Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
H24B — Souls fly out of the vessel.
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 character must open the vessel containing the soul of the deceased when he reaches the place or after a certain time has passed; if he opens it before the time is up, the soul flies away. See motif H24.
Berezkin category: Paradise Lost
This is of motif type Cosmology and etiology and is part of group 4, Origin of death, diseases and hard life.
H24 has 7 other sub-motifs
RelatedH24. A vessel or other small container with valuables or living beings (creatures) is opened (prematurely). Its contents get out of control or disappear.
H24a. Opening the bag, the character releases stars that rush chaotically into the sky.
H24b. The character must open the vessel containing the soul of the deceased when he reaches the place or after a certain time has passed; if he opens it before the time is up, the soul flies away. See motif H24.
H24c. People open a vessel (a bundle, a basket, etc.) containing death (or old age, illness), and therefore they are mortal.
H24d. An animal character who released the contents (darkness, insects, reptiles) from a vessel is still trying to gather everything back (etiology of the behaviour of a certain species of animal).
H24e. Having brought the seeds of humanity into our world, the character drops or prematurely opens what he has brought. (Sometimes this explains the inequality of people and disorder in society).
H24f. The character has the ability to put a large amount of meat or fish into a bag or container that is easy to carry.
H24g. A woman returned from the other world or obtained there disappears when a man opens the vessel in which she is kept prematurely.
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| J34 | 98.65% | After killing a dangerous enemy, the heroes make a scarecrow out of him to frighten the household. |
| K1H | 98.12% | The character finds himself inside a tree trunk or inside a rock; someone frees him by making a hole from the outside. |
| C10 | 97.87% | During the flood, some birds or animals escape to a mountain, a tree, a boat, or by clinging to the sky; their tails or other parts of their bodies remain in the water and as a result acquire their current colour or shape. Cf. A2211.7 ("During the flood, birds cling to the sky; their tails acquire their current colour"). |
| F28C | 97.36% | A woman masturbates with the penis of a large animal that one of the men killed while hunting. |
| H24A | 97.33% | Opening the bag, the character releases stars that rush chaotically into the sky. |
| I105 | 97.10% | One of the constellations is associated with the hand (with five marked fingers). |
| J39 | 97.01% | The antagonist makes the woman his slave. Other characters secretly come to her and kill a small animal or bird for her. The antagonist suspects that the woman could not have caught the game herself, but she insists that she did. |
| K21A | 96.95% | A celestial being marries an earthly woman. She longs to return to earth and secretly descends from her husband. |
| B44D | 96.78% | Night and day alternate because the slain beast was black and white, spotted. |
| I37E | 96.78% | Tree mushrooms cry out like people. |
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
21 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 21 traditions: Southern Solomons: southern part of Santa Ysabel (Bughotu), Guadalcanal, San Cristobal, Malaita, Ulawa, Marquesas, Vepsians, Tats, Western Ojibwa (Chippewa), Eastern Ojibwa (Missisauga, Timagami and other groups in eastern Ontario), Northern Ojibwa (=Severn Ojibwa, Sandy Lake Cree), Yuchi, Plains Ojibwa, Lower Chehalis, Upper Chehalis, (Lower) Cowlitz, Western Sahaptin (Upper Cowlitz, Klikitat, Tenino, Umatilla, Yakima, Wallawalla), Nez Perce, Coeur D'Alene, Kalispel (Pend d'Oreille; incl Spokane), Klamath, Modoc, Alabama, Koasati, Cherokee, Huichol, Barasana, Taibano, Macuna, Kabiyari, Yukuna (Yucuna), Central Tibetans (Yu Tsang, incl. Sikkim Tibetans, Tichurong of NW Nepal), Upper Chinook: Wasco, Wishram, Clackamas, Kathlamet
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