The Mythology and Folklore Database
B21 - Destruction of the world tree.
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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
People climb trees to hunt, fish or gather honey. The tree is felled, people fall down and undergo a metamorphosis, or remain in the upper world.Berezkin category: The Origins of the Characteristics of the environment
This is of motif type Cosmology and etiology and is part group 3, Cosmogony, the earth and the sky, etiology of the elements, natural and biological phenomena (fire, water, soil, thunderstorms, dream, etc.), cataclysms and cosmic threats, spirits of nature
Top 10 Motifs with similar dispersal patterns
| Motif | Similarity | Motif Summary |
|---|---|---|
| B20 | 96.61% | People ascend to the sky to hunt, fish, or gather honey; they do not give honey, fish, or good meat to the person who remained below; that person makes sure that they remain in the sky forever. |
| A22D | 94.87% | The burned character turns into a constellation or a dark spot on the Milky Way. |
| B114 | 94.87% | A woman or a man (usually old people) turn into anteaters (the origin of anteaters). |
| B24A | 94.87% | 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 | 94.87% | Birds find their voices by pecking at a large reptile and smearing themselves with the fluids that flow out of its body. |
| C17 | 94.87% | 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 | 94.87% | 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 | 94.87% | 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 | 94.87% | People shoot at the Moon, its blood spills onto the earth. |
| F43B | 94.87% | Leaving the men, the women of the community of the first ancestors hide in a hole underground. |
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Map of Motif Dispersal
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This motif has been recorded in 8 traditions: Uduk, Minahasa (incl. Tondano, Tentemboan), Bantik, Batak (Toba, Dairi), Yanomamo (Yanoama): Yanomam, Yanomami, Cariri, Mocovi; Kechua of Santiago del Estero with probable Guaikuruan substratum; Abipon, Chamacoco (Ishir), Mataco