Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
F48 — Why women are different.
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
OverviewIndividual women differ physically because the pieces of flesh divided from the first woman were not identical, or because the males who copulated with the first woman were animals of different species.
Berezkin category: Gender and sex
This is of motif type Cosmology and etiology and is part of group 5, Origin of human beings, ethnic groups, etiology of human anatomy, strange body configuration, ways of behavior, marriages before the establishment of the present norms.
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| F42A | 98.15% | In the community of the first ancestors, young men or boys turn into birds or bats and fly away. |
| M18A | 97.74% | The character becomes the object of fishing or hunting, presenting himself as a target for enemies. Numerous arrows, darts, and harpoons stick into his body without causing harm, and he carries them away. See motif M18. |
| F95 | 97.59% | Two companions or brothers live together. One has a wife, whom he hides. The other suspects her existence, destroys her, or tries to get a wife for himself. |
| B34 | 97.47% | After the vessel of night is opened, a person caught by the onset of darkness turns into a bird or animal. |
| G12B | 97.01% | Cultivated plants â a gift from a male star or female star. |
| B19 | 96.55% | Before nightfall, people could not make love in peace. |
| M14A | 96.48% | To take revenge on his wife or her relatives for (allegedly) causing him offence, the husband roasts his wife alive. See motif M14. |
| A28 | 96.23% | The clever sun-man involves the foolish moon in various tricks that the latter is incapable of devising himself. Trying to repeat the sun's actions, the moon suffers a fiasco. Cf. motif B1F. |
| F43A | 96.21% | In the community of the first ancestors, women kill, attempt to kill, or transform men. |
| M11A | 96.21% | The character gives others the fish extracted from his body. |
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
4 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 4 traditions: Truk, Eastern Fayu, Losap, Pulap, Puluwat, Mortlock (incl. Satawan), Mundurucu, Curuaia, Sherente, Chamacoco (Ishir)
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