The Mythology and Folklore Database
E5 - The half-finished man tries to stand up.
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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
God makes man out of clay. He must wait until it dries, but tries to stand up earlier.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
E5 has 6 other sub-motifsE5. God makes man out of clay. He must wait until it dries, but tries to stand up earlier. E5a. The first humans (or only the first men or first women) were not created by a demiurge, but emerged from under the ground (from a cave) or from a small object on its surface (a tree, stone, pumpkin, etc.). There are many emerging humans (or humans and animals). Cf. motif E5B: first ancestors from the underworld. E5aa. The first people grew out of the ground like trees, grass, and mushrooms. E5b. The first human (a group of brothers) or the first human couple emerge from underground (from a cave) or from a small object on the surface (a mound, a reed, a tree, a stone, a pumpkin). Cf. motif E5A: people from the underworld. E5c. The first humans or deities-ancestors descend to earth from the sky. E5d. The first people to arrive on earth and settle within a limited space are threatened by a predator or monster. E5e. People or animals come out from under the ground or descend from the sky. The two-headed creature following them gets stuck in the opening or is not allowed to come out. Click here if would you like to see a distrbution map combining all of E5's motifs? |
Top 10 Motifs with similar dispersal patterns
| Motif | Similarity | Motif Summary |
|---|---|---|
| L81A | 95.96% | A girl offends a cat (rarely: a dog, a rooster) and the cat takes revenge by causing misfortune to befall the girl (usually by extinguishing the fire, after which the girl falls into the hands of a demon). |
| M39E1 | 92.14% | A person appropriates property. The owner or his assistant puts the kidnapper in such a position that he is forced to return everything (usually the victim kidnaps the child of the deceiver). {Apparently, all references in Ting 1978 do not refer to Chinese, but to Tibetans; Uther 2004 refers to the Dagestan text in Levin 1978, No. 52, but it is not clear which group we are talking about; there is also a deaf reference to the “Code of Japanese fairy tales - Tsukan”, it needs to be checked}. |
| L39D | 92.06% | A boy climbs a tree to pick fruit. A demonic character asks him to share, but not to throw the fruit on the ground, but to pass it from hand to hand. He grabs the boy and carries him away. |
| K120A | 91.70% | A man is going to marry his sister (often it turns out that she is the only one who meets the requirements for a bride). Usually, the girl manages to avoid such a marriage. |
| K73C | 91.67% | A girl finds herself in a bird's nest (usually the bird carries the baby girl away). The bird takes care of the girl, who grows up to be a beauty. |
| M117 | 91.29% | A fox or other predator asks a bird what it does when the wind blows. The bird shows how it puts its head under its wing, and the fox catches it. |
| M99 | 90.57% | The character is going to abuse all birds or (less commonly) animals, but after hearing wise advice, he abandons his intention. |
| K102A | 90.37% | A man orders the killing of a young man's sister, wife or mother. The young man does not allow such an order to be carried out, and then repents of this. |
| K32H | 90.17% | The antagonist is executed by being buried alive. |
| K27ZZ | 90.04% | A man does not suspect that his (new) wife (less often his mother) is a cannibal/witch/treacherous woman; she persecutes (former) wives (his wife) and/or blinds them or throws them into a pit, or her husband does so at her instigation. Contrary to the cannibal's plans, the son of one of the wives survives, kills the cannibal, and rescues his mother and sisters. |
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Map of Motif Dispersal
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This motif has been recorded in 9 traditions: Saudi Arabia, Arabs of Levant (Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan); Bedouins of Sinai, Arabs of Iraq, Iraqi, Arabs of Egypt, Northern Munda of Kharwar branch: Birhor, Ho, Mundari, Kol, Asur (including Agaria, Kol, Birjhia), Bhumij, Dutch, Flemish, Ingush, Hui (Dungan) of Xinjiang, Gansu, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Qinghai, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan (Dungan texts from Southern and Eastern China are clustered with the Chinese ones), Arabs (literary tradition; incl. One Thousand and One Nights)