B28D — Unrecognised transformer.

Not understanding who they are dealing with, the characters respond to the wandering Transformer that they are preparing weapons to kill so-and-so or a hiding place to escape from so-and-so. The Transformer kills them himself or turns them into animals.

Berezkin category: The Origins of the Characteristics of the environment

This is of motif type Cosmology and etiology and is part of group 3, Cosmogony, the earth and the sky, etiology of the elements, natural and biological phenomena (fire, water, soil, thunderstorms, dream, etc.), cataclysms and cosmic threats, spirits of nature.

B28.  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.
B28a.  A character pinned to the ground by a rod, transported somewhere to the edge of the world and associated with an object that continues to influence people.
B28b.  The inhabitants of the area where the hero finds himself are afraid of creatures that are tools, utensils, and plants that are now harmless. The hero easily defeats these creatures and usually transforms them into what they are now.
B28c.  Lice grab a person and drag him into the sea.
B28d.  Not understanding who they are dealing with, the characters respond to the wandering Transformer that they are preparing weapons to kill so-and-so or a hiding place to escape from so-and-so. The Transformer kills them himself or turns them into animals.
B28d1.  Not understanding who he is facing, the man promises to kill the Transformer. The Transformer turns his weapon into deer antlers and him into a deer.
B28e.  The Moon (alone or together with the Sun) transforms the original "incorrect" world into the one in which people now live.

This motif has been recorded in 20 traditions: Inland Tlingit, Kwakiutl (Kwakwaka'wakw), Nootka (Nu-chah-nulth), Makah, Lillooet, Lkungen (Straits; including Samish, Songish, Sooke, Lummi), Klallam, Comox, Pentlatch, Lushootseed (Puget Sound: Puyallup, Nisqualmi, Snuqualmi, Duwamish, Muckleshoot, Snohomish, Skagit), Twana (Skokomish), Lower Chehalis, Upper Chehalis, (Lower) Cowlitz, Quinault, Lower Chinook (Chinook proper), Owens Valley Paiute, Northern Paiute (=Paviotso), Ute, Southern Paiute, Sicuani, Tariana, Yagua, Kayabi, Halkomelem (Snaymuk)