Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
H22 — Sense of smell in 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
OverviewLarge game animals did not have a sense of smell. They acquired it and began to flee from hunters after someone created olfactory organs for them or gave them a strong smell to smell. Cf. motif H22A.
Berezkin category: Paradise Lost
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.
H22 has 1 other sub-motifs
RelatedH22. Large game animals did not have a sense of smell. They acquired it and began to flee from hunters after someone created olfactory organs for them or gave them a strong smell to smell. Cf. motif H22A.
H22a. Large game animals were concentrated in one place and were not afraid of people. They scattered after someone touched them, hit them lightly (often on the nose), or smeared them with something. Cf. motif H22.
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| J52A | 98.89% | A she-bear or bear treacherously kills his companion, neighbour, etc., who is associated with a herbivorous animal or a weaker predator. The victim's children take revenge by killing the murderer's children or flee. See motifs J52, J54. |
| J53A | 98.82% | A character invites another to play. The latter follows the rules, but the initiator of the game does not and kills the other. |
| D4K | 98.06% | The deer obtains fire for humans. See motif D4A. |
| J23A | 98.03% | A woman cries, and the discharge from her nose (her tears) turns into a boy, who grows up and defeats strong opponents. |
| K25C | 98.01% | While digging roots, gathering shellfish, etc., a woman finds a baby. He grows up and enters into a struggle with dangerous characters. |
| M81A | 97.93% | The hero meets two blind women and makes them sighted. These women are birds (geese, ducks, hazel grouses, partridges). |
| M122 | 97.89% | In a difficult situation, the character asks for advice from his tail, penis, or some creatures in his stomach (these are excrement, intestinal parasites, his "sisters," etc.). |
| K43B | 97.72% | People leave a boy, a girl, a sister and brother, a young woman or young spouses alone and leave, or drive them away. Those who are left behind or driven away discover unusual abilities or helpers, obtaining blood and food. Those who are abandoned eat their fill, while those who abandon them go hungry. A character (often a bird - a crow, magpie, seagull, etc.) visits the abandoned and brings a piece of fat or meat to the camp of the starving. |
| K50 | 97.70% | A man approaches the enemy disguised as a woman and kills him at night (usually cutting off his head and taking it with him). |
| J53C | 97.69% | Two women live together, both have children. One of them leaves the house with the other, kills her and (later) eats her. The children of the murdered woman escape. See motif J52. |
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
13 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 13 traditions: Andamanese, Central Yakuts (Sakha), Tungus (Evenki): Baikal region, Evenks, Chipewyan, Tanana, Wailaki, Mattole, Lassik, Sinkyone, Cahto, Mono (Monache), Northern Paiute (=Paviotso), Western Shoshone, Gosiute, Upland Yuma: Walapai, Havasupai, Yavapai, Ute, Jicarilla, Western Apache (White Mountain, San Carlos)
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