| Motif | Name | Description |
| a12 | Eclipses: monster’s attack | Some creature or creatures regularly (sunrise and sunset, summer and winter, lunar phases) or irregularly (solar and lunar eclipses, eschatological events) attack the luminaries or shade their light |
| a12c | Eclipses: reptiles and fish | During an eclipse or at the sunset the Sun or the Moon are attacked by a reptile (a snake, a lizard, a dragon, a crocodile) or a fish |
| a24 | The first sunrise | In the beginning it is dark. When the Sun first appears on the sky, primeval beings or part of them perish or turn into animals, spirits, stones |
| a32 | Figure on lunar disc | A figure or an imprint of some being or object are seen in the Moon. (For statistical analysis motifs A32A – A32J are also included into A32) |
| a32d | Man in the Moon | Human being or imprint of human being is seen in the moon |
| a35 | Spots on the lunar disc | Dark spots on the lunar disc are dirt, blood, paint, traces of beating, burning, scratching, etc. on the Moon person's body or face (Kiliwa: spots on the Sun) and do not form any particular figure |
| b36a | Two creatures decorate each other | Two zoomorphic personages decorates each other or somebody decorates each of them |
| b37 | Creatures are made appear as they are now | Person decorates different birds (rare: fish), share fat between anomals. Since then, the corresponding species acquire present characteristics |
| b38 | The ruined painting | Person paints birds or animals or they paint each other. Some of them are not satisfied with the result |
| b38a | Two birds decorate each other | Two birds decorate each other, one becomes worse than it was before |
| b41 | The talking dog | Because the dog was spreading some information, altercated with its masters, was talking in a wrong time, etc. it lost the ability to speak |
| b42n | Orion is one person | Constellation of Orion or the Belt of Orion is identified with only one male person, usually with a warrior or hunter |
| b77 | Primeval sky close to earth | Originally the sky was close to the earth, then it has risen up |
| b82 | The white raven | Raven or other carrion-eating bird of dark color and a similar size was originally white |
| b86 | Babylonian tower | To reach the sky (the Sun, Moon, particular star), people build a ladder or tower that consists of separate modules (bricks, logs, sticks, etc.). This construction collapses |
| d12 | Food baked in the sun | First people or inhabitants of a distant country cook food in the sun; or fire owner lies that he or she cooks food in the sun |
| d4a | Theft of fire | Fire is stolen from its original owner or brought back to the people from somebody who had stolen it before |
| d4e1 | The dog and the fire | Dog obtains fire, daylight or the Sun or steals them |
| d5 | Woman as the owner of the fire | Female person is the owner or inventor (but not the personification) of the fire |
| d5a | Fire in woman’s genitals | First fire was hidden in genitals or anus of a woman |
| e5a | Mankind ascends from the underworld | The first people (or only the first men or the first women) are not created but come to earth from the underworld (from a cave) or from a small enclosure under the earth or on its surface (tree trunk, rock, gourd, etc.). Many people of both sexes and of different ages or people and different species of animals come out together |
| f15 | Person’s penis sticks out of the ground | Person sticks out of the ground his penis that looks like a plant (provoking a woman to sit on it) |
| f18a | The long penis | Penis is so long that he can turn it round his waist or send into a woman who is at a long distance from him. (Only texts considered to describe real events and beings and not anecdotes are included) |
| f18c | Girls at the opposite bank | Seeing a girl on the opposite bank of a river, person uses tricks to have sex with her: sends his long penis, transforms his penis into a bridge or a dam, dives and copulates with a girl from under the water |
| f27 | Girls and the water spirits | For girls and young women it is dangerous to come near water. Water creatures swallow them or drag away; a girl can die or become pregnant from a spirit; she can trigger a flood (rare: other cataclysm). Water spirits can come themselves to a girl who has her periods |
| f28b | Penis of wax | Certain woman masturbates with a penis made of wax, gourd, wood, radish, etc. Usually her husband or male relative smears it with chile; the woman is hurt or killed |
| f36 | Sons kill paramour | The (adoptive) children or grandchildren and not person's spouse or brother kill the paramour of their (step)mother or father |
| f40b | A man in a village of women | A man gets into the village of women. Usually he has to satisfy every woman against his will or every woman claims him for herself |
| f43c | Bat-husbands | Marriage partners of the primeval women, the amazons or a solitary woman are small animals (usually flying foxes) |
| f45 | The Amazons | There are (or were) women who live apart from men in their own village or villages |
| f56 | Watching vagina triggers incest | A man or boy thinks about incest when he gets to see his daughter(-in-law)'s, sister's, or mother(in-law)'s vagina |
| f80a | Genitals apart from the body | Genitals exist by themselves as separate beings, they can be stuck to the human body, remove, etc. |
| f9 | A dangerous woman | For different reasons, sexual contact with a woman is deadly dangerous for a man |
| f9c | Snake in vagina | Snake (Pacific snake-eel in Polynesia) is in vagina; around the woman's thighs; vagina is a mouth of a snake; a woman with toothed vagina is associated with a snake; a snake crawls out of woman's mouth to bite off the man’s penis during the copulation |
| f9e1 | Dangerous animal in vagina | Woman is dangerous because biting or stinging animal or animals is (are) inside her genitals (and not only the head of such an animal) |
| g15 | Plant maidens | In the other world or in the time of the ancestors food products or materials used by people looked as persons |
| g21 | Coconut palm from a human head | Coconut palm grows out of the human head |
| g8 | Restored tree | A deep notch in the tree (or in the sky support) is magically restored as soon as persons or creatures who cut or gnaw it stop working |
| g8c | Cutting tree to get valuables | (Animal-)people try to fell a tree that contains water and fish or has cultivated plants on its branches. The notch disappears and the tree becomes intact |
| g8f | Chips destroyed | A deep notch in the tree is magically restored when persons or creatures who cut it go away to take a rest. They get to fell the tree after they begin to burn the cut off chips or to carry them far way |
| h36h | The unhappy jump | Some beings, frog and toad among them, have to overcome an obstacle. This is realized not the way it was planned and as a consequence, people become mortal |
| h36hh | Death and the frog | Frog or toad is responsible for introduction of permanent death |
| h4 | The shed skin | Those who change their skin become young again |
| h4a | Process of rejuvenation is broken | People do not become young (usually do not shed their skin) anymore because certain person was bothered during rejuvenation or was not recognized by his family in his new guise |
| h5 | People and snakes | Reptiles or invertebrates possess the medicine of immortality; are contrasted with men as immortal with mortals and/or are responsible for originating of death; or a snake's bite inflicts the first death |
| i100b | The Pleiades are a group of people | The Pleiades are any people (of any ages and sex, combined data of i99-i100a) |
| i108 | The Pleiades are a person | The Pleiades are only one anthropomorphic being, not several persons |
| i115a | Orion and the Pleiades as a man and women | Orion and the Pleiades are opposed as a man or men and a woman or women. Orion is usually male |
| i119 | The dead shake the earth | The earthquakes are produced by the dead who are in the underworld or during the earthquakes the inhabitants of the lower world try to come out; try to understand are there still living beings on earth |
| i15 | No-mouth people | Anthropomorphic beings have no mouths |
| i16 | Body anomalies of the first people | First human beings have no mouth, anus or genitals, their women do not know how to give birth |
| i24 | A snake bridge | Snake, lizard or worm is a bridge or a rope over the river |
| i27 | Chthonic canine | A dog is the lord, guard or guide of/to the land of the dead; or dogs live on the way to the land of the dead |
| i30 | Master of the dead welcomes women | Master or mistress of the realm of the dead copulates with every new human soul of the opposite sex who arrives to his or her realm |
| i45b | Not to point at the rainbow | It to point at the rainbow, pointing finger or entire arm will rot, wither or become crooked |
| i74 | Stars are stones | Stars are shining stones, spangles, beads |
| i96 | Bloody rainbow | Rainbow is blood, associated with war and death |
| i99 | The Pleiades are boys or men | The Pleiades are a group of boys or men, or a group of different people but predominantly males |
| j15 | Woman gets to dangerous creatures | Walking in search of her husband, boyfriend, kinsmen, shelter woman or girl gets to the house of dangerous creatures where she is injured or killed |
| j23 | A late son kills monsters | People (elder brothers, elder siblings, elder sister) disappear (one by one). A lonely woman has a baby or finds a baby or she becomes pregnant magically and gives birth to a boy or twins. The boy grows up, exterminates the antagonists, usually revives and releases those who had disappeared |
| j23b | Spears put all along the path | To overcome a monster, the youth (twin boys) prepares spears and puts them all along the path from the monster’s den to his place. When the monster pursues him, the youth throws his spears one after another and ultimately kills the monster |
| j23d | Young twins kill monsters | People (elder brothers, elder siblings, elder sister) disappear (one by one). A lonely woman has baby twins (or more children) who grow up, exterminates the antagonists, usually revives and releases those who had disappeared |
| j64 | Person moves on clouds of smoke | Not being burned in a fire, person ascends to the sky or gets across a river on clouds of smoke |
| k10 | Fight with the monstrous bird | Monstrous bird (giant bat) predates on humans. Heroes fight with it |
| k102a2 | Conflict between mother and son | Mother tries to kill her son (children) because he interferes with her love affair
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| k10h | A bird feeds but does not release its prisoner | A giant bird carries a woman or a boy to its nest. It supplies them with food but does not release. The prisoner escapes |
| k26 | A hole in the firmament | Finding a hole in the ground or making it, person gets to see below another world. Usually the earth is seen from the sky |
| k32 | The false wife | An ugly, old, lazy, etc. woman or (in Chaco) a male trickster comes to man under disguise of his wife or bride who is driven out, confined to the underworld, killed, etc. |
| k60a | How strong are these bonds? | Person lets be firmly tied up when another one say that it's only a joke (e.g. a test to see can the first one break bonds) |
| l107 | The ear-sleepers | Anthropomorphic beings have huge ears (use them for blankets, umbrellas, etc.) |
| l110 | The devourer | A demonic being swallows a multitude of people and animals. When it is killed and cut open, the swallowed ones come out alive or are revived |
| l114 | The youngest one saves siblings from demon | A group of young people comes to a demon. The youngest brother of sister or a person whom others take for a sick, unpleasant, invalid one and who often accompanies the others against their wish saves them all |
| l135 | The Traveller | Male person leaves his home and gets to unfamiliar places. On his way, he comes across different strange creatures. After all, he returns home or leaves the earth for the other world. (Rather often a long string of episodes breaks off or the story lacks the beginning and does not explain why the hero is travelling) |
| l14 | Reared up serpent | A small creature (often a worm or a reptile) is brought home and reared up or it becomes to live by itself in an artificial body of water. When big, it goes out of human control or becomes something huge and/or dangerous. Cf. motif L13A (The reared up monster attacks people) |
| l46 | Head downward | Person ascends, descends, walks head downward or sees the world upside down |
| l9 | Sharp body members | Body members of a person has the form of cutting or piercing weapon |
| m30 | Trickster falls down | Person or creature who has no wings or is unable to fly on a long distance attempts to ascend to the sky or to fly far away but falls down or, deprived of his wings, remains in a place from which he is unable to return |
| m7 | Hero waiting to be picked up | Getting into the lower or upper world, to an island, a country at the horizon, etc. a man is unable to move further and waits for somebody who could bring him to his destination. Some animals, birds or celestial bodies pass by, the last one (often the Sun or the Moon) picks him up and brings to the place he is eager to go |
| m7a1 | Celestial bodies move above the hero | Person gets to a place from which he is unable to come out. Several (more than two) different celestial bodies rise and move near him or above him. He puts attention to them (and asks their help) |
| m93 | Body part as a guard | Before falling asleep, person tells his eyes (which he extracts and puts aside) or his anus to awake him in case of danger. Eyes or anus do not make an alarm or person himself does not react to it. As a result he suffers a damage |