| Motif | Name | Description |
| a1 | The old sun | Another sun, usually less benevolent and/or powerful, existed before the present one |
| 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. |
| a27 | Crowns of the Sun and Moon | Light and/or heat of the Sun and/or Moon originate from their crowns, necklaces or clothes (of feathers, of animal teeth) |
| a30 | The Moon eats the dead | Moon descends to earth to eat children, corpses or bones of the dead |
| 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 |
| a8b | The Sun in the land of the dead | When the Sun descends below the horizon, it shines to the anthropomorphic denizens of the netherworld (the dead, dwarfs, etc.) |
| b100 | The acquisition of the sleep | Formerly or in a certain country the sleep was not known; certain person possesses sleep, is its incarnation or teaches to sleep; the sleep is a particular substance |
| b17 | Night in container | Darkness is a particular object that can be carried (usually brought from its original owner in a container) |
| 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 |
| b1g | The transformers: four brothers | Four travelling brothers transform the world, annihilating monsters, changig the habits and appearance of different creatures and acquiring valuables (water, fire, cultivated plants and the like). Usually one of them is the main actor, and they often have one name for all the four |
| 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 |
| b30b | Murdered person turns into game animals | Different game animals emerge from remains of a murdered person |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| b80 | Measuring of the world | The process of world creation includes the measuring of its size |
| b9 | Water in the tree trunk | There is enormous amount of water inside a trunk of a tree or a tree turns into water |
| b99 | Person turned into the nest of insects | Person (his/her head) who was abandoned in a tree or falls on a tree turns into a nest of insects |
| 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
|
| c10 | The flood: the wet tails | During the flood birds or animals escape to some place (mountain, tree, boat, sky). Tips of their tails or other body parts get covered with water or foam and acquire their present color and form |
| 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 |
| c19 | Acquisition of the sun | The Sun (the day light) that was absent, stolen or hidden appears (again) |
| 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 |
| c37 | World catastrophe and the sloth | A sloth produces the world catastrophe or saves people from it |
| c7 | The flood: breaking the dam | In the beginning of times or after the flood a dam of earth, person or creature does not let water to recede. The dam is broken or opened, waters withdraw |
| d11 | Food baked in armpits | Before fire became known, people prepared food using warmth of their bodies (usually putting food in their armpits); or a person keeps fire in his or her armpits |
| d13g | Meet seen on teeth | When person laughs, people see his or her monstrous mouth (many teeth, human meat on teeth). They kill the monster or escape from it |
| d13i1 | Showing his teeth, person betrays himself | Person’s (demonic) nature becomes clear when he or she laughs and shows his or her teeth |
| d4a | Theft of fire | Fire is stolen from its original owner or brought back to the people from somebody who had stolen it before |
| d5 | Woman as the owner of the fire | Female person is the owner or inventor (but not the personification) of the fire |
| d5a | Fire in woman’s genitals | First fire was hidden in genitals or anus of a woman |
| d6a | Fire and crocodile | Crocodile or cayman is an original or temporary owner of fire or lighting |
| d7 | Fire and toad | Frog or toad possesses the fire, steals it from original owner, tries to extinguish or to save it |
| e19 | Origin of drugs: person torn to pieces | Narcotic plants emerge from the body parts of a person who was torn to pieces by others |
| e22 | Swallowed person obtains knowledge | Getting into the body of certain being, person obtain knowledge of rituals, songs, ornaments, poison or drugs and then brings it to people |
| 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 |
| e5aa | People grew like a grass | The first people grew or crawled out of the earth like a grass, mushrooms, worms, etc. |
| f16 | Men and women: exchange of anatomical characteristics | Initially men possessed women's biological traits and vice versa (beard, menses, breasts, bearing children) |
| 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 |
| f26 | Origin of menses: sacred objects lost | The transition of sacred sound instruments (bull-roarers, big trumpets, etc.) from women to men is connected with beginning of menses among the women |
| 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 |
| f33 | Water creature paramour | 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 |
| 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 |
| f37 | Gourd vessel put on the surface of water | Person knocks the gourd vessel that floats above the water to call water monster or serpent. Usually a woman calls this way her monstrous paramour |
| 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 |
| f3a | The pregnant man | A man carries a child like a woman |
| 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) |
| 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) |
| f84 | Prolonged celibacy imitated | Person has sex with the wife of his host or brother. Trying to conceal his deed, he puts ashes or juice of a fruit on his glans that has to prove his long celibacy |
| 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 |
| g17 | Gift of a reptile | Serpent (snake-eel in Oceania) or alligator is the original possessor or the source of cultivated plants or wild staples |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| h16b | The basin of milk | A river (wave, lake, basin) of milk that exists on earth (and not among the stars) is mentioned in narratives (in different context) |
| h20 | Fish disperse in the world | All the fish or (rare) shellfish) was concentrated in one place. Certain person lets it lose or puts it into the rivers or sea |
| h20a | Mistress of fish loses it | A woman (a girl, several women) keeps all the fish for herself. Man comes and lets fish escape into rivers or sea. |
| h24 | Container opened too early | Container with valuables or with dangerous creatures is opened (before time). Its content goes out of control or disappear |
| h24b | Souls disappear from the opened container | Person receives a container with the soul of a dead person and has to open it not before he gets to particular place or after particular time interval. He opens it too early, the soul fly away |
| 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 |
| h39 | Snakes become dangerous (the spilled poison) | Certain creatures (snakes, insects) get access to special substance that proved to be out of control and become poisonous or immortal; creatures obtain their characteristics (usually becomes poisonous) after drinking or licking a particular medicine |
| h4 | The shed skin | Those who change their skin become young again |
| 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 |
| i122 | The Pleiades are bees | The Pleiades are a nest, a congestion of bees or wasps (or apiary, etc.) |
| i129 | Constellation of Heron | When constellation of Heron appears on the sky, the rain season begins |
| i14 | No-anus people | Person or creature has no anus opening |
| 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) |
| i22b | Birds fly to the outer world | Migratory birds (or shamans in guise of birds) fly from our world to the outer world through the narrow opening, between clashing rocks, under the edge of the sky which is rising and falling, etc. Many birds perish; and/or the person who lives at this place feeds on these birds; the person can be mistress of birds, lives on another side of the pulsating obstacle |
| i22f | Clashing trees | Person must go beyond relatively small objects (trees, logs, blades) which are incessantly clashing and parting, rising and falling |
| 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 |
| i24 | A snake bridge | Snake, lizard or worm is a bridge or a rope over the river |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| i54 | Water creature full of fish | Anaconda or a water monster has live fish or animals inside; is father of the fish; all fish emerge from its body |
| i62 | Milky Way is a river | Milky Way is a sky river, water body, chain of beings that swim |
| 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 |
| i81 | Waters rush down into the underworld | Waters of all rivers on earth run to the precipice where they rush down into the underworld |
| 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 |
| 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) |
| i8f | One support of the world | Only one pole or mountain supports the earth or the sky |
| 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 |
| j12a | Penis in a pot | A girl or two sisters get to old woman who suggests them to marry her son. It is a worm or alive penis preserved by its mother in a pot. The girl (the sister) rejects it, runs away |
| j12c | Meeting at a feast | A girl gets to see her bridegroom for the first time at a feast and then sets off to his place following instructions received from him |
| j12d | Imposter kills his rival | After a girl marries a valuable suitor, a rejected imposter or his relations kill him |
| 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 |
| j21 | Birth from eggs | Gods, first people or founders of the royal lineages are born from eggs |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| j30 | Parents’ remains | Before the hero destroys the antagonists or escapes from them, he finds or receives the remains or possessions that belonged to the antagonists' victim |
| j40 | Enemy from the sky | Beings who live in the sky descend to kill people. Usually such a being carries away to its world a person or many people (or person's cut off head or limb). The hero (usually a relation of the perished one) revenges on the dangerous being and/or brings back the victim or victims (his or her head, etc.) |
| j43 | Bait for antagonists | To kill his antagonists, hero lures them with an attractive object which is delicious to eat and is usually on the other side of a body of water or a canyon |
| 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 |
| j51 | One piece is missing | Person or animal is eaten up or destroyed otherwise. His bones are put together and he or it is revived. Because one bone was broken, swallowed or lost (or a drop of blood, a small piece of flesh lost), the person or animal cannot be revived or being revived misses some part of his or its body |
| j51b | One piece is missing: the revived Moon | The Moon is eaten or died and disintegrated. He is revived by a small piece (a bone) is missing. From this peculiarities of the Moon or of human anatomy |
| j55 | Unrecognized hero comes across enemies | 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 |
| 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 |
| j7 | The changed signs | A woman or a girl is in search of her husband (lover) or kinsmen or a man sets out on a journey to his bride. She (he) loses her (his) way because signs that should direct her or him to the right place had been changed |
| j8 | Feathers at the crossroad | A woman or a girl is in search of her husband or other person. Bird feathers at the cross-road or near the person's dwelling mark the correct or the wrong way |
| 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 |
| k10 | Fight with the monstrous bird | Monstrous bird (giant bat) predates on humans. Heroes fight with it |
| k11b | Reeds from bird’s bones | Bones of a giant bird turn into reeds or bamboo from which arrows or blowpipes are made |
| k15a | Substituted weapon | Hero substitutes powerful person's weapon or amulet with a fake |
| k16 | To get access to a girl in guise of a bird or an animal | Disguised as a bird, small animal or insect, a man penetrates into the place of a girl (into her father’s house) |
| k17 | The ornitomorphic suitor | An ornitomorphic hero impregnates a girl magically or imperceptibly for her |
| 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 |
| k19f | Stars help to work | Star person or persons descend to earth to work at the garden plot |
| k1f | Conflict because of a woman | A man maroons another because of jealousy or because he plans to take hold of his wife |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| k27o1 | Head used as ball | Severed human heads are compared with balls or used as balls |
| k29a | Surviving in a fire | Hero demonstrates his supernatural abilities remaining alive in a burning hot chamber, stove, bonfire, among burning vegetation |
| k3 | Tree or rock grows taller | 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 |
| k30 | Flying enemy abducts woman | Flying person or creature abducts a woman but is ultimately killed or the woman escapes from him |
| k30a | The chief’s wife and vultures | Wife of a chief abandons him with vultures (usually by her own will being untrue to her husband). The chief (Witoto: her own brother) brings her back |
| 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 |
| k55 | Chastity rewarded | A powerful supernatural wants to check if his guest made love with his wife or daughter. The person is impotent or (successfully pretends to be) chaste and is rewarded or at least gets no harm. Usually the same episodes repeats with another person who is dissolute or unable to control himself. This person is punished |
| k8a | Jonah: swallowed by monster | 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) |
| k8d | Jonah: swallowed by anthropomorphic being | Person (often an animal-person) gets into the belly of anthropomorphic being. He kills it from the inside and/or returns to earth by himself (i.e. not extracted by other people) |
| l105 | Invisible missile | Animal, fish or person wounded by hero runs or swims away, usually with the man's projectile in his or her body. Local doctors are not able to cure the wound (usually because they do not see the projectile). The hero or his companion comes to the place where the wounded one lives and cures him or her (usually extracting his projectile from the wound) |
| l11 | Turtle-bench | In a non-human world objects of everyday life have appearance of animals and monsters, mainly fish, amphibians and reptiles |
| l111 | Hook from the sky | The sky dwellers fish human beings who live on earth with a line and a hook |
| l13 | The reared up monster | A small creature is reared up by people. When it is grown up, it becomes harmful and dangerous |
| l15a | Vulnerable place on the body | The only vulnerable spot is near the surface of person’s or creature’s body and not in his inner organs |
| l15a1 | Achilles' heel | Vulnerable place on the body of a person or creature is on his or her foot (toe, heel, sole, ankle) |
| l22a | People become blind | After breaking some taboo, coming across a strange object or person, people fall asleep and awake blind |
| 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 |
| l25 | Demonic girl sucks brains | 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 |
| l26 | Massacre of the initiated boys | During the (first) initiation supernatural beings teach boys the rituals and kill them for breaking rules related to consumption and distribution of food |
| l28 | The snake-eater | Person who have eaten a prohibited meat or fish turns into monstrous snake or fish |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| m107 | Turtle bites penis off | A smaller animal kills or maims a big mammal (jaguar, tapir) biting his penis |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| m2 | Riding down a tree | A man descends from top of a tree or rock down a chain of animals or on the back of an animal who climbs or runs down the trunk |
| m29l | Trickster is an opossum | In episodes related to deception, absurd, obscene or anti-social behavior the protagonist is an opossum |
| m3 | Chain of animals | Person crosses a water or air space along the chain of many animals, birds or fish |
| m7 | Hero waiting to be picked up | Getting into the lower or upper world, to an island, a country at the horizon, etc. a man is unable to move further and waits for somebody who could bring him to his destination. Some animals, birds or celestial bodies pass by, the last one (often the Sun or the Moon) picks him up and brings to the place he is eager to go |
| 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.) |
| m7a | Left in the water | Birds or an animals takes (animal) person into their boat but acquire their animal guise and leave him in water (when he breaks a taboo) |
| m7a1 | Celestial bodies move above the hero | Person gets to a place from which he is unable to come out. Several (more than two) different celestial bodies rise and move near him or above him. He puts attention to them (and asks their help) |
| m8d | Birds break body covering | Birds work hard to peck through the substance that covers some beings' body or to reach its entrails |
| 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 |