The world was or will be (almost) burned when several suns had (will) appear(ed) simultaneously; or the only sun was too hot (or bright)
Other suns or moons besides present ones had been in the sky and were later annihilated
The Moon is male, the Sun is also male or (much more rare) asexual
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
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)
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.
After getting into the fire or boiling water, one or two persons ascend to the sky and turn into the Sun and/or Moon
After two persons burn up, one turns into the present Sun and another into a less important sky object
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
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
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
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
Sea, river, waters of flood flow out of a small receptacle
There is enormous amount of water inside a trunk of a tree or a tree turns into water
Person who follows the wild animals turns into one of them or into their master
The transformer walks along coming across different persons and creatures, transforming them into birds, animals, stones, shrines, etc. (or transforming monstrous animals into present day ones) and introducing cultural norms, landscape features, etc.
People turn into animals, birds or stones at a feast, after the feast, after performing a ritual or after a victory over dangerous enemy
Certain stars or constellations are interpreted as hunters, their dogs and game that the hunters pursue
In the cosmic hunt tale the game pursued by the hunters is a tapir
In the cosmic hunt tale either hunters or game is identified with the Pleiades
Fish grows on branches of a tree or leaves of a tree turn into fish
Two teenagers or young people are in search of each other, call each other (or one of them call another): a girl in search of her lost (or dead) brother or brother’s wife, a boy in search of his brother or sister, young parents in seach their child. One or both of them turn into birds with specific cry
Originally the sky was close to the earth, then it has risen up
Persons or animals dive or otherwise decend to the lower world to get a desired object and to bring it to earth (besides episodes in the fairytales, cf. motif k27x9)
The dry land (the earth) grows from a small amount of solid substance (sand, clay, dirt and the like) brought from the lower world (usually from the bottom of the ocean)
Monsters or ghosts try to invade our world. Powerful person or creature is on guard and prevents the invasion
Fire is personified as an (elder) woman, alone or with her husband, master of fire
Certain person is made of improper material and proves to be short-lived or unfit for fulfilling his functions
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
When a woman of the child-bearing age tries to come from one world to another (e.g. from sky to earth), the communication between the worlds is blocked or broken forever
To descend from the sky, ascend from the underworld or come out of the cave, people must pass through narrow hole. A person is stuck in the hole blocking forever communication between different parts of the universe
First people or people made by Creator's rival were imperfect, not completely anthropomorphic (often: had webbed fingers)
Child is born from a tumor or swelling on person's body (on thigh, knee, finger, etc.) or is temporarily placed there or child grows from blood that flew out from a cut
Man takes or attempts to take a wife who is connected with the underwater world (fish, crab, snake, water animal and the like)
For different reasons, sexual contact with a woman is deadly dangerous for a man
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)
Initially men possessed women's biological traits and vice versa (beard, menses, breasts, bearing children)
Woman is smeared with blood or red paint. Since then women menstruate
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
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
Certain woman or a group of women take for paramour a big water animal (caiman, otter, sea-lion, whale, anaconda; rare: water bird, crab), water spirit or monster. Husbands, brothers or (adoptive) children kill or maim paramour and/or (sometimes) the woman
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
Person feeds another with the meat of his or her sexual partner who cooks or eats it without knowing whose meat it is
The (adoptive) children or grandchildren and not person's spouse or brother kill the paramour of their (step)mother or father
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)
Person changes his or (rare) her guise to marry his or her close relative in descending or (rare) ascending line
A woman pretends to be a stranger to have sexual relations with her (grand)son, daughter or brother
Person summons with a certain signal a non-human being (usually his or her sexual partner or his or her protégé). Another person spies, uses the same signal or pronounces the same words and kills the being who comes to him (or uses this being sexually himself)
Initially women's genitals were fragrant or had no smell. Because of a bad chance they acquire unpleasant odor or do not acquire fragrant odor
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
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)
A tree which trunk is cut through do not fall because it is hold from above
A squirrel plays crucial role in felling the gigantic tree
Before acquisition of cultivated plants people ate rotten or soft (Ceiba L., Ochroma Sw.) wood; some people eat rotten wood
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
Person or creature is transformed. Separate parts of its (his, her) body give origin to different objects or creatures (only etiological narratives are considered)
Person urinates producing the first cultivated plants
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
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
Mortal humans are contrasted with (almost) immortal trees that shed their bark, become green again after winter sleep or propagate by sprouts
People become mortal because they do not hear or answer a call of a being who promises them immortality (or do not pronounce his name) or answer a call (pronouns the name) of a being who brings 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
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
The lightning (and thunder) is (produced with) an object (axe, sword, mirror, belt, stones, skin, etc.) in hands of anthropomorphic being
Tapir is associated with the upper world, usually with the thunder
Beings without mouth, anus, genitals, whose women do not know how to give birth live in the underworld, in the sky, or in a far-away land
Person visits people who have no anus or mouth. He or his sister marries or tries to marry a local dweller
Anthropomorphic beings satisfy their hunger cooking food and inhaling the odor
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
The earth or the sky are identified with a big quadruped mammal or are made of parts of its body
Anaconda or a water monster has live fish or animals inside; is father of the fish; all fish emerge from its body
Milky Way is a path of tapir, or tapir is seen in the Milky Way
Milky Way is the path over which souls travel to the beyond or a path of the funeral procession
Birds, first of all vultures and eagles, live in the sky, usually at one or more layers of the upper world
The Pleiades are a group of boys or men, or a group of different people but predominantly males
The Pleiades are any people (of any ages and sex, combined data of i99-i100a)
The Hyades are a jaw bone or a head of a big animal or anthropomorphic creature
Heroes avenge the murder or captivity of the male relatives: (grand)father, uncles, or the elder relatives in general, the loss of the males being the most traumatic
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
Setting off (usually in search of her husband, boyfriend or kinsmen), woman gets to the place of dangerous felines
Two halves of one animal or person which was cut in two turn into two animals of different species or into foreigners
Baby heroes, embryos or objects from which they emerge are found in a river or lake or come to people out of the water
Before the hero destroys the antagonists or escapes from them, he finds or receives the remains or possessions that belonged to the antagonists' victim
A man turns into powerful bird or creates it. The bird carries away his enemy
Hero comes across different creatures or persons who do not recognize him. Everyone tells that he is waiting for the Hero to kill him. The hero easily kills or transforms them himself
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
To climb to the sky, person must first to shoot an arrow that reaches the sky and sticks to it
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)
Hero climbs up a tree or rock to get eggs, nestlings, fruits, honey, etc. Another person makes the tree (rock) grow higher or thicker and the hero is unable to descend back
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
A vine grows from person's or animal's tears, mucus, urine, etc.
Person gets into the belly of water being or into the belly of giant creature which appearance and living place remain vague. He kills the monster from the inside and/or returns to earth by himself (i.e. not extracted by other people)
Person gets into the belly of ground animal or bird. He kills it from the inside and/or returns to earth by himself (i.e. not extracted by other people)
Person or animal gets into another being through its anus
A swallowed up person finds alive deer in the belly of the monster
By trick or by force, a rival or adversary kidnaps hero's wife or bride. The man gets her back
Person's leg (rare: both legs) is cut, torn, bitten off, injured. He (rare: she) ascends to the sky: to the Moon; turns into the Moon, Sun, star, constellation; blood from the injured leg makes the sky red
A caiman ferries a man across water body, bites his leg off. The maimed man is transformed into a constellation or into an animal
Hero substitutes powerful person's weapon or amulet with a fake
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
A man consciously marries a woman related to the non-human world
A were-jaguar kills most of the people but is killed itself thanks to a woman who remained alive
A demon takes appearance of a man and comes to his wife or (rare) to other woman. The woman (alone or with her child) runs away and/or kills the monster (herself or with somebody's help)
A demonic being demands that a person would carry it permanently, clings to his shoulder or back
A small creature is reared up by people. When it is grown up, it becomes harmful and dangerous
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)
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
After breaking some taboo, coming across a strange object or person, people fall asleep and awake blind
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
People adopt a demonic child, girl or woman but discover that this being kills people (in particular babies left in its charge) sucking out their brains or taking out their eyes
Person catches fish in a place where it ought not live, i.e. in a forest pond or in a tree hollow isolated from other water bodies. After eating he dies, is transformed and/or attacked by monsters
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
Person devours his or her own flesh or disembowels himself or herself
Caiman ferries a person or a group of brothers who later turn the Pleiades
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
Person discovers that somebody steals game or fish from his trap or devastates his garden. He or his guards catch the thieves who prove to be (the first) women or the thief is the water being whom the hero lets go after receiving a woman for ransom
A man marries a woman who is the incarnation of fire. She is offended or does not fit the man, their marriage is ruined
Persons who during a long time pursue an animal get to see ever fresher dung on a path and ultimately overtake their game (usually the dung every time answers how old it is); or the pursuers see gardens on which the sowing was had place ever more recently
After being engaged into a conflict or breaking a tabou, people are transformed into wild pigs or peccaries
The Moon (alone or together with the Sun) transforms the original abnormal world establishing present day norms and forms
Milky Way is a trace of big animals who were walking or running along it
Killing (injuring, offending) of some cruature (usually related to water) triggers deluge
The river bed follows the way of a snake, fish, dragon or crab; pieces of the snake’s body turn into rivers; a river is a snake
A (young) man sets off to find or to return his bride or his wife
A wife from the non-human world agrees to live with the mortal man but abandons him when he becomes unfaithful to her (when he visits his mortal wife)
Person attracts and catches the carrion-eaters (usually some birds) and thanks to this obtains valuables retrieves valuables (fire, woman, animals, etc.)
Mother tries to kill her son (children) because he interferes with her love affair
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
Woman is dangerous because biting or stinging animal or animals is (are) inside her genitals (and not only the head of such an animal)
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
Children (son, sons, son and daughter) of the murdered woman or man revenge on persons who have marital or close kin relations with the victom
Persons avenge the death of their father, mother or other relatives who are one (rare two) generations older than they
Person who lost his or her way comes across different creatures. When he or she comes to aguti (Dasyprocta), it becomes clear that the home is nearby