The Mythology and Folklore Database
I38 - Dog-headed creatures.
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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
There are creatures that combine the characteristics of dogs and humans (usually people with dog faces or heads).Berezkin category: Supernatural objects, objects and creatures
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
I38 has 1 other sub-motifsI38. There are creatures that combine the characteristics of dogs and humans (usually people with dog faces or heads). I38a. The husbands of human women are dogs or dog-headed creatures. Click here if would you like to see a distrbution map combining all of I38's motifs? |
Top 10 Motifs with similar dispersal patterns
| Motif | Similarity | Motif Summary |
|---|---|---|
| M140 | 99.24% | The character pretends to be dead, sick or infirm, is picked up, and eats the food that others are carrying – usually after first throwing it out of the cart, sleigh, sack, etc. |
| M109 | 98.69% | A zoomorphic character sits down, lowering his tail (penis) so that something edible will stick to it, but as a result he is left without a tail (penis) or dies. Cf. motifs M109A, M109C. |
| M57A1 | 97.97% | When a beautiful woman walks on the ground, jewels appear under her feet, flowers bloom, etc. |
| M90A | 97.82% | The girl will marry the person who guessed her name, or someone who will fit the ring, or someone who says what material a particular object is made of or originated, etc. The deceiver fulfills the condition. |
| H46 | 97.80% | A character (usually God) is about to deprive people of their food (most often grain), but does not do so for the sake of the dog (and/or cat; rarely for the sake of birds). Either God gave the ear of corn to the dog, and the man took it for himself. |
| I121 | 97.76% | Constellations (usually Ursa Major and Ursa Minor) are considered as two similar, paired objects. (For Africa, Eurasia and Alaska – paired names; for most of America – semantic association, but the names are not paired). |
| H54 | 97.72% | In order for a character's eyes to be (wide) open, their eyelids (eyelashes, eyebrows) must be raised, propped up, spread apart (rarely: cut off). |
| N28A | 97.70% | The roots (belt) of mountains or stones are mentioned in myths, riddles, spells, and songs as something that does not really exist. |
| K47B | 97.56% | A woman marries a man who originally had the appearance of a dog. The birth of children from a dog is not essential to the plot. |
| A23B | 97.54% | Two characters argue about who will be the first to see the rising sun. The winner is the one who first notices not the sun itself, but its reflection or the trees and mountains illuminated by its first rays. |
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Map of Motif Dispersal
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This motif has been recorded in 31 traditions: Yemen, Algeria Arabs, Shilluk, Anuak, Fang (Pangwe), Eton, Bafia, Batanga, Benga, Bube (Bubi), Buheba, Yaunde (Ewondo), Yebekolo, Koko, Bulu, Beti (Beti-Bulu), Sekiani, Eghap, Kachin (Singpho), Chak, Early Chinese written sources, Germans: North (Low- and Central German dialects): Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg, Pommern, Niedersachsen (Lower Saxony, incl East Frisia and Oldenburg), Nordrhein-Westfalen, Hessen, Rheinland-Pfalz, Thüringen, Saxony-Anhalt, Sachsen, Brandenburg, Rügen, Hungarians, Greeks (modern), Balkarians, Bulgarians, Balkarians, Croatians, Croats; Italians of Dalmatia (if the motif is absent among other Italians), Romanians, Moldavians, Aromanians, Moldovans, Lithuanians, Latvians, Livonians, Western Sami, Western Ukrainians, 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), Iranian literary tradition (including Avesta, Pahlevi scripts, Sah-nameh, Marzban-nameh); Zoroastrians of Iran, Indian Parsees, Zoroastrianism, 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), Mansi, Forest Nenets, Southern Selkups, Gwich'in (Kuchin, Loucheux), Mackenzie Delta, Polar Inuit, East Greenland (Angmassalik, Kulusuk), Mundurucu, Curuaia, Arabs (literary tradition; incl. One Thousand and One Nights), Greenland