Trying to understand elasticsearch's schema and types

elasticsearch.sh

$ curl -XPOST http://localhost:9200/myindex/mytype -d '{"foo": ["bar"]}'
{"ok":true,"_index":"myindex","_type":"mytype","_id":"YYfPUL3TQLaL17zhXQ-ELw","_version":1}

$ curl -XPOST http://localhost:9200/myindex/mytype -d '{"foo": [{"foo": "bar"}]}'
{"error":"MapperParsingException[Failed to parse [foo]]; nested: ElasticSearchIllegalArgumentException[unknown property [foo]]; ","status":400}

$ curl -XDELETE http://localhost:9200/myindex/mytype
{"ok":true}

$ curl -XPOST http://localhost:9200/myindex/mytype -d '{"foo": [{"foo": "bar"}]}'
{"ok":true,"_index":"myindex","_type":"mytype","_id":"6Sv7aaBXTu2jH_wYXR4SYg","_version":1}

$ curl -XPOST http://localhost:9200/myindex/mytype -d '{"foo": ["bar"]}'
{"error":"MapperParsingException[object mapping [foo] trying to serialize a value with no field associated with it, current value [bar]]","status":400}

# Why are a list ["foo"] and a list of objects [{"foo": "bar"}] incompatible?
# How should I rearrange my data for storage in an elasticsearch document?

By the way, the data I'm collecting consists of Ruby method arguments. Elements in the list can be strings, numbers, hashes or lists.

Aha: I just needed to set "enabled":false on foo http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/mapping-object-type.html#_enabled_3

@akahn, well, it could be argued that ["foo"] and [{"foo" : "bar"}] are quite a different thing. Why do you think these two should be compatible?

@karmi You're right. I think I thought they should be compatible because I misunderstood elasticsearch's definition of 'schemaless'.