Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
G16 — Ants find cultivated plants.
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
OverviewAnts are the first to find cultivated plants that are unknown to others and concentrated in one place.
Berezkin category: Fertility and Agriculture
This is of motif type Cosmology and etiology and is part of group 6, Origin and interpretation of culture elements, in particular related to agriculture, inadequate forms of subsistence and economic activity before the establishment of the present norms.
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| G4 | 99.71% | Cultivated plants found on or inside a mountain. |
| K30A | 99.59% | The wife of the first ancestor flies away with the vultures (usually voluntarily, after she has already cheated on her husband), and the chief (Uito: her brother) brings her back. See motif K30. |
| A22B | 99.50% | The sun and its companion burn up. The companion burns in a less intense fire (is thrown into the ashes, etc.); therefore, the moon (or star) is cold. See motif A22. |
| A10 | 99.41% | The sun gets its sparkling eyes (eye) from an animal. |
| A11C | 99.41% | The Sun and Moon kill a monster whose eyes shine differently. At first, the Moon takes the brighter eye, but then swaps with the Sun. |
| B23 | 99.41% | The deity forbids the use of fire for cooking and punishes those who violate the prohibition. |
| B39 | 99.41% | An insect or character, which later turns into an insect, knows where food (cultivated plants) or water is located, but refuses to share this knowledge. To find the valuables (usually to force the insect to reveal its secret), the first ancestors pull on a rope tied around the character's waist (the origin of the bridge between the abdominal and thoracic sections of insects). |
| G12 | 99.41% | A huge tree bearing various fruits and/or containing water in its trunk grows out of a human body or is a transformed human being. |
| G27 | 99.41% | Cultivated plants appear together with urine or in the place where the hero urinated. |
| J12A | 99.41% | A girl or two sisters come to an old woman who invites them to marry her son. In reality, he is a worm, a snake or a penis, which his mother hides in a vessel during the day. The girl (sisters) do not allow him to approach them and run away. See motif J12. |
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
13 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 13 traditions: Ngbakka, Mbum (incl Mbai), Mundang, Fali, Tupuri, Maya (=Bali), Nyong, Wa (incl Kawa), Bulang, Aztec; Aztec and Teotihuacan iconography, Tojolabal, Chuj, Jacalteca, Kanjobal, Mocho (incl Tuzantec), Acatec, Quiche, Achí, Cakchiquel, Pocomchi, Pocomam, Tepehua, Totonac, Huastec (Teenek), Gulf Nahuatl, Tzotzil, Chorti, Kekchi; Mopan, Chayahuita , Ticuna (Tucuna)
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