Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
E15B — Birds sew a boat.
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
OverviewBird women sew the birch bark covering of the hero's boat. See motif E15.
Berezkin category: The origins of people and culture
This is of motif type Cosmology and etiology and is part of group 6, Origin and interpretation of culture elements, in particular related to agriculture, inadequate forms of subsistence and economic activity before the establishment of the present norms.
E15 has 2 other sub-motifs
RelatedE15. People learn how to build boats and row from birds; a bird or part of its body serves as a model for building a boat.
E15a. The bow of the boat is modelled on a bird's breastbone.
E15b. Bird women sew the birch bark covering of the hero's boat. See motif E15.
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| E9AA | 100.00% | A man searches for a missing woman, who is a fox by nature, and comes to the burrow where she has hidden. Various bird or animal women come out of the burrow and offer themselves in place of the fox. Then they let him inside. |
| F51C | 100.00% | Upon learning that her unknown lover is her own brother, the girl shows him her genitals or bare breasts, offering him what he so desired. After that, she runs away, and he rushes after her. |
| H37A | 100.00% | A character gives another the ability to easily light a fire. The latter uses it unnecessarily and loses it. |
| K25A3 | 100.00% | The magical bird-wife flies away when she makes herself new feather clothing from feathers collected on the ground. |
| K8B | 100.00% | A raven finds itself in the belly of a whale; the woman inside asks it not to touch a certain organ of the whale (usually the heart) or a burning lamp. The raven breaks the prohibition, the woman disappears, and the whale dies. |
| M123A | 100.00% | A raven marries or tries to marry, pretending to be a chief and a handsome man. One day, someone notices that he is eating carrion. Usually, everyone is forced to take off their moccasins, and they see that the raven has a three-toed paw. The raven is banished in disgrace or hastens to leave on his own. |
| M123B | 100.00% | The trickster deceives the girl into marrying him and takes her away in a boat. The woman asks to be allowed to go ashore to relieve herself, secretly ties the kidnapper's clothes to the boat and runs away. |
| M162B | 100.00% | The character pretends to rub sour berry juice into his eyes. Another (always a bear) wants the same thing, goes blind, and the character kills him. |
| M17A | 100.00% | The mother or grandmother of a blind man or boy secretly eats (the meat or fish he has caught), pretending that there is no food in the house. |
| K54A | 99.71% | A man and a friendly giant live together. The friendly giant fights another giant and asks the man for help. The help consists of the man damaging the enemy's legs. |
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
5 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 5 traditions: Upper Kuskokwim (Kolchan), Koyukon, Tanana, Gwich'in (Kuchin, Loucheux), North Alaskan Inupiat
If you wish to get access to data for projects and research, then please contact us, we do our best to help
How to cite: Fielder-White, J. (2026). The Folklore Database. https://folkloredatabase.com
0009-0006-1672-4451
Where applicable, users should also cite the relevant original sources, catalogues, and classification systems, including Berezkin, ATU, Thompson, and other cited authorities, alongside the page accessed and the last time accessed.
Editorial annotations and database enhancements Š Jonathan Fielder-White licensed under CC BY 4.0. Berezkin-derived narrative and metadata licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Full rights information can be found here.
All rights are reserved in the database structure, selection, arrangement, metadata, classifications, software, interface design, and original editorial content.
Important: The Folklore Database expressly reserves all rights in relation to text and data mining, automated extraction, scraping, machine learning, dataset creation, and the training, development, validation, or improvement of artificial intelligence technologies or systems. No part of this website or database may be scraped, copied, reproduced, harvested, downloaded in bulk, or otherwise used for AI training or commercial data extraction without prior written permission.
Designed and Developed by Jon Fielder-White.
Š 2024â2026 Crecganford / Jonathan Fielder-White. All rights reserved.