Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
D6B — The burned one becomes a caiman.
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
OverviewThe one who is burned turns into a crocodile/caiman.
Berezkin category: Fire and Laughter
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.
D6 has 1 other sub-motifs
RelatedD6a. The crocodile/caiman is the temporary or original owner of fire or lightning.
D6b. The one who is burned turns into a crocodile/caiman.
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| B58 | 100.00% | After the first ancestors steal the original fire, a forest bird the size of a partridge (Penelope sp.; Anhima cornuta; etc.; jacu, paujil) swallows a hot coal. As a result (except for the Andoc), its neck turns red. |
| D4P | 100.00% | The parrot obtains fire for humans. See motif D4A. Australian data is not taken into account, as the common origin of the motif in America and Australia is excluded. |
| E21 | 99.99% | A child catches fish (with poison), or fish poison is secreted from his body. Fish or water snakes kill him. Death is avenged. |
| L82 | 99.99% | A person deliberately or accidentally burns his foot in a fire or burns himself completely; he turns into a demonic creature. See motif L9 (man with a sharp foot). |
| M29QQ | 99.99% | See the motives in square brackets. |
| I63 | 99.96% | The Milky Way is the tapir's trail; the tapir can be seen on the Milky Way. |
| C37 | 99.92% | The sloth causes a global catastrophe or saves people from it. |
| K27H | 99.92% | The hero must carve an image of the character's head, which he never shows. It usually adorns a wooden bench. |
| B1F | 99.85% | In the era of creation, two men have a common origin, are not antagonists, and display their characteristics in a series of episodes. One is intelligent and successful, the other is simple-minded and irresponsible. |
| M6 | 99.83% | A young man or girl spends night in the forest. The forest partridge (Tinamus sp.) provides him or her a fire, a shelter and/or a hammock but takes them away and flies away itself when the person does something wrong |
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
7 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 7 traditions: Cuna; XVI century data on Eastern Panama, Maue (Mawe), Urubu (Urubu-Kaapor), Yuracare, Mundurucu, Curuaia, Kayabi, Cayapo (incl. Kubenkranken, Pau d’Arco, Shikrin or Xikrin)
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