B44B — Fingers, claws, hair, feathers.

The number and/or nature of the alternation of fingers, claws, feathers, hairs, and stripes on animal skins determines the number of time intervals in the calendar or daily cycle. See motif B44.

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.

B44.  The first ancestors (usually human-animals) argue about how long the year, winter, night, or other periods of time should last, and whether cold and darkness should be replaced by warmth and light.
B44a.  Characters argue about the number of discrete units of time that determine the duration of a certain period of time (most often winter or night). See motif B44.
B44b.  The number and/or nature of the alternation of fingers, claws, feathers, hairs, and stripes on animal skins determines the number of time intervals in the calendar or daily cycle. See motif B44.
B44c.  The characters argue about whether there should be darkness or light, cold or warmth on earth. See motif B44.
B44d.  Night and day alternate because the slain beast was black and white, spotted.
B44e.  First ancestors (usually birds or animals) argue with each other about the length of time periods in the calendar or daily cycle, or about the desirability of the dominance of cold and dark or warm and light times. See motif B44.
B44f.  In the dispute over whether the world should be bright, the fox is on the side of light (almost always against the bear).
B44f1.  In the dispute over whether the world should be light (warm), the bear is on the side of darkness (and cold); or the world is plunged into darkness because the bear hides the sun in his house.

This motif has been recorded in 28 traditions: Saudi Arabia, Arabs of Levant (Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan); Bedouins of Sinai, Arabs of Iraq, Iraqi, Arabs of Egypt, Nganasans, Inland Tlingit, Tahltan, Tlingit, Tsimshian, Western Ojibwa (Chippewa), Northern Ojibwa (=Severn Ojibwa, Sandy Lake Cree), Eastern Cree, Montagnais, Menominee, Sauk (Sak, Mesquakie), Fox, Kickapoo, Five Nations Iroquois (Seneca, Mohawk, Onondaga, Oneida, Cayuga), Comanche, Plains Cree, Assiniboine, Carrier, Shuswap, Kawaiisu, Northern Paiute (=Paviotso), Western Shoshone, Gosiute, Ute, Puelche, Northern and Southern Tehuelche, Arabs (literary tradition; incl. One Thousand and One Nights)