Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
B34 — Caught by the first night.
Source data for narratives and traditions is drawn from Berezkin’s Analytical Catalogue. If you use this data, please acknowledge and link to it: Ю.Е. Березкин, Е.Н. Дувакин. Тематическая классификация и распределение фольклорно-мифологических мотивов по ареалам. Аналитический каталог.
Summary of motif
OverviewAfter the vessel of night is opened, a person caught by the onset of darkness turns into a bird or animal.
Berezkin category: The Origins of the Characteristics of the environment
This is of motif type Cosmology and etiology and is part of group 7, Etiology of plants and animals and of their peculiar features, particular animals as protagonists of cosmological stories, metamorphoses, weather and calendar.
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| H21A | 99.34% | The fish are concentrated in a small container, from which the owner takes as many as he needs. Another character opens the container, breaking the rules, and the fish escape. |
| B1F | 98.80% | In the era of creation, two men have a common origin, are not antagonists, and display their characteristics in a series of episodes. One is intelligent and successful, the other is simple-minded and irresponsible. |
| A28 | 98.73% | The clever sun-man involves the foolish moon in various tricks that the latter is incapable of devising himself. Trying to repeat the sun's actions, the moon suffers a fiasco. Cf. motif B1F. |
| M11A | 98.71% | The character gives others the fish extracted from his body. |
| C37 | 98.68% | The sloth causes a global catastrophe or saves people from it. |
| K27H | 98.68% | The hero must carve an image of the character's head, which he never shows. It usually adorns a wooden bench. |
| I63 | 98.67% | The Milky Way is the tapir's trail; the tapir can be seen on the Milky Way. |
| B28A | 98.62% | A character pinned to the ground by a rod, transported somewhere to the edge of the world and associated with an object that continues to influence people. |
| B32 | 98.62% | As a result of conflict with their husbands, women turn into fish. |
| J10 | 98.62% | A woman loses her way after being stung by a wasp (or bee, ant, snake). She slaps her stomach (either to kill the insect or to punish her unborn sons, because of whom she went to pick a flower and was stung; see motif J11). The offended sons fall silent, ceasing to show the way. See motif J9. |
See the 100 most similar distributions →
Map of motif dispersal
DistributionDrag the map to pan, use the scroll wheel to zoom — choose a texture or projection below
Traditions
9 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 9 traditions: Melanesians and Papuans of Northern Solomons: Buka, Bougainville (Siuai, Buin), Makiritare (Yecuana), Warao, Locono, Tenetehara, Mundurucu, Curuaia, Kayabi, Nambikwara, Cayapo (incl. Kubenkranken, Pau d’Arco, Shikrin or Xikrin)
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