Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
H39 — Snakes become poisonous (spilled poison).
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
OverviewCreatures that are now dangerous (snakes, insects) swallow an uncontrolled substance and as a result become poisonous or immortal; creatures acquire their nature (usually becoming poisonous) by drinking or licking a special potion.
Berezkin category: Paradise Lost
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.
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| G6 | 94.11% | One of the trees is the main, original tree, which is very different from the others (it was the first to appear; the progenitor of trees; the progenitor of wild or cultivated plants; the sea and rivers within it; the world axis; higher than the others; obscuring the sky). |
| B2E | 93.45% | The Earth or the world as a whole is a male character (alone or alongside a female character). |
| G24 | 91.66% | The first seeds (shoots, tubers) of cultivated or important wild food plants and/or agronomic knowledge were brought from the sky (received from the gods). |
| H5 | 91.52% | Reptiles or invertebrates possess a life-giving agent; they are contrasted with humans as immortal mortals and/or responsible for the fact that humans die and are not reborn; the dead turn into snakes. See motif H4. (The first death comes from a snake bite (centipede), but snakes are not opposed to humans as immortals to mortals.) |
| J47 | 90.91% | A character climbs up to the sky using a rope, ladder, etc., or climbs a tree or rock, or descends from the sky to the ground, or rises to the ground from the underworld. Another character climbs after them, but the rope or ladder breaks or is cut, and the character falls. |
| I4A | 90.73% | Thunder falls to earth and cannot rise. Usually, a person helps it return to the sky. |
| L13 | 89.98% | People feed a dangerous creature, or it grows on its own in a man-made enclosure. Once it becomes big and strong, it starts to destroy people. |
| F16 | 89.77% | Men possessed biological characteristics that are now characteristic of women, or vice versa (beards, menstruation, breasts, childbearing). |
| F45 | 89.66% | There are or were settlements where only women lived or live (cf. motifs F8, F45C). |
| J21 | 89.16% | Gods, ancestors of humans, and founders of dynasties are born from eggs. |
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
15 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 15 traditions: Sara, incl. Ngambaye (Ngambaï), Mbaï, Yoruba; incl Ife), Nupe, Bini (Edo), Engenni, Chamba, Dakka, Kukuruku, Trans-New Guinea and unclassified Papuan groups of Irian Jaya: Mejprat, Arandai-Bintuni, Inanwatan-Berau, Papua of Gelvink (Cenderawasih) Bay, Kamoró, Marind Anim, Sawi, Mafore; Korowai; Kwerba; Momina, Eipo, Yale, Awyu, Ontong Java, Nukumanu, Takuu, Nukuria, Karen, Pa-O, Padaung, Kayah, Khmu (Kammu), Puoc, Mikir (Karbi), Indian literary tradition (Vedic, Brahman, Purana, Indian Buddhism, Hinduism, Ramayana, Mahabharata, Panchtantra, Jatakas); iconography of Hindu temples, Tuvinians of Tuva, Tuvans, Sauk (Sak, Mesquakie), Fox, Kickapoo, Yurok, Yupa (Yukpa), Yanomamo (Yanoama): Yanomam, Yanomami, Barasana, Taibano, Macuna, Yagua
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