Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
I109 — The Milky Way – the road of the heavenly bodies.
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 Milky Way – the road along which the Sun and Moon travel.
Berezkin category: Supernatural objects, objects and creatures
This is of motif type Cosmology and etiology and is part of group 2, Moon spots, stars, constellations.
I10 has 1 other sub-motifs
RelatedI10a. Individual layers or categories of the sky or clouds differ in colour.
I10b. Individual layers or categories of earth differ in colour (and other characteristics).
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| I36 | 87.92% | Thunder and lightning (two thunders, two lightnings) – characters related by kinship, marriage or property. |
| K25A6 | 87.04% | A woman from another world agrees to live with a man in his earthly world, but leaves him when she learns that he has broken a taboo (often his infidelity). Cf. motif F94 (the hero betrays his magical wife in her world); motif K12B (the hero visits his world alone, contrary to the warning of his magical wife). |
| K8C | 86.95% | The character enters the belly of an ordinary land animal, kills it from within (K952) and/or returns to the outside without outside help. Cf. motif M118. |
| M28 | 85.56% | When able to take off, the character takes off but falls or stays in a remote place from where he can no longer take off. |
| M30 | 85.26% | character who has no natural wings or can't fly long distances rises into the air, but falls or, having lost its wings, stays where he can't return from. (The motive includes several options, but even when taken together, they don't cover the whole world. Texts with M25 and M28 motifs are counted as including the M30 motif). |
| E1B | 84.09% | A character made of unsuitable material and turns out to be short-lived or poorly suited to performing his functions. |
| J23 | 82.35% | People in general or older brothers (siblings, older sister) disappear one after another. A woman raises a boy or twins from infancy. Sometimes, left alone, she miraculously conceives a son or finds a baby. He defeats the antagonists, usually reviving or freeing the missing ones. |
| C25C | 82.30% | A change in the configuration of a certain constellation (usually the Big Dipper) or its disappearance from the sky will signal a global catastrophe. |
| J46 | 81.81% | Antagonists perish by falling into water or attempting to cross a water barrier. See motifs J42, J44. |
| M30B | 81.73% | Birds give a non-flying or ugly character feathers so that he can fly or become beautiful, but then take them away. |
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: Lunda (Alunda), Congo (Koongo, Bacongo; incl Vili, Fioti, (Ma)Yombe, MuKunyi), Ndombo, Luango (Loango), Zombo (Sambo), Laadi (Laari), (Ba)Fioti, Woyo (Kiwoyo), Ronga, Jicarilla, Yupa (Yukpa)
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