka cag4-ba a-ma-ni-dim2\n84dnin-mah-a-ra gu3 mu-un-na-de2-e\n85a jic3-ak cag4 munus-a-ka ri-a (1 ms. has instead: a gan cag4 munus-a-ka) a cag4-ga-na munus-bi mu-un-u3-tu\n86dnin-mah [...] u3-tu-bi-ce3 am3-mi-ni-gub\n87munus-bi ud-bi [...] ga AC X KA cag4-ba i-in-cub (1 ms. has instead: saj-bi-ic [ba]-/ra\\-an-ed2) dnin-[mah] [...] i3-si-ig\n88gi4-bi u4-mu-ul a-za-ad-bi gig-ga ki-nam-X-bi gig-ga igi-bi gig-ga gu2-bi gig-ga\n89zi til-til ti sur-sur mur gig-ga cag4 gig-ga lipic gig-ga\n90cu-bi!(ni) a-za-ad la2-la2 ka-bi-ce3 ninda nu-jar murgu2 [saj]-du ze2-re\n91zag-ce sur jiri3 sur-sur a-gar3 nu-DU am3-ma-ni-/in\\-dim2\n92den-ki-ke4 dnin-mah-ra gu3 mu-na-de2-e\n93lu2 cu dim2-ma-zu nam i-ni-in-tar ninda mi-ni-[cum2]\n94za-e lu2 cu dim2-ju10-uc nam-bi tar-ra-ab ninda he2-[...-cum2]\n95dnin-mah-e u4-mu-ul igi [du8-a-ni-ta e-ne]-ce3 ba-e-gi4\n96u4-mu-ul mu-na-te en3 mu-na-tar-tar-re du11-ga nu-zu-e\n97ninda gu7-a-ni-ce3 mu-na-ab-de6 cu nu-mu-na-da-gid2-/de3\\\n98jicgur8-u6 cag4? nu-mu-na-nu2 nu-mu-da-an-jal2-jal2\n99gub [nu]-mu-da-tuc nu-mu-da-nu2 e2 nu-mu-da-[X] ninda nu-mu-da-[gu7]\n100dnin-mah-e den-ki-ra inim-ma mu-[...-gi4-gi4]\n101lu2 cu dim2-ma-zu lu2 til3-la in-nu lu2 [ug5-ga] /in\\-nu il2-bi nu-mu-da",
     "original_source": "ETCSL composite transliteration (c = sh, j = ng), https://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/section1/c112.htm",
     "translation": "79-82 Ninmah threw the pinched-off clay from her hand on the ground and a great silence fell. The great lord Enki said to Ninmah: \"I have decreed the fates of your creatures and given them their daily bread. Come, now I will fashion somebody for you, and you must decree the fate of the newborn one!\"\n83-91 Enki devised a shape with head, ...... and mouth in its middle, and said to Ninmah: \"Pour ejaculated semen into a woman's womb, and the woman will give birth to the semen of her womb.\" Ninmah stood by for the newborn ....... and the woman brought forth ...... in the midst ....... In return (?), this was Umul: its head was afflicted, its place of ...... was afflicted, its eyes were afflicted, its neck was afflicted. It could hardly breathe, its ribs were shaky, its lungs were afflicted, its heart was afflicted, its bowels were afflicted. With its hand and its lolling head it could not not put bread into its mouth; its spine and head were dislocated. The weak hips and the shaky feet could not carry (?) it on the field -- Enki fashioned it in this way.\n92-101 Enki said to Ninmah: \"For your creatures I have decreed a fate, I have given them their daily bread. Now, you should decree a fate for my creature, give him his daily bread too.\" Ninmah looked at Umul and turned to him. She went nearer to Umul asked him questions but he could not speak. She offered him bread to eat but he could not reach out for it. He could not lie on ......., he could not ....... Standing up he could not sit down, could not lie down, he could not ...... a house, he could not eat bread. Ninmah answered Enki: \"The man you have fashioned is neither alive nor dead. He cannot support himself (?).\"",
     "translator": "ETCSL translation (J. A. Black, G. Cunningham, E. Fluckiger-Hawker, E. Robson, J. Taylor and G. Zolyomi), Oxford 1998-2006",
     "url": "https://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/section1/tr112.htm",
     "rights": "ETCSL, The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature, Oxford 1998-2006; freely available online with citation (treated as open-licensed per the editor's brief)"
    }
   ],
   "sources": [
    {
     "citation": "Enki and Ninmah (ETCSL t.1.1.2), translation",
     "url": "https://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/section1/tr112.htm"
    },
    {
     "citation": "Enki and Ninmah (ETCSL c.1.1.2), composite text",
     "url": "https://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/section1/c112.htm"
    }
   ],
   "notes": "Line 83 describes Umul's shape as 'with head, ...... and mouth in its middle' (ka cag4-ba, 'in its mouth'-interior: the Sumerian is damaged). At line 96 the Sumerian for 'he could not speak' is du11-ga nu-zu-e, literally 'he did not know speaking'. Numbers in the English are ETCSL's line ranges; the 'X' signs in the transliteration mark ETCSL's damaged signs."
  },
  {
   "id": "tlaxcala",
   "people": "Tlaxcalteca (Nahua)",
   "region": "Tlaxcala, Mexico",
   "latitude": 19.32,
   "longitude": -98.24,
   "layers": "mute, in stages",
   "scheme": "The monkeys who lost speech.",
   "map_story": "The Tlaxcalteca tell of ages of the world that each ended in ruin. One was ended by wind. Some people lived through it, but they were no longer what they had been, and the chronicler Diego Muñoz Camargo wrote down what the Tlaxcalteca said became of them. In the chronicler's Spanish, “olvidaron el uso de la razón, perdieron la habla”: they forgot the use of reason and lost speech. They became the monkeys. He adds that these animals lack nothing but speech, and were left mute, short of being perfect men. Reason and speech go together and leave together.",
   "map_source": "Muñoz Camargo, Historia de Tlaxcala, pp. 153–154",
   "text_date": "c. 1576-1592 (Muñoz Camargo's Historia de Tlaxcala); printed ed. Chavero 1892",
   "recorded": "Written by Diego Muñoz Camargo, a Tlaxcalan mestizo chronicler, c. 1576-92, reporting what 'these natives' of Tlaxcala said about the ages of the world; edited by Alfredo Chavero (Mexico, 1892).",
   "original_language": "Spanish (16th century), reporting Nahua tradition",
   "excerpts": [
    {
     "label": "The wind-age survivors become monkeys who lost reason and speech",
     "citation": "Muñoz Camargo, Historia de Tlaxcala, bk. I ch. 19 ('Períodos cíclicos'), ed. Chavero, Mexico 1892, pp. 153-154",
     "original": "Habiendo un error muy grande entre estos naturales y muy general en toda esta Nueva España, pues decían que este mundo había tenido dos acabamientos y fines, y que el uno había sido por diluvios y aguas tempestuosas y que se había vuelto la tierra de abajo á arriba, y que los que en aquellos tiempos vivían habían sido gigantes, cuyos huesos se hallaban por las quebradas como atrás dejamos tratado, no tuvieron conocimiento de los cuatro elementos, ni de sus operaciones, más de que era aire, fuego, tierra y agua, confusamente; ansimismo, por consiguiente, dicen que ovo otro fin y acabamiento del mundo por aires y huracanes que fueron tan grandes, que cuanto había en él se asoló, hasta las plantas y árboles de las muy altas montañas, y que arrebató los hombres de aquellos tiempos y que fueron levantados del suelo hasta que se perdieron de vista, y que al caer se hicieron pedazos, y que algunas gentes de estas que escaparon, quedaron enredadas en algunas montañas y riscos escondidos, y que se convirtieron en monas y micos, é que olDIEGO MUÑOZ CAMARGO. vidaron el uso de la razón, perdieron la habla y quedaron de la manera que agora los vemos, que no les falta otra cosa sino la habla y quedaron mudos para ser hombres perfectos. Esto tenían tan creído como si fuera de fe, y que todas las cosas que tratamos y hacemos que las alcanzan y entienden; mas que como pasó el tiempo de su edad, los dioses, movidos de piedad que de ellos tuvieron, aunque los habían privado de razón, les habían hecho merced de las vidas. Tienen por muy cierto que ha de haber otro fin é que ha de ser por fuego, é que la tierra ha de tragarse á los hombres, que todo el universo (mundo) se ha de abrasar, é que han de bajar del cielo los dioses y las estrellas, y que personalmente han de destruir á los hombres del mundo y acaballos, é que las estrellas han de venir en figuras de salvajes, y este es el último fin que ha de haber en el mundo. Cuando los nuestros llegaron á esta provincia como atrás lo dejamos tratado, entendieron que era llegado el fin del mundo según las señales y apariencias tan claras que veían.",
     "original_source": "archive.org OCR of Chavero 1892 (footnote numbers and page headers removed, spelling as printed), https://archive.org/details/historiadetlaxca00muno",
     "translation": "Since there was a very great error among these natives, and a very general one throughout this New Spain, for they said that this world had had two endings and ends, and that the one had been by floods and tempestuous waters, and that the earth had been turned upside down, and that those who lived in those times had been giants, whose bones are found in the ravines, as we have set down above, and they had no knowledge of the four elements or of their workings, beyond that they were air, fire, earth and water, confusedly; so likewise, they say, there was another end and ending of the world by winds and hurricanes so great that all that was in it was laid waste, even the plants and trees of the very high mountains, and that it snatched up the men of those times, who were lifted from the ground until they were lost to sight, and that when they fell they were broken to pieces, and that some of these people who escaped were left entangled in some mountains and hidden crags, and that they were turned into monkeys and apes (monas y micos), and that they forgot the use of reason, lost speech, and remained as we see them now, who lack nothing but speech, and were left mute, short of being perfect men. This they held as certain as if it were an article of faith, and that all the things that we treat of and do, they grasp and understand; but that when the time of their age had passed, the gods, moved by the pity they felt for them, although they had deprived them of reason, had granted them the mercy of their lives. They hold it for very certain that there is to be another end, and that it will be by fire, and that the earth is to swallow men, that the whole universe (world) is to burn up, and that the gods and the stars are to come down from heaven, and that in person they are to destroy the men of the world and finish them, and that the stars are to come in the shapes of savages, and this is the last end that there is to be in the world. When our people arrived in this province, as we have set down above, they understood that the end of the world had come, according to the signs and appearances they saw so clearly.",
     "translator": "Own English translation for this dataset (not a published translation)",
     "url": "https://archive.org/details/historiadetlaxca00muno",
     "rights": "original public domain (1892 edition of a 16th-century text); English translation by the lane"
    }
   ],
   "sources": [
    {
     "citation": "Diego Muñoz Camargo, Historia de Tlaxcala, ed. Alfredo Chavero, Mexico 1892, pp. 153-154",
     "url": "https://archive.org/details/historiadetlaxca00muno"
    }
   ],
   "notes": "The inverse of the first-humans-mute pattern: a failed humanity loses reason and speech and becomes the monkeys, still understanding everything but unable to speak. Muñoz Camargo mixes the Nahua sun-ages (Chavero's footnote says the chronicle confuses them), and his Christian framing ('as if it were an article of faith') is his own."
  }
 ]
}