The Moon, unlike people, revives or rejuvenates every month; or those who live in the Moon are immortal; or the Moon makes decision if people should die forever or regularly revive
Water is the original element, the dry earth appears later
Original earth was small and later increased in size or the fertile soil grew from a small amount of original substance
In the beginning there are only air and water. 1) Person descends from the sky, creates the dry land or a hard support created for her or him grows into the earth. 2) The earth is sent or dropped from the sky, put on the surface of the water. 3) The earth is brought from somewhere (not from the underworld) and put on the water
Islands or continent are fished out of the ocean or pulled to their present place by rope
The first people or first anthropomorphic divine beings descend to earth from the sky.
For different reasons, sexual contact with a woman is deadly dangerous for a man
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
Woman has another toothed mouth (usually in vagina) or biting animals in vagina. Man inserts there a stone, bone, stick, etc. breaking or knocking out the teeth or extracting from there dangerous animals
Person asks another person of the opposite sex about destination or place of her or his genitals. Usually it is made after putting questions about function of other body parts; or person tries to use for sex different parts of the partner's body or tests them before reaching the best place where the genitals should be put
Different women are not similar physically because pieces of the first woman's flesh distributed between men were of unequal quality or because males who copulated with her had different nature
Cesarean operation upon a woman at childbirth as a custom
The first men and/or women have no genitals
Genitals exist by themselves as separate beings, they can be stuck to the human body, remove, etc.
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
To make some object (usually a canoe), person cuts a tree, goes away, returns, finds the tree intact. Usually another person who was restoring the tree by magic fells it down himself and makes a canoe for the hero
Coconut palm grows out of the human head
Person has a series of suggestions how to make the world easy for living and free of hard work and death. His companion successively rejects them. Their dialogue forever defines conditions of human life
Rat is responsible for introduction of permanent death
There are objects which remaining on the same place are moving permanently or periodically (meet and part. rise and fall down, shut and open, rotate)
The sky is constantly moving up and down in respect to earth
Giant serpent lies on the perimeter of the earth or supports the earth
Not being burned in a fire, person ascends to the sky or gets across a river on clouds of smoke
Person is marooned on an islet or on another side of a sea or wide river
A man maroons another because of jealousy or because he plans to take hold of his wife
By trick or by force, a rival or adversary kidnaps hero's wife or bride. The man gets her back
Women who possess supernatural power and usually come from a non-human world (from sky, from under the water, they are winged beings, bird- or animal-persons) take off their clothes (feather skins and the like) or part of it. Because a man hides the clothes (of one of them), their owner(s) have (has) to marry him or help him
Maternal uncle or father (or grandfather if he replaces father who is not mentioned) of the young man is his rival or enemy and tries to kill him
Hero is asked to climb into a hole or pit. When he does it, they fill it with soil or throw down a post, a stone, etc. The hero demonstrates his magic capacities coming back uninjured
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.
First one, then another man meets a powerful person or persons. The first man is worthy and rewarded with treasure, prestige or the like. The second man (or two men) follows him, behaves in a wrong way and is punished
Wife of a man or wives of a group of brothers envy his (their) sister and tries (try) to destroy her
The antagonists acquire person’s organ or body part (his remains) . Another person gets back what has been stolen and the first one revives (becomes strong again)
A man does not share food with his wife or kinsfolk. He or his food is transformed (turns into a bird, into worms, etc.) in punishment
Small animals ride a canoe, it sinks, all try to save their lives in their own way
Person turns into tiny object or creature. Touching or swallowing it, the woman conceives and gives birth to a baby-boy. The boy steals valuables or make love to the woman
Person turns into conifer-needle, a tiny particle, a small insect. Swallowing it by chance, the woman becomes pregnant and gives birth to a boy
Before finding a part of the body that is the best for some particular function, other parts are proven or enumerated
Many animals of one species that all look identical together fulfill the task that would be impossible for any of them if he were alone; the competitors believe that the task was fulfilled by only one animal. Usually a slow and a fast animals agree to race. The slow one puts other animals of his species at the finish or along the distance, each one answering the fast one that he is ahead of him. The fast one accepts his loss
Birds, animals or fish compete as about who is the fastest or can fly higher than others. A weak one imperceptible sticks to the body of the fastest or strongest and wins
Person is suggested to fulfill tasks that are mortally dangerous or cannot be fulfilled without supernatural helpers or capacities. The person fulfills the tasks and remains alive. A contest between persons has form of a competition or game in which the loser is deprived of his status or life
A powerful man kills every baby boy born by his wives or by his sister
Treasure, or the like, is thrown back to tempt pursuer to delay
A girl (rejects suitors for a long time but at last) falls in love with a handsome man who proves to be a demon or animal. Usually she eventually escapes from him
Person draws an object or creature and it becomes alive
A young man and a woman (Konkani: a young girl and a man) marry and later get to know that they commited incest
Husband notices imprints of finger-nails on his wife’s face and assembles all the men to recongize the culprit
One of costellations is a hunting or fishing net, trap, snare
There is a constellation identified with a bird that corresponds to several big constellations in European traditions (mostly Ecuatorial and not Circum-Popar).
When a member of a small (family) group secretly eats the food reserved for others, a serious conflict (often a murder) follows
Person is capable to preserve his limbs apart from his body and use them when needed
Being smart and witty, the crab overcomes strong adversaries
An animal (often the rat) who cannot swim well is brought to the shore by another one but pays him with ingratitude
A slow and a fast animals (or not flying bird) agree to race. The slow one imperceptibly sticks to the fast one’s body (or to a vehicle) and getting to the finish pretends to come there simultaneously with the fast one or before him
Two different fish (a fish and a whale, dolphin, squid, squid and dolphin, etc.) agree to have a race
Person who gives difficult tasks to the hero and/or person who demands the fulfillment of certain conditions from those who want to marry his daughter is a prominent figure in social hierarchy. He is a head of the socio-political unit of community or super-community level and is neither a member of the hero’s household nor a mythical being
A (young) man sets off to find or to return his bride or his wife
Beings (any besides birds) with even but not more than ten number of heads are described in tales or represented in art. Beings that with even number of heads named in a row with other multi-headed beings and the highest number is even or bigger than ten are not considered
It to point at the rainbow, pointing finger or entire arm will rot, wither or become crooked
A man consciously marries a woman related to the non-human world
On their way to the Beyond, souls of the dead must get between clashing rocks or other moving obstacles
Man marries a seal, dolphin or porpous who takes guise of a woman and lives with her in the human world
Planning to get or to return valuables, person turns into baby or in a small objects that has power to impregnate a woman. The picked up or the born baby steals the valuables and acquires his real guise (including cases according to which the girl herself is the desired valuable)
Woman is dangerous because biting or stinging animal or animals is (are) inside her genitals (and not only the head of such an animal)