A Leaf-Scorpion (English), in: South Asia — Khond
xix, 11
KOND
Denguda, Ganjam District
At first it was all water. Then Bura Pinnu and Pusuruli were born at Śaphaganna: they had nowhere to live, so they swam about on the surface of the water. They could find nowhere to rest their feet. At last they found a dead leaf-scorpion: its head was as big as a hill. Bura Pinnu and Pusuruli climbed onto it and floated about. They thought and thought over the problem of making the earth.
They scraped off the skin of the scorpion with their nails and in seven days they spread it over the face of the water. With the scorpion’s bones they made nails to fix the four corners of the world. They chopped up the flesh and scattered it as dust. The scorpion’s back turned into rocks. Now the world was made and Bura Pinnu turned his mind to making animals and men. A small bit of the scorpion’s bone was left and Bura Pinnu made this into a living leaf-scorpion and threw it into the water, whereupon all beings were at once created.
– Elwin, Verrier, Tribal Myths of Orissa,(Bombay: Oxford University Press, 1953), p. 431. [This source is in the public domain; download here].
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