The Mythology and Folklore Database
K65D - Incorrect marriage rites and the birth of spirits.
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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
The first human couple initially only have miscarriages, or their children are spirits or unpleasant and dangerous animals. After performing a formal marriage ceremony or repeating it according to new rules, the woman gives birth to real people or gods.Berezkin category: Adventures: Acts of heroes
This is of motif type Cosmology and etiology and is part group 5, Origin of human beings, ethnic groups, etiology of human anatomy, strange body configuration, ways of behavior, marriages before the establishment of the present norms
K65 has 10 other sub-motifsK65. Having been cast out, discarded, or born of the first ancestors, creatures of a certain category acquire individuality, transforming into spirits who are the masters of various loci. K65a. After being thrown from a height or expelled, various creatures end up in different locations, acquiring corresponding functions and names. K65b. Spirits (deities) or unpleasant animals (snakes, frogs, worms, etc.) are generated by the same first anthropomorphic pair or the same pair of first ancestors as humans (deities). K65c. A woman (rarely a man) hides some of her children (less often, all of them) or some of her domestic animals from God. According to God, the hidden children become either poor people or creatures of a non-human nature, and the hidden domestic animals become wild. K65c1. A woman gives birth to many children, but hides some of them from God. Those who are hidden become the progenitors of people of low social status, and those who are shown become the progenitors of people of high status. {The definition of plot 758 in Uther 2004 largely coincides with ours, but the references also include traditions in which children hidden from God become spirits rather than people of low status}. K65c2. A woman or female animal gives birth to several sons, including a human and a tiger. K65c3. A woman (alone or with her husband) hides some of her children from God because she is ashamed of having given birth to so many offspring. K65d. The first human couple initially only have miscarriages, or their children are spirits or unpleasant and dangerous animals. After performing a formal marriage ceremony or repeating it according to new rules, the woman gives birth to real people or gods. K65e. A woman is invited into the non-human world, where she delivers a child for one of the creatures (or serves as a nanny for a certain period of time, baptises the child). Then she returns to the human world. K65e1. A woman delivers a baby (baptises a child) for a creature that in the human world has the appearance of a toad or frog. K65f. Once in the locus of demons, a person sees them in their true form. Upon returning, the person sees the demon again, which ordinary people are incapable of doing. The demon blinds him. Click here if would you like to see a distrbution map combining all of K65's motifs? |
Top 10 Motifs with similar dispersal patterns
| Motif | Similarity | Motif Summary |
|---|---|---|
| M152E | 99.01% | A tiger (lion) and another animal compete to see whose roar is louder. The tiger roars louder, but ultimately loses. |
| M152D | 98.99% | The elephant and the tiger (lion) engage in combat (usually competing to see who can roar louder). The tiger wins and is about to eat the elephant, but a small animal saves it. |
| H34C | 98.93% | Rice flew (came) from the field to the house. |
| K27ZZ2 | 98.86% | Several wives of one man (several sisters) go blind – the older ones in both eyes, and the younger one in one eye. |
| I8H | 98.49% | The earth is supported by a man and a woman in the underworld. |
| K33A3 | 98.49% | A woman, turned into a turtle because of her rival's intrigues, tries to establish contact with her children or husband. |
| C8B | 98.37% | A brother and sister (or mother and son) find themselves alone, without marriage partners. Both of them (or only the brother, son) refuse to marry, but do so after accepting each other (or the brother accepts the sister, the son accepts the mother) as strangers. They give birth to new people. |
| A2 | 98.19% | There was a time when several, i.e. more than two, suns shone in the sky at the same time. |
| A8 | 98.02% | The sun, moon and stars – three brothers or three sisters. |
| B119 | 98.02% | A woman of non-human nature agrees to live with a man, but leaves him upon learning of his real or imagined infidelity. |
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Map of Motif Dispersal
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This motif has been recorded in 7 traditions: Ot Danum, Ngadju, Southern Taiwan: Rukai, Paiwan, Puyuma, Saaroa, Ketangalan, Ami, Mon, Punjabi, Seraiki (Multani), Kodiak, Japan