Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
L93C — The monkey helper.
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 monkey, resorting to cunning, helps the hero or heroine, saves them.
Berezkin category: Adventures: Monsters and evil spirits
This is of motif type Cosmology and etiology and is part of group 9, Identification of protagonists of the stories with particular animals or persons with particular qualities.
L93 has 4 other sub-motifs
RelatedL93. A demon, a man-eater, chops down a tree or a rock on top of which the hero is hiding. While he is resting, the animal throws his axe into the water, carries it away or damages it. See motif L92.
L93a. The fox, jackal or coyote, resorting to cunning, helps the hero, heroine or people in general, saving them.
L93b. The hare or rabbit, resorting to cunning, helps the hero or heroine, saving them.
L93c. The monkey, resorting to cunning, helps the hero or heroine, saves them.
l93d. The hedgehog, resorting to cunning, helps the hero and saves him.
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| M29O | 94.63% | See the motives in square brackets. |
| B77B | 94.48% | The sky moved away and/or the connection between people and the deity ceased after the sky or the heavenly deity was touched or struck with a long object (a pestle, a broom, etc.) during work. Cf. motifs B77b1 and B77b2. |
| M110 | 93.98% | Upon learning that it is being transported by water to be eaten, the land animal explains to the transporter that it has forgotten on the shore the organ without which the meat is not tasty, which must be used as medicine, etc. The transporter agrees to return for this organ, and the animal runs away. |
| L44B | 93.98% | The blind and deaf (lame) began to live together, helping each other. After being mortally frightened or fighting, both (less often, one of them) got rid of their disabilities. |
| M151 | 93.31% | A dangerous character pretends to be dead or absent, or pretends to be an inanimate object. The potential victim says aloud that the deceased (object or place – house, burrow, log, etc.) should do or say something. The character does so, revealing himself. |
| H34G | 92.73% | One grain was enough to prepare a meal. |
| A41 | 92.71% | Two characters have children (brothers and sisters, mothers). One suggests killing these children (mothers), giving reasons in favour of such a decision. In fact, he hides his own children, while his interlocutor actually kills his children. One of the characters and/or the surviving child is the sun. |
| I97 | 92.59% | Rainbow – hoofed animal (horse, bull, goat, sheep). |
| E5B | 91.05% | The first human (a group of brothers) or the first human couple emerge from underground (from a cave) or from a small object on the surface (a mound, a reed, a tree, a stone, a pumpkin). Cf. motif E5A: people from the underworld. |
| F40B | 91.02% | A single man finds himself in a village of women. Usually, he is forced to satisfy a woman against his will, or each woman demands to have sex with him. |
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: Nuba, Dinka, Atuot, Nuer, Oromo (Galla), Konso, Sidamo, Darasa, Bussa (Bassa), Kambata, Guji, Yoruba; incl Ife), Nupe, Bini (Edo), Engenni, Chamba, Dakka, Kukuruku, Minahasa (incl. Tondano, Tentemboan), Bantik, Central islands and Bikol: Vizaya, Mansaká, Bikol, Mangyan, Panayan, Sulod, Cebuano (Cebu), Capiz, Romblomanon, Manuyu, Sinhalese; Vedda, Kirati (Kiranti): Rai (incl Thulung), Limbu, Newar, Uzbek, Dogrib, Slavey, Aztec; Aztec and Teotihuacan iconography, Bhutan, Tunisia
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