Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
D8 — Predator and fire.
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
OverviewThe first fire (or summer) is stolen from a large predator – a lion or leopard in Africa, a tiger in Asia, a bear in northern Asia and North America, and a jaguar in South America.
Berezkin category: Fire and Laughter
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 |
|---|---|---|
| K87 | 97.58% | A woman becomes the wife of an animal (rarely another non-human creature). The husband takes care of her, but the marriage ends with the murder of the husband, the woman, their offspring, the woman's relatives, the transformation of the woman herself into an animal, leading to hostility between humans and animals, etc. |
| M75 | 96.96% | The character attracts and catches corpse eaters (usually birds) and as a result obtains valuables or returns something valuable (fire, woman, animals, etc.). |
| M18 | 96.43% | The character turns into an object of fishing or hunting and presents himself as a target. The fisherman or hunter does not harm them, but they take away what they use: arrows, darts, harpoons, hooks, bait; or they catch fish, having turned themselves into hooks; or they are caught but escape death by taking on human form again. |
| H37 | 96.42% | A magical item that makes hunting or fishing easy and reliable falls into the hands of a character who is unable to control it or abuses it. |
| L135 | 96.36% | A person leaves home and finds himself in unfamiliar places. His journey is marked by encounters with various strange creatures. In the end, he either returns home or leaves the earth for another world. (With an abundance of episodes, the story often either breaks off or does not contain the initial episodes explaining the reason for the hero's departure from home). |
| F46 | 95.67% | At the beginning of time, two or more men (human-animals) had only one woman. |
| M70A | 94.90% | A character on whom an old woman defecates or whose face blows the winds pierces her from below with a sharp object. See M70 motif. |
| J37 | 94.78% | Transforming into a powerful bird or creating one, the hero lifts his opponent into the air and carries him away. |
| E13A | 94.58% | Sacred knowledge, objects and rituals were first obtained by humans from the inhabitants of the underwater world. |
| B36 | 94.56% | 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. |
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
27 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 27 traditions: Nuba, Yoruba; incl Ife), Nupe, Bini (Edo), Engenni, Chamba, Dakka, Kukuruku, Khoekhoe (=Hottentot; incl Nama, Korana); Damara, Bushmen (all groups), Batak (Toba, Dairi), Chin-Naga: Ao, Mao, Sema, Zeme, Kolren, Kom, Lhota, Rengma, Angami, Kabui, Tangkhul, Koirenf, Mansi, Chipewyan, Dogrib, Slavey, Tsetsaut, Kaska, Carrier, Alabama, Koasati, Aztec; Aztec and Teotihuacan iconography, Cuna; XVI century data on Eastern Panama, Tupari, Makurap, Sakirap, Ajuru (Wayoro), Suruí, Gaviâo, Zoro, Arua, Cinta Larga, Kamayura, Craho, Apinaye (Apinage, Apinaje), Suya, Txukarramae, Sherente, Cariri, Toba (incl Pilagá), Ofaie, Upper Chinook: Wasco, Wishram, Clackamas, Kathlamet, Yellowknife
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