Frog
Mojave (Mohave) · demigod · Mojave (Mohave) traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
Frog is the daughter of the creator Matavilya and the agent of the first death in Mohave myth. Angered by her father's conduct, she worked sorcery upon him by seizing his excrement or spittle and swallowing or burying it, so that he sickened and died. She then fled and hid, in some tellings beneath the earth or the waters, and was pursued. Through her act death, sickness, and witchcraft entered the world, and the cremation of Matavilya that followed became the model for Mohave mortuary practice.
Parentage
- paternal: Matavilya
Domains
- witchcraft
- death
Powers
- bewitches Matavilya to death
Relations
- enemy: MatavilyaKills her father by sorcery.A. L. Kroeber, Handbook of the Indians of California, BAE Bulletin 78 (1925), pp. 770-771. (secondary)
Sources
- Frog, daughter of Matavilya, works sorcery on her father by capturing his bodily leavings, causing the first death, then flees and hides.: A. L. Kroeber, Handbook of the Indians of California, BAE Bulletin 78 (1925), 'The Mohave,' pp. 770-771. (secondary); John G. Bourke, Journal of American Folklore 2, no. 6 (1889): 169-189. (primary)