The Mythology and Folklore Database
C9A - The Flood: people turn into aquatic animals.

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Source Data from Berezkin's Analytics Catalogue, if using this data please acknowledge and link to it here:
Ю.Е. Березкин, Е.Н. Дувакин. Тематическая классификация и распределение фольклорно-мифологических мотивов по ареалам. Аналитический каталог.

Summary of Motif

During the flood or when crossing a river, those who drowned or were saved turn into aquatic or amphibious animals.

Berezkin category: Disasters

This is of motif type Cosmology and etiology and is part group 7, Etiology of plants and animals and of their peculiar features, particular animals as protagonists of cosmological stories, metamorphoses, weather and calendar

C9 has 1 other sub-motifs C9.  God, an animal, or a certain character warns one of the people about an impending catastrophe (usually a flood) in which most people will perish. C9a.  During the flood or when crossing a river, those who drowned or were saved turn into aquatic or amphibious animals.  Click here if would you like to see a distrbution map combining all of C9's motifs?

Top 10 Motifs with similar dispersal patterns

Motif	Similarity	Motif Summary
J36	99.83%	The turtle drags the hero's parents under water.
D13C	99.00%	Two companions or brothers live together. The older one has a wife, whom he hides. To discover her, the younger one, left alone in the house, makes her laugh.
I28A	99.00%	Large animals that are hunted go underground and cause earthquakes.
F43	98.46%	The women of the community of the first ancestors kill or abandon the men.
E13A	98.35%	Sacred knowledge, objects and rituals were first obtained by humans from the inhabitants of the underwater world.
B36	98.17%	Birds, fish, and four-legged animals deliberately or accidentally smear themselves with colouring substances or divide parts of another's body among themselves, thereby acquiring their current appearance.
B36A	97.86%	Two zoomorphic characters adorn each other, after which one is satisfied with the result and the other is not.
J60	97.83%	A woman conceives twins from two different fathers.
F47B	97.47%	In order to create new people (new women) to replace those who have been destroyed, the character leaves something (feathers or pieces of flesh) in each empty hut (in the hearth, in the hammock, in the village), from which new people (new women) appear.
M35	97.47%	Two zoomorphic characters compete to see which of them will spend the whole night in the cold and stay alive. By morning, one of them dies. Cf. K27A motif (the cold test does not involve a two-animal competition).

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Map of Motif Dispersal

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Terrain Minimal Countries

This motif has been recorded in 8 traditions: Flores, incl Mangarai (Western Flores), Nage, Keo, Riung, Ngada or Nad'a (Central Flores), Sika (Eastern Flores), Mindanao and Sulu: Blaan (Bilaan), Bagobo, Bukidnon, Cotabato, Hiligáynon, Binukid, Magindaan (=Magindanao: main Muslim population), Mandaya, Mansaka, Manobo (Agusan, Ata, Dibabawon, Sarangani, Ilianen), Maranao, Samal, Subanon (=Subanun), Subanen, Tboli, Jicarilla, Tenetehara, Bolivian Guarani: Chiriguano (including assimilated Chane Arawaks), Pauserna (=Guarasu), Guarayu, Tapiete, Tupari, Makurap, Sakirap, Ajuru (Wayoro), Ayoreo, Guarani of Paraguay and Brazil: Caygua, Mbia, Apapocuva, Nyandewa, Chiripa

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