Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
B30B — The slain turn into 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
OverviewAnimals arise from the remains of a killed person.
Berezkin category: The Origins of the Characteristics of the environment
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.
B30 has 1 other sub-motifs
RelatedB30a. A fish emerges from the remains of a killed person or creature. At first, it is concentrated in one place, then spreads throughout the water.
B30b. Animals arise from the remains of a killed person.
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| G8C | 97.47% | The first ancestors try to cut down a tree (less often a high rock) to get useful plants hanging on the branches (at the top) or water or fish in the trunk. The damage disappears as soon as the workers are distracted from their work, or periodically. |
| F26 | 97.37% | The transfer of sacred musical instruments (horns, trumpets) from women to men is associated with the onset of menstruation in women. |
| F49A | 96.89% | A small animal (mouse, rat, rabbit, two-wombed animal, bird) explains how to give birth. See motif F49. |
| J22D | 96.71% | Foreigners or animals of two different species emerge from a single person or animal cut in half. |
| J49 | 96.71% | The wife and/or sister of the Moon unsuccessfully tries to climb up to him in the sky or reaches him but returns to earth. |
| G10 | 96.59% | A tree whose trunk has been cut down remains hanging because it is held up from above. |
| M47 | 94.90% | When punishing a person or animal or restoring a dismembered body, a character intentionally or accidentally puts his head to his ass. |
| B100 | 94.87% | In the past or in a distant land, sleep was unknown; a certain character embodies sleep, possesses it or teaches how to sleep; sleep is a special substance. |
| A22 | 94.36% | One or two people fall into fire or boiling water and ascend to the sky, turning into the sun and/or the moon. |
| B7D | 94.28% | Water pours from a broken bone, flooding the earth. |
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
10 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 10 traditions: Hadza, Dusun, Murut, Kelabit, Tombonuwo, Bajau, Tidong, Aztec; Aztec and Teotihuacan iconography, Tzotzil, Tzeltal, Chol; pre-Columbian Mayan iconography outside of Yucatan, Wayana, Aparai, Waorani, Barasana, Taibano, Macuna, Maue (Mawe)
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How to cite: Fielder-White, J. (2026). The Folklore Database. https://folkloredatabase.com
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