| Motif | Name | Description |
| a1 | The old sun | Another sun, usually less benevolent and/or powerful, existed before the present one |
| a14 | Eclipses: relations between the Sun and the Moon | Coming together of the Sun and the Moon is the reason of their eclipses |
| a14a | The conflict between the Sun and the Moon | The Sun and the Moon are or were enemies, either permanently or in particular situations |
| a16 | Dangers along the Sun’s way | Every night the Sun passes by creatures or objects which try to destroy them |
| a22 | To the sky from a bonfire | After getting into the fire or boiling water, one or two persons ascend to the sky and turn into the Sun and/or Moon |
| a22a | The hot Sun and its cold companion | After two persons burn up, one turns into the present Sun and another into a less important sky object |
| a22b | Hot fire and cold ashes | Person who becomes the Sun burned up in a hot fire while his companion burned up in the less hot fire or threw himself into the ashes. He (she) turns into the Moon or a star which gives no warmth |
| a22c | Person sacrificed to the Sun | To make the Sun rise above the horizon, to send him to the right distance from the earth, to make him move across the sky, etc. a person has to be sacrificed |
| a23 | Elections of the Sun to be | The primeval ancestors come together to choose the best candidate to become the Sun and/or to send the Sun to the sky or to see how the Sun rises to the sky for the first time |
| 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 |
| a3 | Male sun and female moon | The Moon is female or bisexual, the Sun is male |
| 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) |
| a32a | The Moon rabbit | Rabbit or hare are seen in the moon |
| a5 | The Sun and the Moon are males | The Moon is male, the Sun is also male or (much more rare) asexual |
| b23 | Prohibited fire and smoke | God prohibits making fire for cooking and punishes breakers of this taboo |
| b2a | The female earth | The earth is a female person (alone or together with a male person); she is female being or associated with a woman |
| b2b | The earth eats the dead | The earth devours bodies of the people when they die and are buried |
| b2e | The male earth | The earth or the world as a whole is a male person (alone or together with a female person) |
| b40 | Rabbit as deer’s proxy | Hare or rabbit is a false deer or it was deer in the past or a close kin of the deer or had horns or antlers or missed opportunity to get them, its ears are the false horns |
| b43 | Purusha | Parts of the body of the primeval person or creature are transformed into different elements of the landscape and parts of the universe |
| b77 | Primeval sky close to earth | Originally the sky was close to the earth, then it has risen up |
| b77a | Giant pushed the sky up | One or several (animal)-persons push sky up to its present height |
| 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 |
| c1 | The collapse of the sky | Catastropic displacement of layers of the univers in the past or in the future is mentioned. Among variants (sometimes combined):
the sky fell on the earth; the earth (the underworld) and the sky interchanged their positions; the earth turned upside down; the layers of the universe collapsed in one after another; they will change their place during the future cataclysm
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| c14 | Monsters destroy people | During or before the world catastrophe (deluge, darkness) wild beasts and monsters attack and destroy people |
| c2 | Deluge and conflagration combined | Inhabitans of the Middle World are (partly) destroyed (or will be destoyed) once by fire or draught, another time by a flood or the world is destroyed with a flood of fire or boiling water |
| d1b | Male spirit of fire | The fire is personified as an elder man (alone or with his wife, mistress of fire) |
| d5 | Woman as the owner of the fire | Female person is the owner or inventor (but not the personification) of the fire |
| e17 | Origin of design | Humans acquire (the idea of) ornamentation of the vessels, baskets, body, etc. or the idea of the system of signs after somebody gets to see the pattern on the body of zoomorphic and/or supernatural creature |
| e3 | New people from bones | After destruction of previous world, new people (rare: new earth) are made from the bones of the perished race |
| 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 |
| e5b | First couple from the underworld | First man (a group of brothers) or first human couple come out from the underworld (a cave) or from a small enclosure on its surface (tussock, reed, tree, rock, gourd) |
| f17 | Misplaced genitalia | Originally, humans had (had to have; can have under some special confition) their genitals not on the place where they are now; the genitals were absent, or people did not know know their function and used for copulation other parts of the body |
| f9 | A dangerous woman | For different reasons, sexual contact with a woman is deadly dangerous for a man |
| f9a | Vagina dentata | There are teeth, blades or sharp stones in woman’s genitals, vagina is the biting mouth. (Only texts that are believed to correspond to reality are considered but not anecdotes and jokes) |
| 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) |
| g16 | Ants find cultivated plants | Ants are the first who find cultivated plants (corn or manioc) which are concealed from the others in particular place |
| g23 | Alive being turns into many objects | Person or creature is transformed. Separate parts of its (his, her) body give origin to different objects or creatures (only etiological narratives are considered) |
| g23a | Alive being turns into plants | Person or creature is transformed. Separate parts of its (his, her) body give origin to different plants, mostly edible or cultivated |
| g3 | A rock of crops | Cultivated plants or fertile soil to plant them are hidden inside a rock. Birds or Thunders get them destroying the rock |
| g4 | A food mountain | Cultivated plants are found above or inside a mountain |
| g6 | Primeval tree | One of the trees is the principal, original one (emerged before all the other; ancestor of wild or cultivated plants; ocean or rivers inside it; world axis; higher than all the others; overshadows sky) |
| h13 | Dead person is returned and revives | Person comes to the land of the dead and brings back somebody who has recently died or brings his remains. The dead one becomes alive and lives normal life (for some time) |
| h24e | To choose life or death | People are suggested to choose one of two objects, associated with life and death. They choose the object with death |
| h34g | One grain porridge | One cereal grain (cob, etc.) is enough to prepare a meal |
| i11 | Cosmic turtle or toad | A turtle, toad, or frog supports the earth (sky) or is its embodiment |
| i111 | The earth is a reptile | The earth is the body of a crocodile or a dragon |
| i12 | The world axis | A tree or post pierces and unites different layers of the universe |
| i13a | The horned serpent | Giant water-chthonic or sky serpent or dragon has horns or antlers on its head |
| i13b | A horned snake | Snake of natural size has horns on its head |
| i14 | No-anus people | Person or creature has no anus opening |
| 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 |
| i22 | Objects in permanent movement | 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) |
| i22e | Objects in permanent move on the way of the dead | On their way to the Beyond, souls of the dead must get between clashing rocks or other moving obstacles |
| i22g | Clapping rocks | There are mountains or rocks which permanently collide and separate again from each other or a crack (jaws) in a vertical cliff which is opening and closing |
| 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 |
| i27b | Dog as a ferryman | A dog ferries person across a river that forms a border between the worlds |
| i32 | Tree of the babies | There is (or was) a tree on which souls of still unborn babies grow, which leaves transform into people, or which trunk is covered with female breasts or flowers that innumerable babies are sucking |
| i62 | Milky Way is a river | Milky Way is a sky river, water body, chain of beings that swim |
| i7 | The cloud serpent | A flying reptile produces rain, thunderstorm |
| i72 | Stars are people | Stars are people, ghosts, anthropomorphic beings (interpretations of unique star objects like Venus or Polaris as persons not considered) |
| i75 | World ages | Before present world, several (two or more) other worlds or races of people existed |
| i77 | The lame thunder | Powerful person connected with thunder and rain is lame (usually after falling down from the sky) |
| i82a | Venus is male | Morning and/or Evening Star is a male personage |
| i8e | Four men at the cardinal points | Four (or eight) anthropomorphic male persons support the earth or the sky or are placed at the four cardinal points |
| i8e1 | Four supports of the world | The sky or the earth rests upon four or five (cardinal points and the center) supports of any kind (poles, mountains, giants) |
| i9 | Colors of the cardinal directions | Four cardinal directions and/or some objects associated with them are associated with different colors |
| l18 | Multi-headed bird | A bird with two or more heads on top of one body is described in tales or represented in art |
| l19a | Beings with even number of heads | 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 |
| l46 | Head downward | Person ascends, descends, walks head downward or sees the world upside down |
| l74 | The returned hand | A bear or other dangerous being tears off and carries away a hand of a person and holds it at his sleeping place. Another person steals the hand, gives it back to the owner |
| l78 | Toad-jaguar | Mixed traits of toad and jaguar in iconography; a toad or frog transforms into a jaguar; a toad or frog is a jaguar's mother or wife |
| m47 | Head put to bottoms | Punishing a person or animal or restoring his or its body after its disintegration, a powerful being intentionally or by chance puts head to bottoms |
| m57b | Sweat of the Sun and tears of the Moon | Beads or metals are discharged by bodies of deities |
| m8 | Breaking the obstacle | Non-human persons work hard to destroy a strong and durable obstacle that blocks access to some place or object |