Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
H25 — Choose life or death.
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
OverviewPeople are offered a choice between two objects, one of which represents death and the other life, or they are asked whether they want to be reborn or die forever. Death is chosen.
Berezkin category: Paradise Lost
This is of motif type Cosmology and etiology and is part of group 4, Origin of death, diseases and hard life.
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| H36H | 97.98% | Creatures, including a frog or toad, must cross an obstacle. This does not go as planned and results in humans becoming mortal. |
| L42H | 97.94% | A cannibal catches the hero and invites other cannibals to a feast. The hero escapes, and the cannibals eat the one who invited them. |
| M129 | 97.34% | A parent intends to transfer primogeniture (royalty, other privileges) to a chosen son. Another son or brother comes under the guise of the chosen one and receives primogeniture. |
| H34D1 | 97.21% | The sky or celestial objects were edible, but then this source of food became inaccessible or is now only used by inhabitants of a country beyond the human world. |
| L106 | 97.19% | A person takes an object belonging to another and loses it; the owner demands that the object be returned; the hero goes after it (to another world), usually finds it and brings back what was lost. See motifs K56a3 and L105. |
| K61B | 96.69% | In order to learn the names of strangers, the character finds or creates a situation in which they call each other by name aloud. |
| H34D | 96.27% | A zoomorphic character climbs or attempts to climb up to the sky or the moon to bite off a piece of them. |
| H36HH | 95.98% | The frog or toad is to blame for the fact that humans are mortal. |
| I82C1 | 94.93% | The Moon has two wives (usually the Morning Star and the Evening Star). With the caring one, he grows fat, with the other, he starves and grows thin. |
| M29V | 94.68% | The character defeats or deceives strong opponents using cunning. The protagonists are dwarf ungulates, usually duker or deer - taxonomically distant from each other, but similar in appearance. In some publications on African traditions, it is difficult to determine which animal we are talking about, but it is certain that these are small cloven-hoofed animals, usually (always?) dukers. See the motives in square brackets. |
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: Malagasy, Efe Pygmies, Kango (Mbuti) Pygmies, Nyatutu, Kiniramba, Isanzu, Chagga (Jagga; incl Wasu), Pare, Digo, Luba (Baluba, Luba-Katanga, Shaba), (Ba)Holoholo, Tumbwe, Bena-Piana, Tabwa, Benabena-Mitumba, Zela, Bene-Marungu, Bemba (Wemba, Babemba; incl Ambo, Lala, Lamba, Bisa), Holoholo, Kaonde, Lingala, (Ba)Ngala, Ntomba, Kioque, (Ki)Bangi, Bolia, Balolo, Boloki, (Ba)Akwa, (U)Poto, Aka, Baka (Badjue) and other Western (Bantu speaking) Pygmies, Ewe, Dogon, Timor: Amarasi, Tetum, Meto, Atoni (incl Mollo), Kedang (Lomblen island), Leti Islands (Leti, Moa, Lakor), Toraja (Toradja), To Mori, Baree (=Eastern Toraja), Mentawai, Cheyenne
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