| Motif | Name | Description |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| a5 | The Sun and the Moon are males | The Moon is male, the Sun is also male or (much more rare) asexual |
| b1f | Two brothers: a winner and a failure | Two brothers (companions) live In the epoch of the creation. One of them is smart and selfconfident, another is weak and makes mistakes. They are not enemies and demonstrate their qualities in two or more episodes |
| b26 | Man joins wild animals | Person who follows the wild animals turns into one of them or into their master |
| b36 | Creatures acquire their physical traits | Birds, fish, reptiles, mammals intentionally or by chance are smeared with colorful substances or divide among themselves parts of somebody's body thus acquiring their present characteristics |
| b53 | Creatures or objects from cut off genitals | Supernaturally big genitals are cut off and turn into snakes or other creatures and objects |
| 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 |
| b58 | Wild turkey’s red neck | After the original fire is stolen by the ancestors, a partridge size forest bird (Penelope sp.; Anhima cornuta; etc.; jacu, paujil) swallows burning coal and (besides the Andoque) its neck becomes red |
| b77 | Primeval sky close to earth | Originally the sky was close to the earth, then it has risen up |
| c4 | The flood: fruits fall from a tree | During the flood or in the beginning of times fruits, seeds or other objects are dropped into water one by one, usually by a person who has climbed a tree. As far as the objects fall, water recedes and the dry land appears |
| c4a | The flood: survival in a tree | During the flood some persons survive in a tree |
| d4a | Theft of fire | Fire is stolen from its original owner or brought back to the people from somebody who had stolen it before |
| d9 | Fire and vulture | Raven or other big dark-feathered bird scavenger is the owner, personification, spouse, obtainer or stealer of fire, daylight, or the Sun |
| e13a | Sacred knowledge from under the water | Sacred knowledge, objects and rituals are initially obtained from the denizens of the underwater world |
| e20 | Fish poison person | Entering water, certain person makes fish die. From parts of his body or from his grave grows plant used to prepare fish poison (timbo) |
| e8 | People of wood | The first people or (the first) woman (wife of a primeval ancestor) are made of wood |
| 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 |
| e9f | Parrot-wife | Man maries parrot- or parakeet-woman |
| e9g | Vulture-wife | Man marries vulture-woman |
| e9j | Monkey-wife | Man marries monkey-woman; supernatural woman takes form of a monkey or the man pretends that the house-keeper is a monkey |
| f13 | Red penis of primates | Human or monkey's genitals becomes red after being injured during copulation with the girl who had toothed vagina or had not any vagina |
| f16 | Men and women: exchange of anatomical characteristics | Initially men possessed women's biological traits and vice versa (beard, menses, breasts, bearing children) |
| 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) |
| f18b | Long penis after prohibited sex | After contact with a non-human or prohibited partner (close kin, animal, spirit) man's penis becomes so long that he had to carry it in a basket, etc. |
| f19 | Dangerous frog paramour | After copulation with a frog, man's penis is injured |
| f20 | A strong embrace | Man and woman embrace each other forever or for a long time |
| f21 | Woman turns into a tree, penis captured | Man copulates with a woman who turns into tree or rock, his penis is captured in it |
| 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 |
| f29 | Girl sits on the ground | A girl or young woman who is usually occupied with domestic work (is cooking, weaving, etc.) sits on the ground and copulates with a penis-like creature that crawls from below into her vagina |
| f30 | Snake paramour | A woman or a girl takes a snake, an eel (i.e. Pacific snake-eel), a lizard, or a worm for husband or paramour. People kill or badly injure him, the woman and/or her progeny or the woman herself is transformed into snake. Cf. motif k76b: the snake-husband becomes and remains a handsome man |
| f34 | Land animal paramour | Certain woman or a group of women takes for a paramour a big land animal. Husbands, brothers or (adoptive) children kill or maim paramour and (sometimes) the woman |
| f34b | The paramour is not a human being | A girl (a woman, a group of women) intentionally takes a penis-being, a snake, an eel, a lizard, a worm, a big water animal or water monster or a big terrestrial mammal for paramour. People kill or maim the paramour, the woman and/or her progeny or she is transformed herself into an animal. She is blamed for her behavior |
| f35 | Feeding with the paramour’s meat | Person feeds another with the meat of his or her sexual partner who cooks or eats it without knowing whose meat it is |
| f35a | Feeding with the kin’s meat | Person does not know that he or she eats or cooks the meat of the member of his or her household (blood relation, more rare a spouse or servant) or serves it to his or her friends, or uses her or his bones for everyday needs, or slowly kills him ort her |
| f38 | Women and sacred knowledge | Women were possessors of the sacred knowledge, sanctuaries or ritual objects which are now taboo for them or they made attempts to acquire such a knowledge or objects |
| f4 | Child born in jug | In the beginning of times, a particular person or children in general was or were conceived and grown up in pots, heaps of mud, etc. and not in a womb |
| f40a | Husband of the first women | An anthropomorphic male or an androgyne is the only possessor or leader of women |
| f43 | The women disappear | The women of the ancestral community kill or abandon the men |
| f43b | Women disappear under the ground | When women of the ancestral community abandon the men, they disappear in the opening that leads underground |
| f44 | Women and men separate | The women and the men of the primeval community quarrel and abandon each other |
| f47 | Pieces of flesh turn to people | A living creature or a lump of alive flesh is cut into pieces which are diepersed around. After some time every piece turns into human being |
| f47b | New people on the old place | To create the new people (new women) instead of those who were destructed, person puts down in every empty hut (hearth, hammock) something (feathers, pieces of flesh) from which new people (new women) emerge |
| 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) |
| f6 | Gouged our vagina | Woman has no vagina and it is later made by bird or animal |
| f7 | The underwater-maiden | Man takes or attempts to take a wife who is connected with the underwater world (fish, crab, snake, water animal and the like) |
| f9d | Scorpions in the genitals | Small creatures in female or male genitals are dangerous for the partner |
| g18 | Person wants to be sacrificed | A person asks people to abandon him or her in the forest, to burn or drag him or her around the future garden plot, to burn her in her house, etc. People fulfill the person's wish and find cultivated plants growing on the place |
| g20 | Woman turns into plants | Food crops emerge from remains of a woman or girl |
| 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) |
| 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 |
| h24 | Container opened too early | Container with valuables or with dangerous creatures is opened (before time). Its content goes out of control or disappear |
| h24f | Meat in a package | Person can magically put a lot of meat or fish into a small package or vessel which is easy to carry |
| h35 | Fragile teeth | Human teeth are made of material subject to easy damage (etiology of tooth ache in most cases) |
| h37 | Magic device lost by a failure | Magic object, device that makes hunting or fishing easy gets into possession of a person who is unable to operate it or abuses it. The device kills or injures the failure himself, other people and/or disappears |
| 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 |
| h8 | The failed test | People lose immortality because they do not dare to touch or drink something loathsome, poisonous, hot or otherwise dangerous |
| i29 | Animal’s hole leads to the underworld | Person follows an animala through its hole or digs a hole himself and gets into the lower world where the animals who dig holes live |
| i41 | Rainbow serpent | Rainbow is a reptile (usually a snake) or (more rare) a fish, or it is related to snake, to its tongue, breath, or to scorpion's tail |
| i63 | Milky Way is a path of tapir | Milky Way is a path of tapir, or tapir is seen in the Milky Way |
| i64 | Milky Way is a trace of animals | Milky Way is a trace of big animals who were walking or running along it |
| 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 |
| i85c1 | The rain stored in the sky | In the sky there is a special container (vessel, skin, box, etc.) for storing the rain |
| j1 | The vengeful heroes | Persons avenge the death of their father, mother or other relatives who are one (rare two) generations older than they |
| j10 | Insect’s bite | A woman loses her way after being bitter by insect (wasp, bee, ant). She accuses her unborn sons of being the cause of the bite and/or slaps herself on her abdomen to punish the sons or to kill the insect. As a consequence her sons are offended and do not show her the correct way anymore |
| j11 | Unborn child asks to pick up some flowers | A quarrel between a mother and her sons in her womb flares up after they ask her to pick up flowers or fruits (usually the insect bites her when she picks flowers up) |
| 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 |
| j15a | Woman gets to jaguars | Setting off (usually in search of her husband, boyfriend or kinsmen), woman gets to the place of dangerous felines |
| j25 | Babies escape and return | Heroes (usually one or two), being still babies or embryos, escape or are thrown away, often into the water. To bring them back into the human world, they are lured (persuaded) to come out or caught with difficulty |
| j28a | Truth about father | Hero asks how one of his parents died and receives a series of false answers. Usually he successively exposes himself to the same dangers, survives and thus demonstrates that truth is still concealed from him |
| j44 | The broken bridge | Person or his helper draws his enemies on the unstable bridge and destroys it. The enemies fall into water, into a precipice |
| j46 | Enemy drowns | Antagonist perishes falling into the water or trying to cross a water body |
| 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 |
| j50a | Sons embrace their mother | Mother dies when her sons embrace or push her |
| j56 | Father tests his sons | Twin heroes (or one boy) come to their divine father. He puts them under trials to get know if they are really his children and possess supernatural power |
| j58 | The arrow ladder | Persons shoot arrows (darts) which hit each other’s end forming a chain (rope, ladder). Persons climb by this chain to the sky or (rare) across an obstacle |
| j59 | Following arrow to get to the sky | To climb to the sky, person must first to shoot an arrow that reaches the sky and sticks to it |
| 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 |
| j9 | Unborn children talk from the womb | A woman is in search of her husband or other person or object. Her unborn children speak from her stomach and shows her the correct way |
| k12b | Husband of magic wife breaks her taboo | Getting to the world that is beyond the world of the human beings, a man marries there a woman. She gives him permission to visit his home but he must avoid particular words or deeds. He breaks the taboo triggering an (irretrievable) trouble |
| k2 | The destroyed ladder | Hero climbs up (e.g. to a tree) or down (e.g. into a deep cave) by ladder, rope, from branch to branch, etc. The rope etc. breaks or is intentionally destroyed and the hero cannot return to the ground. (All cases of motif K2A, besides the Koreans, also contain motif K2) |
| k25 | Magic wife | A man consciously marries a woman related to the non-human world |
| k25e | Magic wife is an ancestor | All humans, members of a particular ethnic or social group or a ruling dynasty are believed to descend from a mortal man and a woman of supernatural origin |
| 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 |
| k27h | To represent the head that is permanently concealed | The hero has to carve the representa-tion of the head of a person who never opens his face. Usually such a representation decorates the wooden bench |
| k27n | Difficult tasks of the in-laws | A man must fulfill difficult tasks (to win competition) to receive the permission for a marriage |
| k27n3b | Task-giver lives in the sky but is not the Sun, Moon, Thunder or Wind | Person who gives difficult tasks or tests to the hero or heroine lives in the sky but is not associated with the Sun, Moon, Thunder or Wind |
| 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 |
| k4 | The bird nester | Person climbs up a tree or rock or descends to a cave to get eggs or nestlings from the bird's nest. Another person remains on the ground. They get into conflict and/or the first person is unable to get back to the ground |
| k6 | Vine from body excretions | A vine grows from person's or animal's tears, mucus, urine, etc. |
| k60b | Invitation to coffin | Person is lured into a trap being invited to lie in a box or a hole to measure it. Being unable to liberate himself from the box etc., the person remains in power of his enemies |
| k7 | “Like pubis of your wife” | Hero compares something with pubis of another man's wife or sister. The insulted man maroons him in a tree or rock. |
| l12 | Vultures and incomplete body | Vultures bring to the sky a being who has lost part of its body members or is reduced to the head or skull |
| l18 | Multi-headed bird | A bird with two or more heads on top of one body is described in tales or represented in art |
| l19b | Beings with odd number of heads | Being (any besides birds) with more than ten heads or with odd (but more than one) number of heads are described in tales or represented in art. If beings with ever more number of heads are named, the row ends with a being that has odd (or more than ten) number of heads |
| l22 | The sound sleep | After breaking some taboo, coming across a strange object or person, people fall asleep. They do not feel when at night spirits come and injure or kill them |
| l24 | Monsters suffocated | Demons (or one of them) attack people and return to their den (usually a cave or tree hollow). People make suffocating fire around the den killing most or all of the demons |
| l27 | Girl eaten up | Two girls or young women meet a demon. One or both are not aware of danger. One is eaten up, another escapes |
| l31 | People stick to monster | People against their will must follow an object, a creature, or a person (usually stick to it) who/which leads or carries them far away, usually into the water or to the sky |
| l38 | Demon’s trap | A demon puts a trap to catch people, hero gets into it |
| l39 | Hero is compelled to descend from a tree | When a person climbs a tree, a demon comes to it and carries the person away, or the person follows the demon to his world by his own will |
| l39a | Demons from the underworld | A demon comes from the underworld and attacks a man who has climbed a tree |
| l40 | Reflection and shadow | Person discovers (rare:still fails to discover) another getting to see his or her shadow or reflection in water |
| l41 | Hero escapes on the way | An ogre or ogress catches a person and carries his or her prey home but the person escapes on the way or immediately after reaching the ogre's house |
| l42b | Credulous children of the ogre | An ogre's child or (rare) wife believes in what hero tells him (or her) and releases him. Usually the hero kills the child and puts its meat to cook in the very pot where the ogre planned to cook the hero |
| l43 | Dangerous persons eat filth | Persons who are dangerous for the hero (demons, robbers, merchants) take for something pleasant and edible those objects, creatures or matters (excrements, snakes, insects, etc.) that are disgusting (not edible) |
| l44a | Give me your liver | A man hides in a shelter. An ogre wants him to give certain parts of his body. The man gives the ogre instead parts of the body of a killed animal. The ogre does not understand the deceit, gives in response parts of his own body and dies |
| l48 | Demons devour their comrades | A man kills (usually in a tree, on a rock, at the edge of a well, of a precipice) and/or throws down one of his enemies. The other enemies do not recognize their comrade and think that their prey is falling down |
| l5c | Rolling head is a dangerous monster | Rolling head is a dangerous mobster (pursues celestial bodies, people etc.) |
| l5d | Head is thirsty | Rolling head suffers thirst |
| l6 | Demon clings to person | A demonic being demands that a person would carry it permanently, clings to his shoulder or back |
| l64 | Removable head | Person removes part of his or her body (head, scalp, lungs) and then puts it back |
| l68 | Two companions in the night | Person turns into monster at night when he remains alone with his companion in the wilderness |
| l7 | Chasing an animal by mistake | Instead of chasing a person, a bush spirit, a monster or a dangerous animal follows by mistake an object or animal that moves nearby |
| 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 |
| l7a | Sticking demon: first to person and then to animal | A demon who sticks to other creatures and refuses to get down sticks first to a person and then to an animal or first to an animal and then to a bird |
| l88 | Ogre returns to life | A man kills an ogre. When he later comes and touches the ogre's remains, the latter revives |
| m10 | A girl and a honey | A girl or a woman who was stuck in a tree-hollow when she tried to extract honey or who was greedily sucking honey otherwise, dies or turns into the honey or into the bee |
| m11 | The unclean food | Person feeds others a food that is extracted from his, hers or somebody else’ body or is polluted by body extractions not informing about the source of the food |
| m14a | Roasted alive | To revenge on his wife and her kinsfolk, a man roasts her alive |
| m16 | Ugly or sick one becomes healthy and handsome | A kinfolk (often his mother) or wife (bride) of a sick (ugly, old) man or boy do not care for him. He becomes healthy (and handsome), punishes and/or abandons those who were evil with him |
| m18 | Stolen arrows and hooks | Person transforms himself into an object of hunting or fishing, provokes hunters of fishermen to catch or shoot him and carries way the tools that they use (arrows, darts, harpoons, hooks, baits). Or he fishes by turning himself into a hook. Or he is caught but escapes turning back into a person |
| m21 | A protector hides fugitives | The protagonist pursued by an enemy comes across a person, an animal or an object to help him and receives help |
| 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 |
| m41 | The eye-juggler | Person plays throwing his eyes or (Alaska Athabascans) his tooth up or away. Eyes or tooth first come back to eye sockets or mouth but eventually are lost |
| m42 | Eyes: taken out of orbits and lost | Person loses his eyes because of his playfulness or negligence. He makes new eyes of some substance or/and takes eyes of another person |
| m44c | Thieves of food: a young hero | A boy or young man comes to steal food of a person who is elder than he. Usually he is caught but not punished and invited to live with the elder person |
| m5 | Provoked insult | Being in a situation when his life depends on a good will of a demon or animal, person either resists or does not resist the temptation to insult or to beat, bite, etc. the latter |
| m6 | Night with a partridge | A young man or girl spends night in the forest. The forest partridge (Tinamus sp.) provides him or her a fire, a shelter and/or a hammock but takes them away and flies away itself when the person does something wrong |
| 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) |
| m75 | Valuables taken off the vultures | Person attracts and catches the carrion-eaters (usually some birds) and thanks to this obtains valuables retrieves valuables (fire, woman, animals, etc.) |
| m83 | Who is older? | Somebody claims that he has been born before present world came into being. His opponent claims the same, and they argue who of them is the older |
| m9 | Stuck in a tree hollow | Person who puts her or his head or hand into a tree hollow or (rare) other hole is stuck fast in it or falls into the hollow and dies or undergoes a metamorphosis |
| m9a | Transformed into tree-frog | Person who sucks honey greedily from a tree hollow and/or is stuck in it turns into tree-frog |