Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
C9A — The Flood: people turn into aquatic animals.
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
OverviewDuring 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 of 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
RelatedC9. 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.
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| 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). |
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
8 recordedThis 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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