The Mythology and Folklore Database
L64 - Removable head.
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Motif Summary - Motifs with Simlar Dispersals - Map of Myth Distribution - List of Traditions - Myths |
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
A certain character removes, takes out a part of his body (head, scalp, lungs), takes it in his hands, puts it back.Berezkin category: Adventures: Monsters and evil spirits
This is of motif type Cosmology and etiology and is part group 8, Queer and monstrous beings, creatures, objects and loci, folk beliefs related to particular phenomena and objects
Top 10 Motifs with similar dispersal patterns
| Motif | Similarity | Motif Summary |
|---|---|---|
| K24 | 95.04% | Women (rarely men) possessing magical powers and usually coming from another world (from the sky, from under water, they are winged creatures, bird-people, animal-people; rarely: a girl of higher social status than the hero) take off their clothes (feather coverings, etc.) or part of them. The character hides the clothes (one of them), forcing him (rarely her) to fulfil his (rarely her) desire. |
| B79A | 94.47% | At the beginning of time, a bird flies, lays an egg or eggs, and various objects or creatures hatch from them. |
| I52 | 94.31% | The world rests on a fish or fish-like creature, or the earth itself is such a creature or originated from a fish. See motif I8B. |
| H43 | 94.20% | One character creates people's bodies, while another brings them to life. |
| I57 | 93.75% | Thunder's enemies are animals, reptiles, and spirits that live in burrows. They usually hide from him in various objects and items, and Thunder (a god, angel, etc.) strikes his enemies or these objects with lightning. |
| K76 | 93.62% | A boy who is born or found has a strange or ugly appearance (ball, nut, sack, half-human, dwarf, animal), but then demonstrates magical powers and turns out to be handsome (usually getting a bride of high status). The princess's magical spouse initially has a non-human or ugly appearance. |
| K27X3 | 93.45% | The ruler seeks to take possession of the wife or bride of a man of lower social status and, in order to get rid of him, gives him impossible tasks or secretly kills him. {Both ATU and some regional indexes (e.g., Cardigos 2006: 110) list texts that do not meet the definition of plot 465: the king's desire to take possession of the hero's wife is not explicitly stated as the reason why the king seeks to get rid of the hero}. |
| K73 | 93.24% | A young wife (promises to give birth and) gives birth to wonderful children (or one son). In the absence of her husband, attempts are made to kill the wife or her child (usually by slandering them to the husband), but they remain alive. (For medieval European variants, see Newell 1906). |
| K73A | 93.18% | Malicious women replace the newborn with an animal or an inanimate object (they tell the baby's father that his wife gave birth to an animal or an object). See motif K73. |
| K98 | 93.17% | An animal or (less commonly) a woman who gave birth to a hero or helped him turns into a house and property. |
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Map of Motif Dispersal
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This motif has been recorded in 31 traditions: Songhai, Akan, Ashanti, Akwapim; Ga (Accra), Kra, Twi (Chwi, Chi), Sepik-Ramu stock: Abelam, Yatmul, Aibom, Ayom (incl Tembregak, Asai-river pygmies), Tangu, Porapora (Ambakich), Rao and other groups of Middle Ramu and Upper Keram River tribes; Kwanga, Watam, Kaian, Gamei, Awar; Kire (Lower Ramu), Melanesians of southeastern New Guinea: Mekeo, Motu, Sinagoro, Koita (Koitapu), Mukawa (Are), Wagawaga, Taupota, Awaiama, Gelaria, Goodenough Bay, Bartle Bay, Wedau (Wamira village), Maria, Muria, and other South-Central Dravidians: Binjhwar, Bacop, Bhattra, Bom, Jhoria (=Jhodia), Gadaba (in Koraput, neighbors of Munda-speaking Gadaba), Duruwa (Parji), Mehtar; Pardhan, Miao (Hmong) and Yao of Southern China, Early Chinese written sources, Portuguese, Portugal, Lithuanians, Norwegians, Russians: Central part of ethnic territory as in A.D. 1500 (Tver, Yaroslavl, Moscow, Kostroma, Vladimir, Ivanovo, Nizhny Novgorod, Ryazan, Tula, Kaluga, Smolensk provinces; in case of absence in other areas also Russians in Vyatka, Perm, Kazan provinces), Uzbek, Ossetians, Crimean Tatars, Karaims, Uyghur, Hui (Dungan) of Xinjiang, Gansu, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Qinghai, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan (Dungan texts from Southern and Eastern China are clustered with the Chinese ones), Turkmen, Bashkirs, Mari (Cheremis), Udmurt, Komi (Zyrians and Permyaks), Mansi, Central Yakuts (Sakha), Nanai, Sauk (Sak, Mesquakie), Fox, Kickapoo, Cherokee, Lacandon, Choco: Embera, Nonama (Waunana), XVI century Dabaiba, pre-Columbian iconography of Sinu, Chacobo, Italians: Central (Toscana, Umbria, Marche, Lazio), Scythians, Scythe