| Motif | Name | Description |
| a4 | Female sun | The Sun is female, the Moon is male or (more rare) also female |
| a6 | The Sun and the Moon are females | Both the Sun and the Moon are considered to be females (incl. cases when the gender is not directly specified but both emerge from parts of the body of a female person) |
| b15 | River from woman’s body | A river flows from the body of a female 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 |
| 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 |
| c1 | The collapse of the sky | Catastropic displacement of layers of the univers in the past or in the future is mentioned. Among variants (sometimes combined):
the sky fell on the earth; the earth (the underworld) and the sky interchanged their positions; the earth turned upside down; the layers of the universe collapsed in one after another; they will change their place during the future cataclysm
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| d12 | Food baked in the sun | First people or inhabitants of a distant country cook food in the sun; or fire owner lies that he or she cooks food in the sun |
| d4a | Theft of fire | Fire is stolen from its original owner or brought back to the people from somebody who had stolen it before |
| d4p | Parrot or parakeet obtains fire | Parrot or parakeet steals fire for people. (Australian data not computed because historically definitely unrelated to the Tropical American data) |
| d5 | Woman as the owner of the fire | Female person is the owner or inventor (but not the personification) of the fire |
| 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 |
| e9h | Dove-wife | A man marries dove-woman |
| f28d | Artificial conception | Woman conceives after masturbating with an artificial penis |
| 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 |
| f29a | Worm killed with boiling water | To kill snake or worm paramour of a woman or girl, person pours on it boiling water, resin or spills live coals |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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) |
| f76 | Animals teach to make love | People learn to copulate after they see birds, fish or animals doing it |
| f9 | A dangerous woman | For different reasons, sexual contact with a woman is deadly dangerous for a man |
| f9c | Snake in vagina | Snake (Pacific snake-eel in Polynesia) is in vagina; around the woman's thighs; vagina is a mouth of a snake; a woman with toothed vagina is associated with a snake; a snake crawls out of woman's mouth to bite off the man’s penis during the copulation |
| f9e1 | Dangerous animal in vagina | Woman is dangerous because biting or stinging animal or animals is (are) inside her genitals (and not only the head of such an animal) |
| g5 | Food tree | Fruits and shoots of different cultivated plants grow on the branches of one tree (on one vine) or certain plant has a tree form that is alien to it in nature |
| h1d | The first dead is rejected by the alive people | Person dies and returns soon but people send him or her back, refuse to accept as a member of their community or bury again. Since then death becomes permanent |
| 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 |
| h30 | A wrong choice | Seeing two women who have come together or in succession, man has to choose one of them. Usually he takes the one who is less pretty and smart or more dangerous inflicting troubles on himself and humanity |
| h47 | Offended sky or earth | The sky (or the earth) is offended by people’s behavior in respect to it and reacts accordingly (e.g. rises higher than it was before) |
| i39 | Rainbow road or bridge | Rainbow is a road, a bridge or a ladder |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| j16 | Rejects to eat insects | Person perishes because being forced to clean ogre's or animal’s head infected with insects, refuses to bite the insects, spits in disgust or is suspected to do it |
| j17 | Frogs in hair | Instead of lice, there are other (bigger or dangerous) creatures in the hair of some persons or he or she pretends that his or her hair is infested with them |
| j47 | Pursuer falls from height | Person ascends to the sky (rare: descends from the sky; ascends the cliff) by a rope, a ladder, etc. Another person tries to follow him or her but the rope (the ladder) is broken or severed |
| j4a | Revenge for the death of the mother | A woman is murdered. Her son or children (rare: grandchildren, nephews) revenge for her death |
| k25 | Magic wife | A man consciously marries a woman related to the non-human world |
| 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 |
| k87 | Marriage with an animal creates problems | A woman becomes the wife of an animal (rare: other non-human being). Her husband cares for her but ultimately the animal, the woman, her children or her relations are killed, she turns into an animal herself, animals and humans become enemies, etc. |
| 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) |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| l4 | The unmasked murderer (Blue Beard) | Person kills girls (rare: his nephews or younger brothers of his wife) in succession (usually the male person kills his wives). The last of potential victims escapes, usually after finding remains of those who had been killed or imprisoned earlier |
| l46 | Head downward | Person ascends, descends, walks head downward or sees the world upside down |
| l61 | Endocannibal | Person devours his or her own flesh or disembowels himself or herself |
| l64 | Removable head | Person removes part of his or her body (head, scalp, lungs) and then puts it back |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| m6a | Overnight with the fire in the forest | A person spends a night in the forest. One of the forest dwellers has fire. After the person does something wrong, this fire is lost |
| m6b | Coming across aguti before reaching home | 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 |
| 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.) |