The Mythology and Folklore Database
I37D - Mushrooms - excrement.
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Source Data from Berezkin's Analytics Catalogue, if using this data please acknowledge and link to it here:
Ю.Е. Березкин, Е.Н. Дувакин. Тематическая классификация и распределение фольклорно-мифологических мотивов по ареалам. Аналитический каталог.
Summary of Motif
Mushrooms are the excrement of a mythological character. See motif I37.Berezkin category: Supernatural objects, objects and creatures
This is of motif type Cosmology and etiology and is part group 7, Etiology of plants and animals and of their peculiar features, particular animals as protagonists of cosmological stories, metamorphoses, weather and calendar
I37 has 8 other sub-motifsI37. Mushrooms are mentioned in a mythological context. I37A. A mushroom is a substitute for a real object: 1) inferior, imaginary food (people ate mushrooms before the advent of hunting and agriculture; a character offers mushrooms instead of real food; real food appears as a result of the metamorphosis of mushrooms); 2) a preparation for creating or imitating a complete object (fish, birds, animals arise as a result of the metamorphosis of mushrooms; a copy of a lost or non-existent object is made from mushrooms); 3) characters of low status (lice, turtles) are engaged in mushroom picking; 4) the appearance of mushrooms is associated with a violation of the rules of interpersonal relations. See motif I37. I37B. Mushrooms are associated with the dead, the afterlife, evil spirits, and disease. See motif I37. I37C. Mushrooms have erotic associations. See motif I37. I37d. Mushrooms are the excrement of a mythological character. See motif I37. I37d1. St. Peter secretly eats bread, and when Christ asks him what he is doing, he chokes, spits out the crumbs, and they turn into mushrooms. I37e. Tree mushrooms cry out like people. I37f. Mushrooms are called "ears". I37g. A tree mushroom is a step, a platform; an object that helps or hinders movement; provides shelter or refuge. See motif I37. Click here if would you like to see a distrbution map combining all of I37's motifs? |
Top 10 Motifs with similar dispersal patterns
| Motif | Similarity | Motif Summary |
|---|---|---|
| F52 | 98.33% | The first ancestor bird puts pubic hair or part of a woman's genitals on its head; since then, birds of this species have had a crest. |
| J3 | 98.06% | A woman conceives a son or twins in a way that is incomprehensible to her; the reason is that when she sits on the ground, a male character (animal) creeps under the ground and fertilises her from below. |
| K11A1 | 97.75% | Pieces of flesh or feathers from a monstrous/unusual bird turn into present-day birds (or their plumage). |
| K11A | 97.11% | Plucked feathers of a (huge) bird turn into actual birds (or their plumage) or humans emerge from them. |
| J58B | 96.83% | With the help of a chain of arrows, the sky or the sun is pulled down or pushed up, or a hole is made in the sky. |
| D4F | 96.83% | Once in the fire, the beaver (in North America) or fish (in South America) scatters and/or carries the fire away from its original owners. See motif D4A. |
| K58A | 95.95% | The character brings water for irrigation or a fish river to the place where the girl agrees to meet him, and does not bring water if she refuses. (The parallel between the myths of Peru and Oregon was first noted in Lehmann-Nitsche 1935a; 1936). |
| M103 | 95.95% | One character asks another how her (his) children acquired valuable qualities (became beautiful, obedient, etc.). The other replies that children must be baked in ashes, kept in fire, burned, etc. The first character does so, and her or his children die or are maimed. |
| M12 | 95.71% | Unable, unwilling or unable to obtain game (fish), the hunter (fisherman) cuts flesh from his own body, removes his own entrails and collects his blood. He usually offers this to others under the guise of animal meat or fish. Alternatively, a woman cuts flesh from her own leg to feed her husband. |
| B28 | 95.64% | Travelling from one locality to another, the character successively transforms people into birds and animals, into stones, sanctuaries (or transforms monstrous animals into ordinary ones), establishes cultural norms, determines the biological characteristics of creatures, the appearance of the locality, etc. |
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Map of Motif Dispersal
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This motif has been recorded in 8 traditions: Batak (Toba, Dairi), Central Yupik, Kwakiutl (Kwakwaka'wakw), Kiowa, Sechelt (incl Sisiatl), Squamish, Halcomelem, Quinault, Mataco, Toba (incl Pilagá)