Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
C5B — Animals sent on reconnaissance.
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 global catastrophe or during the creation of the earth, animals run around, making the earth large, reporting on its condition, or are sent to find out how large the earth is.
Berezkin category: Disasters
This is of motif type Cosmology and etiology and is part of group 3, Cosmogony, the earth and the sky, etiology of the elements, natural and biological phenomena (fire, water, soil, thunderstorms, dream, etc.), cataclysms and cosmic threats, spirits of nature.
C5 has 1 other sub-motifs
RelatedC5a. A bird, various birds, or people who then turn into birds are sent to explore the earth (whether it exists, whether it has dried up, whether there are any survivors, why smoke is rising from the earth, etc.) or with the task of bringing back a piece of solid substance to create dry land.
C5b. After a global catastrophe or during the creation of the earth, animals run around, making the earth large, reporting on its condition, or are sent to find out how large the earth is.
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| K27P | 97.25% | The antagonist sends the hero to places where he is attacked by dangerous creatures; the hero kills them and brings them to the antagonist. The creatures turn out to be relatives, pupils or helpers of the antagonist, whom he (or his close relatives) mourns or revives. See motif K27. |
| L1A | 96.23% | A young woman turns into a bear (in Asia, a tigress) and attacks her close relatives or husband. |
| B48 | 95.73% | Harmless and herbivorous animals were or could become dangerous predators. |
| K19B | 95.63% | The star man takes an earthly woman as his wife. |
| B97 | 95.53% | The character rewards (rarely punishes) a bird living by the water, determining its current appearance (crest, beak, feather colouring). |
| D4N | 95.39% | A boy or (among the Kutené) a woman cries, demanding the absent elements - summer, fire, rain. See motif D4A (demand for summer). |
| B44F1 | 95.03% | 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. |
| K27Y | 94.88% | The hero is sent or, knowing the danger, goes himself to obtain various (at least two) materials for making a bow and arrows (shafts, feathers, bowstring, flint for arrowheads, paint for colouring arrows, resin and fibres for attaching the arrowhead or feather to the shaft, etc.). See motif K27. |
| A38C | 94.52% | The Sun exchanges a cape made of animal or bird skins with a boy or girl, or spoils it. As a result, the boy or girl raises their status or takes revenge on the Sun. |
| B51 | 94.38% | Thanks to a deliberate lie, Thunder did not learn from the bloodsucking insect that it had drunk human blood. |
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
34 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 34 traditions: Yoruba; incl Ife), Nupe, Bini (Edo), Engenni, Chamba, Dakka, Kukuruku, Reindeer Koryak, Maritime Koryak (Alyutor), Chukchi, Kaska, Gwich'in (Kuchin, Loucheux), Beaver, Northern Saulteaux, Western Ojibwa (Chippewa), Eastern Ojibwa (Missisauga, Timagami and other groups in eastern Ontario), Northern Ojibwa (=Severn Ojibwa, Sandy Lake Cree), Eastern Cree, Blackfoot, Sarsee (Tsuu T'ina), Oto, Kiowa Apache, Plains Cree, Plains Ojibwa, Ohlone (Costanoan), Chumash, Yokuts, Owens Valley Paiute, Northern Paiute (=Paviotso), Northern Shoshone, Southern Paiute, Chemehuevi, Navajo, Jicarilla, Western Apache (White Mountain, San Carlos), Pima, Papago, Locono, Asurini, Parakana; Arawete, Chamacoco (Ishir)
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