This is one of the longest stories I heard in Jamaica. The leading
Maroon story-teller recited it to me in full audience, and I heard it
repeated by another Maroon in much less detail. Numbers 83, 84 and 89
have points of likeness to it.
It has five parts. (1) Two brothers are out penning cattle and one,
going for fire, surprises a witch in the act of feeding her family,
which she carries about in her own body. (2) The witch, bent on
revenge, follows them home and proposes, as a test for a husband,
knocking a calabash from her head with a missile; the boy throws a
frail missile and succeeds. (3) At night, the witch sharpens her razor
to kill him, but each time she approaches, one of his dogs warns him.
(4) The boy departs with his bride, leaving his dogs chained, but he
places a pot in the middle of the floor and warns his mother when the
liquid in the pot begins to boil to loosen the dogs to his rescue. (5)
He climbs a tree to escape the witch. She produces axes and axe-men by
tapping her body and proceeds to chop the tree, which he restores
magically until his dogs rush in and tear up the witch.
Compare Barker, 123–128; Callaway, 51–54; Chatelain, 103–110; Jacottet,
58; Renel 1:86–93; Theal, 46; Tremearne, 432–441; Zeltner, 61; FLJ (SA)
1:13–17; 21–25; Lenz, 15–17; Edwards, 72; Harris, Friends, 91–100;
Parsons, Andros Island, 66–70; Sea Islands, 80–88; JAFL 30:189–190;
JAFL 25:259; 32:399–400.
(1) “Possessing the fire” is a sign of magic power, according to Junod,
157, note. In Edwards, “De big worrum” has fire. A father sends two
sons in turn to fetch it, but as they reach after the fire the worm
swallows them. The father goes with a lance that glistens, is
swallowed, cuts open the worm and rescues all the people the worm has
swallowed. In Renel, 88, the pursuing monster swallows people alive.
Compare Tremearne, and Parsons, Andros Island, 67, 68.
In Tremearne, a hunter sees a witch knocking herself and feeding
monsters all over her body. In Jacottet, an axe chops out of the body
of the witch the cows which are the cause of the two brothers’ quarrel.
(2) In Barker, the episode of the calabash is attached to the story of
the hunter, told in number 84. The elephant whose tail he has cut off
turns into a lady and goes to find her mutilator. She proposes a test
similar to the test in this story. In Tremearne, the witch proposes the
test, as in this story, because the hunter has seen more than he
should.
(3) For this episode see note to number 83 and references. In
Tremearne, the boy’s father insists upon the son’s taking a horse, a
sword, and gourds. When the witch sharpens her teeth to eat the boy,
the horse wakens him. In Parsons, Andros Island, 68, the boy escapes
the witch’s razor by turning into a bucket of water.
(4) It is not clear how this episode of the life token got attached to
the story. I do not find it in African versions. That it is fairly
constant is shown in Parsons, 66, 67, 69. In the more common form of
the story of the Two Brothers, with which this story has some elements
in common, the life-token often takes the form of a knife stuck in a
tree; see number 104. In Tremearne, 298, the treed husband has carried
his flute, with which he warns his wife to loosen his dogs very much in
the manner of Roland at Roncevalle. In Jekyll, 35, the water in a white
saucer set in the sun turns to blood, but this is a Blue-beard story.
(5) Climbing a tree to escape an enemy is one of the commonest episodes
in African flight stories. See number 89. Here it occurs combined with
the axe-chopping contest and the rescue by dogs, who rush in at the end
and tear the pursuer to pieces. In Tremearne, the woman transforms
herself in various ways before the dogs succeed in killing her. They
then devour every drop of her blood. In number 104, the dogs are
restrained from taking part in the fight with the witch by being
chained by the witch’s hair. This episode is also of frequent
occurrence in American Indian lore. See Parsons, Zeitschrift für
Ethnologie 54:1–29 (1922).
In some cases, e.g. in Theal, Zeltner, Harris, 85–90, and in FLJ (SA),
the tree-cutting episode occurs independently of the rescuing dogs.