Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
K47C — The origin of dogs.
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 marriage of a woman and a dog gave rise to dogs â friends and helpers of humans.
Berezkin category: Adventures: Acts of heroes
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.
K47 has 3 other sub-motifs
RelatedK47a. A woman mates with a dog. Her children grow up to be humans and usually become the ancestors of certain ethnic groups.
K47b. A woman marries a man who originally had the appearance of a dog. The birth of children from a dog is not essential to the plot.
K47c. The marriage of a woman and a dog gave rise to dogs â friends and helpers of humans.
K47d. A girl gives herself to a dog because it fulfils the condition of marriage set by her or her father for her future husband. See motif K47A.
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| A22D | 100.00% | The burned character turns into a constellation or a dark spot on the Milky Way. |
| B114 | 100.00% | A woman or a man (usually old people) turn into anteaters (the origin of anteaters). |
| B24A | 100.00% | After a character surrounds a group of people with a circle of feathers or throws feathers into their dwellings, the people turn into wild pigs or peccaries. |
| B36B | 100.00% | Birds find their voices by pecking at a large reptile and smearing themselves with the fluids that flow out of its body. |
| C17 | 100.00% | The men of the community of the first ancestors destroy most of the people and/or themselves on a pyre or in a fire pit. |
| C2A | 100.00% | Two characters meet a woodpecker and receive an object from it, which causes the ground to catch fire upon contact. The stronger and smarter of the two characters escapes, while the weaker and stupider one is burned or burned to death. |
| C2B | 100.00% | The Sun and the Moon are caught in a fire. The strong and intelligent Sun escapes, while the weak and foolish Moon is burned or consumed, but the Sun revives it. |
| E28 | 100.00% | People shoot at the Moon, its blood spills onto the earth. |
| F43B | 100.00% | Leaving the men, the women of the community of the first ancestors hide in a hole underground. |
| F46A | 100.00% | Men (human-animals) discover a woman at the top of a tree and copulate with her there. |
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
3 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 3 traditions: Trio, Mundurucu, Curuaia, Mataco
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How to cite: Fielder-White, J. (2026). The Folklore Database. https://folkloredatabase.com
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