| 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 |
| a12a | Eclipses: a predator animal | During an eclipse or at other circumstances the Sun or the Moon are attacked by a predator animal (a bear, a feline, a canine, a racoon) |
| a12b | Eclipses: a frog or toad | During an eclipse or at the sunset the Sun or the Moon are attacked by a frog or toad |
| 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 |
| a17 | The Sun’s relax at the midday | After passing half of the its way across the sky (in the day time) or in the underworld (in the night time), the Sun stops to have a rest |
| a18 | The Sun boat | During the day and/or the night (in the underworld, beyond the horizon etc.) the Sun and/or the Moon regularly travel in a boat. |
| a3 | Male sun and female moon | The Moon is female or bisexual, the Sun is male |
| a31 | The incestuous Moon | As a result of some intimate contacts and/or love affair, the Moon acquires its present appearance (often, the stains on his face) and/or ascends to the sky |
| 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 |
| a32b | The Moon toad | Frog or toad are seen in the moon or the Moon is associated with them |
| 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 |
| a40 | The Sun or Moon marry toad | Frog or Toad is a wife of the Sun or Moon |
| a5 | The Sun and the Moon are males | The Moon is male, the Sun is also male or (much more rare) asexual |
| b29 | Eschatological feast | People turn into animals, birds or stones at a feast, after the feast, after performing a ritual or after a victory over dangerous enemy |
| b3a | Primeval waters | Water is the original element, the dry earth appears later |
| b3b | Earth grows big | Original earth was small and later increased in size or the fertile soil grew from a small amount of original substance |
| b54 | Chips turn into fish | Chips of wood, branches or pieces of bark thrown or fallen into the water turn into fish and/or aquatic animals |
| b55 | Leaves are fish | Fish grows on branches of a tree or leaves of a tree turn into fish |
| b9 | Water in the tree trunk | There is enormous amount of water inside a trunk of a tree or a tree turns into water |
| 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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| c13 | The objects’ revolt | During or before the world cataclysm (deluge, darkness) or (Suruí) in particular place at night, household objects and/or stones, trees, domestic animals turn into wild beasts and monsters |
| 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 |
| d4a | Theft of fire | Fire is stolen from its original owner or brought back to the people from somebody who had stolen it before |
| d6a | Fire and crocodile | Crocodile or cayman is an original or temporary owner of fire or lighting |
| d8 | Fire and a predator animal | Fire or summer is stolen from a big predator: a lion (in Africa), a tiger (in Asia), a bear (in Siberia and North America) or a jaguar (in South America) |
| e14 | Sacred knowledge from the dead | People obtain sacred knowledge, objects and rituals from ghosts |
| e5c | People from the sky | The first people or first anthropomorphic divine beings descend to earth from the sky. |
| e9 | The mysterious housekeeper | Person observes traces of some activity that takes place in his (rare: her) house in his (her) absence and then takes by surprise the responsible one |
| f1 | First woman is a transformed man | Woman, female supernatural or animal females are created by changing the sex of a man (or male animals) |
| f51 | The clandestine lover | Person who conceals his or her identity comes to his or her lover (at night). Next time, the lover puts a mark on the stranger's face, body or clothes doing this intentionally (to recognize him or her) or by chance (that leads to the identification) |
| g10 | The hanging tree | A tree which trunk is cut through do not fall because it is hold from above |
| g11 | Squirrel the woodcutter | A squirrel plays crucial role in felling the gigantic tree |
| g2 | The return of Persephone | Person who is the incarnation of fertility and life first disappears and then (reriodically) returns |
| 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) |
| g28 | The fish tree | Tree contains fish in its trunk |
| g5 | Food tree | Fruits and shoots of different cultivated plants grow on the branches of one tree (on one vine) or certain plant has a tree form that is alien to it in nature |
| 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) |
| 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 |
| h12 | The alive person comes to the land of the dead after somebody’s death | The alive person comes to the land of the dead to bring back somebody who has recently died (besides stories about shamans who journey to the other world to bring back the soul of a sick person) or, having no particular aim, goes there in company of somebody who had recently died or following his or her tracks |
| h16a | Rivers of blood | Rivers (lakes) of blood (also of puss, bones, sweat or water used for washing of corpses) are mentioned in narratives (in different context) |
| h28 | Plagues from the body of a person or creature | Killed and destroyed (often burned) person or creature (usually ogre, fierce animal, powerful shaman) turns into a multitude of biting insects or into other small molesting creatures |
| i14 | No-anus people | Person or creature has no anus opening |
| i14a | Eject digested food through the mouth | No-anus people eject digested food through the mouth or other orifice |
| 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 |
| i19 | People inhale the odor of food | Anthropomorphic beings satisfy their hunger cooking food and inhaling the odor |
| i2 | Lightning from eyes | Lightning emerges from eyes or mouth of the being who is thought to produce thunderstorms |
| 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 |
| i22f | Clashing trees | Person must go beyond relatively small objects (trees, logs, blades) which are incessantly clashing and parting, rising and falling |
| i28 | Animals in the underworld | Game animals live inside a mountain, in a cave or in the underworld where they often look like humans and have a master |
| i3 | Weapon of Thunder | The lightning (and thunder) is (produced with) an object (axe, sword, mirror, belt, stones, skin, etc.) in hands of anthropomorphic being |
| i33 | Tree of the dead | The ultimate aim of the afterlife journey is to reach certain tree |
| i42 | Rainbow is a pair of creatures | Rainbow is two creatures or persons, usually a male and a female |
| i45b | Not to point at the rainbow | It to point at the rainbow, pointing finger or entire arm will rot, wither or become crooked |
| i48 | Confined to the underworld | Certain person loses his or her freedom, is confined to a far away place (often, to the underworld) and acquires cosmic dimensions: supports the earth or the sky and/or his or her movements produce earthquakes or (rare) storms |
| i4a | Thunder in trouble: falls to earth | Thunder falls to earth, cannot return to the sky. Usually a human person helps him to do it |
| 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 |
| i82a | Venus is male | Morning and/or Evening Star is a male personage |
| i83 | The sky of birds | Birds, first of all vultures and eagles, live in the sky, usually at one or more layers of the upper world |
| i9 | Colors of the cardinal directions | Four cardinal directions and/or some objects associated with them are associated with different colors |
| j1 | The vengeful heroes | Persons avenge the death of their father, mother or other relatives who are one (rare two) generations older than they |
| j12 | Travelling girl walks across suitors | A girl (or two sisters) travel, usually in search of a proper marriage partner who lives far away or who has gone away. On her way or after reaching the place of destination the girl gets to some unpleasant suitors |
| 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 |
| j15b | Woman gets to a toad | Setting off (usually in search of her husband, boyfriend or kinsmen), woman gets to the place of female toad or frog |
| j26 | Babies come out of the water | Baby heroes, embryos or objects from which they emerge are found in a river or lake or come to people out of the water |
| j4a | Revenge for the death of the mother | A woman is murdered. Her son or children (rare: grandchildren, nephews) revenge for her death |
| j50 | An attempt to revive the victim | Twin heroes' parent dies or is killed, an attempt to revive him or her fails |
| j6 | Children of murdered woman grow up with her murderers | Pregnant woman is killed (and eaten up). Twins are cut off from her womb. They should be eaten too but survive, live (unrecognized) in the house of the antagonists and revenge on them |
| j60 | Two-fold impregnation | A woman is impregnated by two different males and gives birth to twin sons who have different fathers |
| k177 | The travelling heroine | A girl or young woman sets off to find or return her fience or her husband or she escapes from a fanger and ultimately marries happily |
| k19a | Star-wife | A man maries a star-woman |
| k22 | Dwarfs and cranes | Different from (common) people inhabitants of a distant land fight from time to time with non-human enemies who periodically attack them |
| k22b | Man helps inhabitants of other world | Inhabitants of a distant land who have different nature than (normal) human beings struggle from time to time with some non-human enemies. Man helps local dwellers because their enemies are not dangerous for the human beings |
| k22c | Birds are attacked | Inhabitants of a distant land who are birds (the bird-people) are afraid of birds or animals, which are not dangerous for humans and which usually attack them regularly |
| k23 | Battle with birds | Birds attack the inhabitants of a distant land or a man who had got to this land |
| k25 | Magic wife | A man consciously marries a woman related to the non-human world |
| k27 (motif is not in the correlation table) | Competitions and difficult tasks | 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 |
| k27n | Difficult tasks of the in-laws | A man must fulfill difficult tasks (to win competition) to receive the permission for a marriage |
| k27n3c | Task-giver is a zoomorphic being | Person who gives difficult tasks to the hero is associated with an animal, a bird or a fish |
| k28 | Father or uncle is rival and enemy | 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 |
| k29a | Surviving in a fire | Hero demonstrates his supernatural abilities remaining alive in a burning hot chamber, stove, bonfire, among burning vegetation |
| k44a | Frog pretends to be mother | An amphibian (frog, toad, rare newt) steals or finds a boy, lies him that she is his real mother |
| k45 | Sedna (fingers cut off) | A man rides away from a woman or girl in a boat (on raft, sledge). When she tries to snatch a border of the boat (raft, sledge), he cuts her fingers off |
| k45a | Fingers turn into water animals | A man rides away from a woman or girl in a boat (on raft). When she tries to snatch a border of the boat (raft), he cuts her fingers off. The fingers turn into water animals |
| k45b | Woman turns into water animal | A man and a woman of different generations (the father and the daughter, the son and the mother) get into conflict which results in the woman's transformation into the sea mammal. the sovereign of the sea mammals or into the frog (toad) |
| l17b | Two faces | Person or creature has another face (another mouth) on the back of his (her, its) head |
| 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 |
| l70 | Fruit falls and kills | Person or animal is killed or injured with a heavy object dropped from a tree (or rock, etc.). The person or the animal knows that the objects will fall but has falls ideas about its character and weight |
| l77 | Girl seen as a fruit eaten up | Person sees or smells people as delicious objects and devours them |
| m102 | Person lets his leg or head to be cut off | A bird stands with one leg tucked under it, putting its head under its wing; turtle draws its head and limbs under its shell. Person decides that the bird has one leg, no head, turtle has neither head nor limbs, asks to cut him his head and limbs off |
| m121 | Louse as a spy | Louse or other tiny creature (flee, tuck) is sent to spy on a person |
| m183 | A race: one against many | 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 |
| m29k | The turtle (tortoise, toad, frog) wins thanks to his smartness | Being smart and persistent, the turtle (toad, frog) overcomes strong adversaries |
| m29w | Jaguar (ocelote, puma) is a failure | Because of its stupidity and unsocial behavior, the jaguar (ocelote, puma) suffers a reverse, is injured or dies |
| m57a | Beads discharged from the body | Instead of common body discharges a man or a woman urinates, spits, etc. beads, flowers, gold and other valuables; valuables are produced by the very presence of particular person |
| m57a2 | Male person is the producer of valuables | Instead of common body discharges a a man urinates, spits, etc. beads, flowers, gold and other valuables; valuables are produced by the very presence of particular male person. See motif m57a |
| m73 | Exchanged excrements or vomits: who is stronger | Two (animal) persons compare their feces or vomits to know about the diet and habits of each other (who is the strongest). The weaker one gets to exchange the feces (vomits) |
| m73a | Exchanged excrements | Two (animal) persons compare their feces (with different purpose). One of them gets to exchange them |
| m8 | Breaking the obstacle | Non-human persons work hard to destroy a strong and durable obstacle that blocks access to some place or object |