Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
B49 — The animals did not understand the instructions.
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 of a certain species (in Toraja – humans) hear poorly or misunderstand instructions or questions about their future, or get confused when making requests to deities. This is how they acquire their current characteristics and habits.
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.
B49 has 2 other sub-motifs
RelatedB49. Animals of a certain species (in Toraja – humans) hear poorly or misunderstand instructions or questions about their future, or get confused when making requests to deities. This is how they acquire their current characteristics and habits.
B49a. Powerful animals could have many cubs, but now they give birth to only one every few years.
B49b. In the past, cows had more teats on their udders than they do now.
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| H36F | 92.99% | The raven is sent to deliver an important item or message. He distorts the message or loses what has been entrusted to him. |
| B72B | 91.14% | A girl or, less commonly, a boy turns into a bird after his mother (father, guardian) refuses to give him water or food or otherwise mistreats him. |
| M147 | 90.66% | A weak animal tells a strong animal that everyone is afraid of him, the weak one, and suggests testing this. He walks in front of the strong animal, everyone runs away, and the strong animal believes that they are running away from the weak one. |
| B43 | 90.42% | Elements of the landscape or parts of the universe are created from the body of the original being. |
| K56A8 | 90.19% | A girl marries an animal (brings it with her), and it turns into a handsome man. Another girl tries to do the same, but dies or suffers harm. |
| C6I | 89.93% | A zoomorphic character returns from the underworld covered in mud. He shakes himself off, or the mud is scraped off him, and earth emerges from it. |
| L42D | 89.93% | A man runs away from a cannibal across the ice, the cannibal pursues him, licks the blood spilled on the ice, his tongue freezes, he dies, or falls to his death after slipping on the ice. |
| E9E | 89.66% | An animal or object received by a young man from supernatural beings as a reward for his kindness, upon the young man's return home (to earth), turns into a girl. |
| E31A2 | 89.42% | The girl must be given to one of several men. She herself or someone else explains that one of the suitors can be called her father, another her brother (etc.), and only one can be her husband. |
| B116A | 89.39% | A person or animal eats a sacred book or its remains. During the ritual, this knowledge is actualised in oral speech, in the sounds of a musical instrument made from part of an animal's body, or in parts of an animal's body used for divination. |
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
24 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 24 traditions: Saudi Arabia, Arabs of Levant (Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan); Bedouins of Sinai, Arabs of Iraq, Iraqi, Arabs of Egypt, Toraja (Toradja), To Mori, Baree (=Eastern Toraja), Karen, Pa-O, Padaung, Kayah, Wa (incl Kawa), Bulang, Sora (Savara, Saora), Parenga, Konds (Khonds; language is Kui, incl Kuttia, Konda-Dora), Koya; Pengo, Gondi (mostly Northern Gondi), Tats, Mingrelians (Megrelians), Laz, Bashkirs, Mansi, Eastern Khanty (Ostyaks), Negidal, Sauk (Sak, Mesquakie), Fox, Kickapoo, Mixtec, Trique, Cuicatec; Amuzgo, Makiritare (Yecuana), Lima dep: Costa and adjacent Sierra (Spanish, Kechua, and Jacaru-speaking communities, mostly in Pachacamac, Cajatambo, Canta, Huarochirí; Spanish sources of XVI-XVII centuries), Kaingang, Xokleng, Central Tibetans (Yu Tsang, incl. Sikkim Tibetans, Tichurong of NW Nepal), Arabs (literary tradition; incl. One Thousand and One Nights), Morocco
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