| 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) |
| 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) |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| b37 | Creatures are made appear as they are now | Person decorates different birds (rare: fish), share fat between anomals. Since then, the corresponding species acquire present characteristics |
| b48 | Predators become herbivorous | Weak or herbivorous animals were dangerous predators but have been transformed |
| 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 |
| b56 | Fire tongue of the crocodile | After the crocodile or caiman swallows or loses fire (that he possessed before), he remains without his tongue; or the crocodile's tongue is cut off to make something related to celestial fire (thunderbolt, sun beams, etc. |
| b77 | Primeval sky close to earth | Originally the sky was close to the earth, then it has risen up |
| 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 |
| c2a | Conflagration of the woodpecker | Two persons meet a woodpecker and as a consequence, the earth burns. The strong and smart person survives, the weak and stupid is burned |
| d4a | Theft of fire | Fire is stolen from its original owner or brought back to the people from somebody who had stolen it before |
| d6b | Burned person becomes a caiman | Badly burned person turns into caiman or crocodile |
| 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 |
| e32 | People born from trees | First people are born by trees or come out of a tree, flower, reed |
| 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 |
| e8 | People of wood | The first people or (the first) woman (wife of a primeval ancestor) are made of wood |
| 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) |
| f20 | A strong embrace | Man and woman embrace each other forever or for a long time |
| f28 | Primeval penis | The penis is a particular monstrous being with whom copulate the primeval women, the amazons, or a certain woman |
| f28a | Primeval penis grows from the ground | There is only one monstrous penis, a husband of primeval women or the amazons, which grows out of the ground or out of the water in a lake |
| f32 | Tree fruits for a woman | Baby child or children who come out of mother's womb and turn themselves into adult men or a snake who lives in her womb climb up a tree and help the woman to gather fruits, bark, edible fungi, etc. Usually the child who is a snake returns to his mother's womb and adult man turns back into a baby; or the girl's love affair with a snake is discovered when her father climbs a tree to gather fruits for her |
| f34a | The paramour of primeval women | Women of the primeval community or amazons have one non-human paramour for all or simultaneously copulate with animals of particular specie whom they summon using special sygnal |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| f44 | Women and men separate | The women and the men of the primeval community quarrel and abandon each other |
| f45 | The Amazons | There are (or were) women who live apart from men in their own village or villages |
| f50 | The often-born children | Child or children come out of mother's womb and return back |
| 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) |
| f86 | Conditional signal | 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) |
| g13 | People ate rotten wood | Before acquisition of cultivated plants people ate rotten or soft (Ceiba L., Ochroma Sw.) wood; some people eat rotten wood |
| g13c | Bad food of the pre-agricultural epoch | Before the cultivated plants or edible wild plants become known, people ate (decomposed) wood, bark, mud, stones, fungi |
| 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) |
| h11 | The call of God | 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 |
| h21 | Animals or fish kill a child | Person possesses game animals or fish. A boy or a girl knows this secret or is used as a luring device. Another person asks or forces the boy or girl to serve him the same way or the boy himself makes an attempt to hunt or fish. As a result, the boy or girl is killed or carried away by animals or fish |
| h4 | The shed skin | Those who change their skin become young again |
| h6a | People and plants | Mortal humans are contrasted with (almost) immortal trees that shed their bark, become green again after winter sleep or propagate by sprouts |
| h7g1 | Death is more fair and rich than God | Person (who is usually in search of the godgather for the newborn child) rejects God (saints) and devil but accepts Death who is more fair (or rich) |
| i108 | The Pleiades are a person | The Pleiades are only one anthropomorphic being, not several persons |
| 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 |
| 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) |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| i43a | The celestial monster | Giant reptilian monster (serpent, more rare fish, chain of fish) extends in the sky and/or supports the sky being associated with Milky Way or the rainbow |
| i43b | Milky Way is a serpent or fish | Milky Way is a reptile, fish, or chain of fish |
| i5a | Thunderous tapir | Tapir is associated with the upper world, usually with the thunder |
| i63 | Milky Way is a path of tapir | Milky Way is a path of tapir, or tapir is seen in the Milky Way |
| i82b | Venus is female | Morning and/or Evening Star is a female personage |
| i82c | Venus is the Moon’s wife | Venus or some other bright star seen near the eastern or western horizon is female and wife of the Moon |
| 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) |
| 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) |
| 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 |
| j15a | Woman gets to jaguars | Setting off (usually in search of her husband, boyfriend or kinsmen), woman gets to the place of dangerous felines |
| j37 | The antagonist is carried away by bird | A man turns into powerful bird or creates it. The bird carries away his enemy |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| j58c | Bridge of arrows | Transformation: chain of arrows to bridge |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| k18a | Infant takes father’s bow and arrows | When a small boy has to recognize his father among many men, he comes to him and takes father's bow and arrows |
| k1f | Conflict because of a woman | A man maroons another because of jealousy or because he plans to take hold of his wife |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| k6 | Vine from body excretions | A vine grows from person's or animal's tears, mucus, urine, etc. |
| 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) |
| l135 | The Traveller | Male person leaves his home and gets to unfamiliar places. On his way, he comes across different strange creatures. After all, he returns home or leaves the earth for the other world. (Rather often a long string of episodes breaks off or the story lacks the beginning and does not explain why the hero is travelling) |
| l18 | Multi-headed bird | A bird with two or more heads on top of one body is described in tales or represented in art |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| l34 | The burning hair | Person kills or injures his enemy putting fire on his or her straw costume, mask, headgear, hair or object on his or her back |
| 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 |
| l42 | Hero carried to ogre’s home | An ogre or ogress catches a person and brings him to his or her home where he or she plans to cook and eat him. The hero escapes |
| l5d | Head is thirsty | Rolling head suffers thirst |
| 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 |
| l72 | The obstacle flight | Running away from a dangerous being, person throws small objects behind him or her which turn into mighty obstacles on the way of the pursuer |
| 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 |
| m12 | The unlucky hunter | Not to return home empty-handed, a hunter or (rare) a fisherman cuts off a piece of flesh from his body (usually from his calf) or (more rare) extracts his blood or entrails. Usually he brings his flesh or blood to other people pretending that is a good game or fish; or a woman cuts off a piece of flesh from her calf to feed her husband |
| 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 |
| m18b | Getting fishing hook or harpoon | Person turns into a fish to steal fishing hook or harpoon or he turns into fishing hook to catch a fish |
| 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 |
| m29l | Trickster is an opossum | In episodes related to deception, absurd, obscene or anti-social behavior the protagonist is an opossum |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| m72 | Hand in animal’s anus | Person puts (for different reasons) his or her hand into the anus of a tapir or other herbivorous animals and is unable to extract it back. Animal starts to run and drags the person behind him for a long time |