Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
B32 — Women turn into fish.
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
OverviewAs a result of conflict with their husbands, women turn into fish.
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.
B32 has 1 other sub-motifs
RelatedB32. As a result of conflict with their husbands, women turn into fish.
B32a. The enemies of a hero sailing the sea turn into seals or dolphins.
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| B28A | 100.00% | 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. |
| J10 | 100.00% | A woman loses her way after being stung by a wasp (or bee, ant, snake). She slaps her stomach (either to kill the insect or to punish her unborn sons, because of whom she went to pick a flower and was stung; see motif J11). The offended sons fall silent, ceasing to show the way. See motif J9. |
| J11 | 99.99% | The son in his mother's womb asks her to pick flowers or fruit for him (usually when a woman picks flowers, she is bitten by an insect). See motif J9. |
| C37 | 99.95% | The sloth causes a global catastrophe or saves people from it. |
| K27H | 99.95% | The hero must carve an image of the character's head, which he never shows. It usually adorns a wooden bench. |
| I63 | 99.90% | The Milky Way is the tapir's trail; the tapir can be seen on the Milky Way. |
| I5A | 99.89% | The tapir is associated with the upper world (thunder, sky, moon). |
| K13D | 99.89% | A group of boys reaches the sky, the last one's leg is cut off or torn off. |
| K19F | 99.89% | A star or many stars descend from the sky to work in the fields. See motif K19B. |
| M139 | 99.89% | The fox caught the birds and put them in a bag. Another character secretly replaced them with thorns. |
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
6 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 6 traditions: Baniwa (incl. Wakuenai), Bare, Piapoco, Curripaco, Siusi, Guarikena , Tenetehara, Mundurucu, Curuaia, Rikbaktsa, Cayapo (incl. Kubenkranken, Pau d’Arco, Shikrin or Xikrin), Suya, Txukarramae
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