Tsulʻkălû′ was terribly angry.
He untwisted himself and came out of the âsĭ, and said good-bye to the girl, telling her that he would never let her mother see him again, but would go back to his own country.
Then he went off in the direction of Tsunegûñ′yĭ.
Soon after he left the girl had her monthly period.
There was a very great flow of blood, and the mother threw it all into the river.
One night after the girl had gone to bed in the âsĭ her husband came again to the door and said to her, “It seems you are alone,” and asked where was the child.
She said there had been none.
Then he asked where was the blood, and she said that her mother had thrown it into the river.
She told just where the place was, and he went there and found a small worm in the water.
He took it up and carried it back to the âsĭ, and as he walked it took form and began to grow, until, when he reached the âsĭ, it was a baby girl that he was carrying.
He gave it to his wife and said, “Your mother does not like me and abuses our child, so come and let us go to my home.” The girl wanted to be with her husband, so, after telling her mother good-bye, she took up the child and they went off together to Tsunegûñ′yĭ.
Now, the girl had an older brother, who lived with his own wife in another settlement, and when he heard that his sister was married he came to pay a visit to her and her new husband, but when he arrived at Kănuga his mother told him his sister had taken her child and gone away with her husband, nobody knew where.
He was sorry to see his mother so lonely, so he said he would go after his sister and try to find her and bring her back.
It was easy to follow the footprints of the giant, and the young man went along the trail until he came to a place where they had rested, and there were tracks on the ground where a child had been lying and other marks as if a baby had been born there.
He went on along the trail and came to another place where they had rested, and there were tracks of a baby crawling about and another lying on the ground.
He went on and came to where they had rested again, and there were tracks of a child walking and another crawling about.
He went on until he came where they had rested again, and there were tracks of one child running and another walking.
Still he followed the trail along the stream into the mountains, and came to the place where they had rested again, and this time there were footprints of two children running all about, and the footprints can still be seen in the rock at that place.
Twice again he found where they had rested, and then the trail led up the slope of Tsunegûñ′yĭ, and he heard the sound of a drum and voices, as if people were dancing inside the mountain.
Soon he came to a cave like a doorway in the side of the mountain, but the rock was so steep and smooth that he could not climb up to it, but could only just look over the edge and see the heads and shoulders of a great many people dancing inside.
He saw his sister dancing among them and called to her to come out.
She turned when she heard his voice, and as soon as the drumming stopped for a while she came out to him, finding no trouble to climb down the rock, and leading her two little children by the hand.
The doctrine and worldview that natural phenomena, places, and objects possess inherent spirit, soul, or personality — and that the cosmos is populated by countless local, plural, embodied divine agents: kami in mountain and tree, sidhe in cairn and well, landwights in field and stone, nymphs in spring and grove, haltija in forest and lake, lares and penates in household and threshold, Iamblichean daemons in element and place. Distinct from monotheism (single transcendent God), pantheism (one underlying substance), and emanation_hierarchy (cascading single source); animism's signature is the plurality, locality, and embodied-in-landscape character of the divine.
The passage is a quintessential example of animism, depicting a world populated by embodied divine agents like the giant Tsulʻkălû′ who interacts with humans, and where natural features like mountains and rivers are active participants in the narrative.
Attributing human characteristics, emotions, or form to the divine; embodied divine imagery.
The supernatural entity is described with human characteristics such as anger, speech, marriage, and the ability to hold a child, embodying divine power in a relatable human-like form.
The reunification of complementary divine principles (male-female, spirit-matter) as a symbol of wholeness and salvation.
The narrative centers on the union between a supernatural being and a human woman, which results in the birth of children and the establishment of a new household, though it lacks the explicit theological symbolism of cosmic reunification.
The divine conceived as active, present, and dynamic—not an abstract principle but a personal responsive reality.
The divine being Tsulʻkălû′ is portrayed as a dynamic, personal entity with emotions (anger), agency, and the capacity for direct interaction and dialogue with humans.
Form-mutability as a constitutional property of divine and preternatural beings — gods, heroes, spirits, and their human practitioners possessing inherent capacity to alter form across human, animal, plant, or elemental states. Loki and Odin's transformations in Norse, Math's pigs and Blodeuwedd's owl-shape and Pwyll's exchange with Arawn in the Mabinogion, the Greek Proteus, the Indian dasavatara, Vainamoinen's bird-flight in the Kalevala, Ovid's metamorphoses, the shamanic and witch's capacity for ritual form-change. Distinct from anthropomorphism (divine taking specific human form, single embodiment) in that anthropomorphism establishes a stable form whereas this concept establishes form's plurality and instability.
The text explicitly describes a supernatural being changing form from a worm to a baby girl as he carries it, and the giant husband's ability to move between the human world and his mountain home.