The Mythology and Folklore Database
E10 - Young animals turn into children.
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Motif Summary - Motifs with Simlar Dispersals - Map of Myth Distribution - List of Traditions - Myths |
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
Characters who have shed their animal (plant, object) forms become the children of women or spouses who catch them off guard.Berezkin category: The origins of people and culture
This is of motif type Cosmology and etiology and is part group 5, Origin of human beings, ethnic groups, etiology of human anatomy, strange body configuration, ways of behavior, marriages before the establishment of the present norms
Top 10 Motifs with similar dispersal patterns
| Motif | Similarity | Motif Summary |
|---|---|---|
| L1F | 98.10% | The sister, using magic or transforming herself into a monster, kills her brothers in revenge for the death of her lover or husband. |
| B35 | 98.07% | The bear hastily puts his left moccasin on his right foot and vice versa, which is why he is club-footed. |
| K52 | 98.07% | A woman or young man who approaches the shore is carried away by predatory sea creatures to the bottom of the sea; a character descends to rescue the kidnapped person and brings him or her back with the help of cunning and shamanic powers. |
| K52B | 97.97% | The hero comes to capture the daughter of a supernatural creature. He sees a slave breaking an axe (adze, wedge). The hero repairs the axe, and the slave helps him in return. See motif K52. |
| K52A | 97.83% | The hero goes to the bottom of the sea for a woman. The slave pours water into the hearth in the house of the water dwellers. Hiding behind clouds of steam, the hero takes the woman away. See motif K52. |
| L72F | 97.53% | Fleeing for his life, the character throws behind him the entrails or stomach contents of an animal, which become an obstacle in the path of his pursuer. |
| M61A | 97.51% | To get valuables, the character provokes a quarrel between their owners. When they start fighting each other, valuables fall out of their bodies and end up at the character's disposal. |
| K43A | 97.24% | People leave a boy, a girl, a sister and brother, a young woman or young spouses alone and depart. Someone sympathises with those who have been abandoned and secretly hides fire for them. |
| K27B | 97.22% | Test: smoke a huge or poisonous pipe or breathe in clouds of poisonous smoke. See motif K27. |
| I117 | 97.08% | A spider or spider woman lifts a hero or heroine up to the sky, helps them descend to earth, or otherwise helps them cross the path leading to another world. |
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Map of Motif Dispersal
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This motif has been recorded in 16 traditions: Chagga (Jagga; incl Wasu), Pare, Digo, Tiv, Bamum (Bamun), Mungaka (Mgaka, Bali), Beba, Anaguta, Bete (Mbete, Karang), Ekoi, Nyang, Vute (Wute), Jukun, Chamba, Bamileke, Kwotto, Kirri; Denya (Nyang), Torricelli family: Valman, Samap, Arapesh (Upper, Coastal), Monumbo, Lilau, Ngaimbom; Moando (Banara); Menya, Olo, Tagish, Inland Tlingit, Tahltan, Tsetsaut, Haida, Tsimshian, Shuswap, Thompson (Nlaka'pamux), Comox, Pentlatch, Lower Chehalis, Upper Chehalis, (Lower) Cowlitz, Quileute, Chemakum (Hoh), Quinault, Tillamook