Atlas of the world
Seventy-three entries, thirty-seven countries
The same method applied outside Italy: each entry carries the grade that says what kind of evidence stands behind it, and each one says where the record stops.
This half of the atlas exists because the questions it asks travel badly in the usual accounts. Whether the tengu always had a long nose — it did not, it had a beak. Whether the yuki-onna is ancient — the bibliographical record takes about a hundred and eighty years off her. Whether the amabie is an old protective spirit — it is one printed sheet from 1846, then silence for a hundred and seventy-four years, and its name is probably a misprint.
Where a tradition is not mine to tell, the entry describes the ethnographic context and the history of how the material was extracted, not the narrative content, and says so. Where an origin was fabricated by outsiders, the entry gives the year it was fabricated. The Method page sets out why.
Grades: A documented · B partly documented · C weakly documented.
Australia
ABunyipAustralia — Murray-Darling basin; the specimen that gave rise to the documentary episode was found near Balranald, in New South WalesAMin Min lightsAustralia — Channel Country, western Queensland; the road between Boulia and WintonCYowieAustralia — New South Wales: nineteenth-century attestation in the Blue Mountains and on the south coast, modern corpus in south-eastern Queensland
Brazil
ACurupiraBrazil — Amazonia, with the documentary centre of gravity at Belém and on the lower AmazonBSaci-PererêBrazil — Vale do Paraíba and the Brazilian south-east, with Monteiro Lobato's inquiry centred on TaubatéABoto cor-de-rosaBrazil — Middle and lower Amazon, ribeirinha communities; documentary core at Tefé and in the Mamirauá reserve
Canada
China
BJiangshiChina — Western Hunan, the old prefecture of Chenzhou, hub of the routes of «making the corpses walk»AHuli jingChina — Northern and eastern China; domestic cult documented in the Beijing plain and in the North-East, literary corpus in ShandongAShuiguiChina — Riverine and coastal China; the canonical tale is set in Zhaoyuan county, Shandong
The Czech Republic
AVodníkthe Czech Republic — Bohemia and Moravia; the motif extends into Sorbian Lusatia and Slovakia
Egypt
AʿIfrītEgypt — Urban and rural Egypt; ethnographic documentation collected in Cairo in the 1830sAQarīnEgypt — Egypt, with the rural documentation collected in Upper Egypt and the urban documentation of the zār rite in CairoCNaddāhaEgypt — Countryside of the Delta and irrigation canals; the strongest written attestation comes from the governorate of Sharqiyya
Ethiopia
Finland
France
ABestia del GévaudanFrance — Margeride, between Gévaudan and southern Auvergne (Lozère, Haute-Loire, Cantal), with the opening episode in VivaraisAAnkouFrance — Lower Brittany: Trégor, Goëlo, Léon and Breton Cornouaille, with the collecting nucleus at Port-BlancATarascaFrance — Tarascon, on the left bank of the Rhône (Bouches-du-Rhône), lower Provence
Germany
BNachzehrerGermany — Northern Germany, from Lower Saxony to Pomerania; archaeological findings in the district of StadeBRübezahlGermany — Giant Mountains, today divided between the Czech Republic and Poland; German-language documentary tradition, with the collection printed at LeipzigBFrau Holle e Frau PerchtaGermany — Hesse and Thuringia for Holle, the East Upper German area — Bavaria, Austria, Tyrol — for Perchta
Greece
Iceland
India
Indonesia
Iran
Ireland
Japan
AKappaJapan — The whole archipelago, with documentary poles at Tōno in Iwate, in Kyūshū and at Asakusa in TokyoAKitsuneJapan — The whole of Japan; cult centre Fushimi Inari Taisha at Kyoto, poles of possession at Izumo and ShimaneAYūreiJapan — The whole of Japan; poles at Kyoto, Edo-Tokyo (Yotsuya) and HimejiANamahageJapan — Oga peninsula, Akita prefecture, northern TōhokuAZashiki-warashiJapan — Iwate Prefecture, Tōno area, Tōhoku; minor attestations in Aomori, Miyagi and AkitaATenguJapan — Mountains of Shugendō: Kurama and Atago near Kyoto, Takao at Hachiōji, Akiha in Shizuoka, Iizuna in NaganoBYuki-onnaJapan — Tōhoku, Hokuriku and Shin'etsu: Aomori, Iwate, Akita, Yamagata, Fukushima, Niigata, Nagano, ToyamaAAmabieJapan — Province of Higo, today Kumamoto prefecture: the document says only «in the sea». The point is conventional; the only material object in existence is the sheet held at Kyoto
Mexico
BLa LloronaMexico — Mexico City and the central plateau, with diffusion throughout the Spanish-speaking worldANahualMexico — Nahua and Maya Mesoamerica; documentary core at Atenango del Río, GuerreroAAluxo'obMexico — Yucatán Peninsula, milpas and Maya ruins; ethnographic documentation centred on Chan Kom
The Netherlands
Nigeria
Norway
AHuldraNorway — Areas of seter, that is summer mountain pasture, and of charcoal burning: Telemark, Hallingdal, Gudbrandsdalen, TrøndelagANøkk e fossegrimNorway — Inland Norway and Sweden: waterfalls, mills, mill-races and lakes; Telemark and Setesdal, home of the hardingfele
Peru
The Philippines
Poland
Romania
Russia
ADomovojRussia — Russia, with denser documentation in the Russian North (Arkhangelsk, Olonets, Vologda) and in the central regionsARusalkaRussia — Eastern Slavia, with a differentiated distribution: Polesia and Ukraine agrarian in character, the Russian North aquatic
Serbia
South Africa
South Korea
Spain
Sri Lanka
Sweden
Tanzania
Trinidad and Tobago
Türkiye
The United Kingdom
AKelpiethe United Kingdom — Scotland: Highlands and North-East (Aberdeenshire, Banffshire, Morayshire, Perthshire)AEach-uisgethe United Kingdom — Scotland: western Highlands and Hebrides, sea and sea lochsACŵn Annwnthe United Kingdom — Wales: Gwynedd (Cadair Idris) and southern Wales (Brecon Beacons)BBlack Shuckthe United Kingdom — East Anglia: Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, with offshoots in Cambridgeshire
The United States
AHaint e haint bluethe United States — Southern Appalachia and the Gullah Geechee Lowcountry (South Carolina and Georgia)BBoo hagthe United States — Gullah Geechee Lowcountry, Sea Islands of South Carolina and GeorgiaCWampus catthe United States — Southern Appalachia and the OzarksBBell Witchthe United States — Adams, Robertson County, Tennessee, Red River valley (Upland South)BBrown Mountain Lightsthe United States — Burke County, North Carolina, Appalachian Blue RidgeBMothmanthe United States — Point Pleasant, Mason County, West Virginia (central Appalachia)CGranny womenthe United States — Southern and central Appalachia (northern Georgia, western Carolina, eastern Tennessee, eastern Kentucky, West Virginia, south-western Virginia)BRougarouthe United States — French-speaking Louisiana: Acadiana and the Creole area of New OrleansCYee naaldlooshiithe United States — Navajo Nation, Colorado Plateau (north-eastern Arizona, north-western New Mexico, south-eastern Utah)CNew England vampire panicthe United States — Vermont and rural New England (Manchester, South Woodstock; with Rhode Island and Connecticut)BPhiladelphia Experimentthe United States — Philadelphia Navy Yard, League Island (lower Delaware valley), with the far end at Norfolk in Virginia
The interactive world map, the country pages and the eighteen source checks are still only in Italian, at atlasnoctis.com/mondo. If you find an error — a date, a source, an attribution — write to me. Corrections are made in public, with the date.