Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
H21 — Game or fish kills a boy.
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 character controls animals or fish; a boy, young man or girl knows his secret or serves as bait themselves; another character forces the boy (girl) to reveal the secret and/or help him in the same way that he or she helped the first character, or leads the boy to go fishing but kills him, or the boy himself starts hunting, breaking the rules; as a result, the boy or girl is killed or carried away by animals or fish. See motif H18.
Berezkin category: Paradise Lost
This is of motif type Adventures and tricks and is part of group 10, Adventures.
H21 has 1 other sub-motifs
RelatedH21. The character controls animals or fish; a boy, young man or girl knows his secret or serves as bait themselves; another character forces the boy (girl) to reveal the secret and/or help him in the same way that he or she helped the first character, or leads the boy to go fishing but kills him, or the boy himself starts hunting, breaking the rules; as a result, the boy or girl is killed or carried away by animals or fish. See motif H18.
H21a. 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.
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| F34A | 99.38% | All women of the community of the first ancestors or all Amazons have a common lover of non-human nature or simultaneously mate with animals of a certain species, summoning them with a conventional signal. |
| F50 | 99.11% | Children have the ability to leave their mother's womb and return to it again. |
| J15A | 99.09% | Setting off on a journey (usually in search of a fiancé, husband, or relatives), a woman finds herself in the lair or settlement of large dangerous predators - pumas or jaguars. See motif J15. |
| L88 | 99.09% | A man kills a demon, but when he touches its remains some time later, it comes to life. |
| B99 | 99.06% | A person or their head left on a tree turns into an insect nest. |
| B24 | 99.05% | People who have entered into conflict or violated a prohibition are transformed into wild boars or peccaries. |
| B63 | 99.05% | Children lie to their mother, pretending to work in the fields. When the deception is revealed, they are left without a harvest and are transformed into atmospheric phenomena or celestial objects. |
| E19 | 99.05% | Narcotic plants arise from the body of a human being torn to pieces by others. |
| F75 | 99.05% | A hunter sees a tapir summoning a woman who lives in the water with a secret signal; she emerges from the lake or river, and the tapir mates with her. The hunter himself summons the woman and becomes her lover. |
| J9 | 99.05% | Even before they are born, children speak from their mother's womb, showing her the way. |
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
14 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 14 traditions: Aka, Baka (Badjue) and other Western (Bantu speaking) Pygmies, SW Arunachal Pradesh: Sherdukpen, Tawang (Monpas), Aka (Hrusso), Miji, Omaha, Ponca, Sicuani, Pemon: Arekuna (incl. Kamarakoto), Taulipang (Taurepan), Baniwa (incl. Wakuenai), Bare, Piapoco, Curripaco, Siusi, Guarikena , Tariana, Xipaya, Urubu (Urubu-Kaapor), Mundurucu, Curuaia, Mehinaku, Waura, Yaulapiti, Rikbaktsa, Paresi, Guarani of Paraguay and Brazil: Caygua, Mbia, Apapocuva, Nyandewa, Chiripa
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