Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
B36C — Fat 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 receive meat and fat rendered from a certain creature or obtained in some other way. Some received a lot, others remained thin.
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.
B36 has 3 other sub-motifs
RelatedB36. Birds, fish, and four-legged animals deliberately or accidentally smear themselves with colouring substances or divide parts of another's body among themselves, thereby acquiring their current appearance.
B36a. Two zoomorphic characters adorn each other, after which one is satisfied with the result and the other is not.
B36b. Birds find their voices by pecking at a large reptile and smearing themselves with the fluids that flow out of its body.
B36c. Animals receive meat and fat rendered from a certain creature or obtained in some other way. Some received a lot, others remained thin.
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| J12L | 96.90% | The murderer pretends to mourn the victim along with everyone else. The deception is revealed, and the murderer is pursued. See motif J12. |
| M32A | 92.67% | character's insides or pieces of flesh fall out of his back. He eats them, mistaking them for regular meat and fat. |
| B42O1 | 92.31% | The Big Dipper is identified with the fisher (Mustela pennati). |
| M29J | 91.94% | See the motives in square brackets. |
| M53B | 91.84% | Trickster claims he's carrying songs in his bag. See M53 motif. |
| J41B | 91.56% | The son returns, finds his mother, who was humiliated and tortured in his absence, and burns his tormentor and his men, summoning fire and heat with magic. |
| J27A | 90.23% | One of the babies is abandoned and lives in a river, forest, etc.; the other remains at home; after the abandoned brother returns home, the brothers kill their father or his men. See motifs J19, J25. |
| H53 | 90.03% | The wolf participates in the creation of the earth or is the brother of the creator and/or conqueror of the demons of the underworld. He dies and/or is considered the first to die and/or becomes the lord of the land of the dead. |
| A38A | 89.85% | The sun is caught in a loop made of a woman's pubic hair. |
| B57 | 89.26% | Blood spurting from a killed or wounded person or animal colours the sky (dawn, northern lights) or other natural objects (moon, vegetation) red. |
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
20 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 20 traditions: Maka (Makaa), Baya, Kaka, Western Sami, Eastern Sami (including Skolts), Lenape (Delaware), Micmac, Western Ojibwa (Chippewa), Eastern Ojibwa (Missisauga, Timagami and other groups in eastern Ontario), Northern Ojibwa (=Severn Ojibwa, Sandy Lake Cree), Eastern Cree, Montagnais, Menominee, Sauk (Sak, Mesquakie), Fox, Kickapoo, Five Nations Iroquois (Seneca, Mohawk, Onondaga, Oneida, Cayuga), Plains Cree, Plains Ojibwa, Lkungen (Straits; including Samish, Songish, Sooke, Lummi), Klallam, Lipan, Sanapana, Lengua (incl Angaite), Makka, Caduveo, Mbaya
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