The Clashing Rocks: The Survey of the Data and the Dating of the Idea

Abstract

Vladimir Propp interpreted the fairytale with all its episodes and images as a narrative correspondence to the initiation rites described in Africa, Australia, Melanesia and South America. For him, the motif of clashing rocks was the equivalent of monstrous jaws swallowing adolescent boys. For the authors of the Encyclopedia of Fairy Tales, this motif is a borderline inside the universal opposition between life and death, ours and others. Here we present the systematized data on the world distribution of the narratives that describe dangerous objects which, while remaining in the same place, constantly or occasionally produce rocking, swinging, spinning or other movements. The absence of such an image in Africa (outside the Maghreb) is an argument in favor of its emergence not in the African homeland but after the peopling of Eurasia, possibly in the Central Asian — Southern Siberian region. The most numerous and different versions are recorded in North America. In the Old World, many cases are known from the circumpontic region. In Australia and Melanesia, the motif is known but its versions there are rare. Its spread before the beginning of the peopling of America is beyond doubt. There is no correlation between the “clashing rocks” motif and forms of social organization or economy. Inside particular areas, the variants of the motifs easily replace each other. Most often, the motif is either an obstacle on the border of the supernatural world or a weapon controlled by a demonic person.