The tiger and his brother man: A myth of the Wolf

It does a lot of, a lot of time, the world was quite black. It did not exist absolutely at all. Later, the sky and the ground separated, and the man from the sky went down to the ground. Later many years happened, and the ground suffered a big earthquake. There were some men who could not go down to the ground and remained in the sky, and others that only flew to half of the space, from which then they fell down to the soil. (1)

In those years, on the ground there was a woman (2) who was living with his uncle. Each one was depending on other to live, but only they were taking a poor and simple life. When the girl came at the age of being able to marry, there was nobody who was going to look for it. Then a mud happened and he said that the girl had to marry his uncle (3). But she was not agreeing, and it rose to a tree to hide. Scarcely it had risen to the tree, she remained a pregnant (4), and the intestine began hurting him as if they were cutting it. Then it went down the tree, and at the moment when it touched ground gave birth to a tiger the first (5), and immediately afterwards to a man. The tiger, scarcely born could already jump, but the man could not even move yet.

When the brothers grew there was one day in which they went out to the forest to hunt. The tiger, without scarcely effort it caught a deer, and the man, however much it strained, managed to capture not even a rabbit. The tiger got angry very much, ran along with his brother, and taking him as the neck, insulted him for being so awkward (6).

Spent several days, the tiger been said again to his brother by man that they should go out of fighter. After some wild animals had captured, the man took two sticks, and rubbing them it did a fire. It took the meat and put it to the fire to roast it, when the delightful aroma of the roast was scattering throughout, the tiger with his sharp claw took all the meat, and while it was chewing anxiously the meat that him was not fitting in the mouth, he was saying to his brother: "You are a fool. As soon as I had just eaten this meat, I will eat up yours."

On having listened to him, the man ran to house scared. Still panting he said to his mother: "Mother, my brother tiger wants to eat me." The mother, on having listened to him, scared: "Your brother is an evil one, it is necessary to finish with him." And the mother thought a way of finishing with his son tiger, which undercover man communicated to his son. On the following day, the man feigned before the tiger to want to go to hunt to the river. This time took his arch, and looked also for a small insect, which it placed on the back of the tiger without this one realizing. On having come along with the river, the man crossed first, hiding after a big tree. The tiger continued crossing the waters, the insect began bitting in his back producing a big itch to him, then the tiger scratched with his claws. The man, on having seen that the tiger was in half of the current scratching, was useful to place an arrow in his arch, and to shoot him fixing it to him in the body. The tiger now had pain and itch, and could not conquer the current. This way it fell down to the fund of the river being dragged by the waters.

The man returned to house very satisfied, where it was told to his mother, who also felt very satisfied. Since there were no tigers that were eating up the men (7), these multiplied a generation after other one.

(1) The first paragraph seems to happen almost flying for numerous ancient traditions. It is seen that it is not the target of this myth to study in depth the origin of the world and of the people, nevertheless it shows some common places in the mythological literature: an origin of the empty world, the separation of sky and ground, bent the man from the sky, catastrophe, separation of the human lineages that give place later to the celestial beings, the earthly ones and other lineages.

(2) Although chronologically it would be necessary to think that the uncle is previous to the woman, in the history the woman is previous to the uncle. It is not accepted by all the students that the primitive society of the Lopa was matriarchal, although between they and other peoples linguistically related to them, the traces of the matriarchal societies, they are abundant. In this proper paragraph, the leading role of the woman is clear. In the rest of the myth also. It seems to correspond to the epoch described from the ancient sources in China: "they meet his mother, not to his father."

(3) The appearance of the mud helps to think that so much he, like the uncle, there are additions later to a very ancient myth. Nevertheless, the taboo of the incest, which it does not go so far as to realize here, happens with more frequency between brothers, in other similar myths.

(4) This pregnancy, in which the uncle does not play any role, is described of form similar to myths that we know on the origin of the clans between the minorities of China (and even some dynasties). His succinct description seems to be still a general model.

(5) The tiger has a tremendous symbolic meaning between the peoples who speak languages of the branch Yi of the family tibeto - birmana. These peoples have been related historically to the Lopa. The Yi are considered to be the "people of the tiger". Between the Bai, Naxi, Moso, Pumi, Lahu and Lisu, also has big importance. Some recent publications suggest that the tiger is in fact a tigress, and that the cult to the tiger between these peoples is a heredity of the cult to the mother.

(6) In view of the symbolic meaning that the previous elements can have for the Lopa, the clash between the tiger and the man who constitutes a most of the myth, it can refer so much to clashes with the called "peoples of the tiger" in remote epochs; as to a sexes war between the feminine elements represented by the tiger, and the masculine ones, for the man.

(7) Although the victory does not have why to correspond with the reality, and it was possible to have been a defeat before the peoples of the tiger that has forced them to move away more and more his original grounds, it is not doubt that only with the disappearance of his enemies the men of multiplican a generation after other one.

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