Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
M18B — Obtaining a hook, spear.
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 turns into a fishing object in order to carry away the hook with which he is caught or the spear with which they try to harpoon him, or he turns into a hook to catch fish. See motif M18.
Berezkin category: Adventures: Tricks and episodes
This is of motif type Adventures and tricks and is part of group 11, Tricks and competitions won thanks to deception, absurd and obscene behavior.
M18 has 2 other sub-motifs
RelatedM18. 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.
M18a. The character becomes the object of fishing or hunting, presenting himself as a target for enemies. Numerous arrows, darts, and harpoons stick into his body without causing harm, and he carries them away. See motif M18.
M18b. The character turns into a fishing object in order to carry away the hook with which he is caught or the spear with which they try to harpoon him, or he turns into a hook to catch fish. See motif M18.
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| B18 | 96.23% | Daylight, warmth, sun or moon are stored in a vessel, under a vessel, under a cover, in a bag, etc. |
| M12 | 95.53% | Unable, unwilling or unable to obtain game (fish), the hunter (fisherman) cuts flesh from his own body, removes his own entrails and collects his blood. He usually offers this to others under the guise of animal meat or fish. Alternatively, a woman cuts flesh from her own leg to feed her husband. |
| B28 | 94.81% | Travelling from one locality to another, the character successively transforms people into birds and animals, into stones, sanctuaries (or transforms monstrous animals into ordinary ones), establishes cultural norms, determines the biological characteristics of creatures, the appearance of the locality, etc. |
| M32 | 94.54% | The character swallows food or water, or his own entrails, pieces of flesh flow out and fall out of his ass. |
| K4 | 94.47% | The character climbs a tree or rock to get a bird, bird eggs, or chicks, climbs into a bird's nest, comes into conflict with another character, and/or cannot climb down. See motifs K1, K2A. Traditions in which the nest destroyer is a woman are highlighted in italics; bold italics indicate those in which the character falls into the trap not through the fault of another person, but by accident, or, having climbed up to destroy the nest, does not fall into the trap at all, although he quarrels with his companion; an asterisk* marks those in which the character remains in the trap (undergoes a metamorphosis). |
| B51 | 93.98% | Thanks to a deliberate lie, Thunder did not learn from the bloodsucking insect that it had drunk human blood. |
| J44 | 93.92% | The hero lures the enemy onto a rickety bridge. The enemy falls into the water, into the abyss (see motif J46). See motif J52. |
| J59 | 93.80% | To reach the sky, one must shoot an arrow that will pierce the vault of heaven. See motif J58; see motif J59A: a man flies after or on an arrow (without the motif of an arrow piercing the vault of heaven). |
| M87 | 93.73% | The character comes to a place that is abandoned or seems to have been abandoned by the inhabitants. He tries to take or touch things, but invisible owners prevent him from doing so, or the things themselves hurt him. |
| M19 | 93.67% | The character ties another person (usually a child) to the end of a line, using them as bait or forcing them to catch fish with their hands. |
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
17 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 17 traditions: Western Ojibwa (Chippewa), Eastern Ojibwa (Missisauga, Timagami and other groups in eastern Ontario), Northern Ojibwa (=Severn Ojibwa, Sandy Lake Cree), Plains Ojibwa, Makiritare (Yecuana), Yanomamo (Yanoama): Yanomam, Yanomami, Wayapi, Emerillon, Letuama, Tanimuca, Ufaina, Yahuna, Tariana, Ticuna (Tucuna), Juruna, Xipaya, Tupinamba, Urubu (Urubu-Kaapor), Tenetehara, Caraja, Guarani of Paraguay and Brazil: Caygua, Mbia, Apapocuva, Nyandewa, Chiripa
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