Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
B84 — Mushrooms and growths (transformation of a cannibal).
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
OverviewAfter a demonic character (usually a woman who pursues the hero) dies, her flesh turns into objects found on trees - mushrooms, resin, fruits, cones.
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.
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| B42G | 95.90% | The Big Dipper (as a whole or only the dipper) is identified with an animal (animals) pursued by hunters / attacked by other characters. |
| L65D | 95.25% | When the older sister becomes a cannibal, the younger sister (temporarily) escapes. Cf. motifs L1B, L65C. |
| I22A | 93.56% | The sky constantly beats against the earth like the lid of a boiling cauldron. |
| K27X | 91.32% | A man marries a woman from another world; the wife leaves for her world, the man follows her; there, the woman has another fiancé(e) or husband, or the woman's brothers want to destroy the man; he undergoes trials and brings his wife back. See motif K27. |
| K44 | 87.35% | The character kidnaps the boy or hides him from his mother or father, pretending to be his mother or father. The kidnapped boy learns the truth and leaves the kidnapper. |
| B42L | 86.97% | The stars of the handle of the Big Dipper are hunters, the dipper itself is a bear, an elk or a meat storehouse where the bear climbs. |
| M60B | 86.87% | The deceiver, promising to cure a wounded or sick person, finishes him off and eats him or offers a remedy that is only worse for him. |
| E1C | 86.65% | Man made from human excrement or (Inupiat) from carrion. |
| B78 | 86.60% | When a character dusts himself off (or shakes out his clothes, plucks birds, etc.), snow falls from his hair, feathers, wool, bedding, clothes, etc. onto the ground. |
| D4C | 86.05% | Characters obtain the warm season from its original owners. |
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
14 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 14 traditions: Lithuanians, Southern Selkups, Northern Selkups, Kets, Udeghe, Nanai, Koyukon, Western Woods Cree, Huron (incl Wyandot), Tillamook, Tunica, Alabama, Koasati, Navajo, Yughs
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