Another sun, usually less benevolent and/or powerful, existed before the present one
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
A bird or birds attack or shade the Sun or the Moon during an eclipse or at the sunrise and sunset
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
Darkness is a particular object that can be carried (usually brought from its original owner in a container)
Day light (also warmth, the sun, the moon) is kept as a particular object in a container, under a cover, etc.
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
Persons climb to the sky up a rope or an arrow ladder; fallen down rope turns into forest vines
The men of primeval community destroy most of the people and/or themselves in a fire pit or on the bonfire
Person should not laugh in the world of the dead
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
Child fishes with poison or his or her body produces fish poison. Fish or water snake kills him or her. The perished child is avenged
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 takes for a paramour a big land animal. Husbands, brothers or (adoptive) children kill or maim paramour and (sometimes) the woman
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
The men feel themselves offended by the women and abandon them
The women of the ancestral community kill or abandon the men
The women of the ancestral community kill, try to kill or transform the men
The women and the men of the primeval community quarrel and abandon each other
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)
A youth or boy decorated with feathers and paint copulates incognito with his mother or sister. They discover his identity noticing on his body traces of feathers or paint
A man or boy thinks about incest when he gets to see his daughter(-in-law)'s, sister's, or mother(in-law)'s vagina
A man uses a trick to have opportunity to make love to his mother-in-law or woman uses a trick to make love to her son-in-law. Usually a man takes with him on a hunt not his wife but her mother
A girl (wife) rejects an ugly youth (her husband). He becomes handsom (usually thanks to the help of a supernatural person). Those who were evil to him are punished
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 or creature is transformed. Separate parts of its (his, her) body give origin to different plants, mostly edible or cultivated
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
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
Game animals were concentrated in one single place. Certain person lets them disperse in the world
Human teeth are made of material subject to easy damage (etiology of tooth ache in most cases)
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
Giant water-chthonic or sky serpent or dragon has horns or antlers on its head
Snake, lizard or worm is a bridge or a rope over the river
Stars are people, ghosts, anthropomorphic beings (interpretations of unique star objects like Venus or Polaris as persons not considered)
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
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
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
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
Two sisters (if more, only two play a significant role in the plot) travel and meet an unpleasant suitor or get to an ogre
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 tree-frog kills or neutralizes dangerous person or creature who chases heroes
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
Person or his helper draws his enemies on the unstable bridge and destroys it. The enemies fall into water, into a precipice
Antagonist perishes falling into the water or trying to cross a water body
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
Not being burned in a fire, person ascends to the sky or gets across a river on clouds of smoke
A man maroons another because of jealousy or because he plans to take hold of his wife
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)
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)
Person or animal gets into another being through its anus
Hero substitutes powerful person's weapon or amulet with a fake
A human person admires a star or (rare) the Moon in the sky, expresses desire to marry it or (rare) to get a star-object. Star descends to him or to her or takes him or her to the sky
A man consciously marries a woman related to the non-human world
A man must fulfill difficult tasks (to win competition) to receive the permission for a marriage
The antagonist sends the hero to the place where he is attacked by dangerous creatures. The hero kills them and brings to the antagonist. The creatures are the antagonist's relatives, pets, or helpers, therefore he or she mourns their death or revives them
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
First one, then another man meets a powerful person or persons. The first man is worthy and rewarded with treasure, prestige or the like. The second man (or two men) follows him, behaves in a wrong way and is punished
Person in a desperate situation gets to see how a snake or other small animal uses remedy to revive or to cure itself or other animals. The person uses the remedy, succeeds
Because a small child is ignored or punished by its parents (usually it cries late in the evening), bush spirit or animal carries it away
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)
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
A demonic being demands that a person would carry it permanently, clings to his shoulder or back
Person's leg is injured intentionally or by chance. The loss of one leg does not bother him. He uses the sharpened bone as a thrust weapon
In a non-human world objects of everyday life have appearance of animals and monsters, mainly fish, amphibians and reptiles
The only vulnerable spot is near the surface of person’s or creature’s body and not in his inner organs
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
Two girls or young women meet a demon. One or both are not aware of danger. One is eaten up, another escapes
At night, a shaman or a bush spirit comes and inserts his hand into the hut to steal food or to make this way love with a sleeping woman. A man who is in the hut cuts the hand off or breaks it
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 discovers (rare:still fails to discover) another getting to see his or her shadow or reflection in water
An ugly woman gets to see in water a reflection of a youth who is up in a tree. She takes it for her own reflection and thinks that she has become beautiful
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
Person ascends, descends, walks head downward or sees the world upside down
Body parts of a person or pieces of his flesh are thrown down one by one. (In American Indian versions those who are on the ground usually take them for game, honey, fish)
Person turns into monster at night when he remains alone with his companion in the wilderness
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
Person transforms humans into monsters or animals secretly putting prohibited meat, grease or eggs into their food or provoking them to use a particular object
Non-human persons work hard to destroy a strong and durable obstacle that blocks access to some place or object
Birds and sometimes also animals work hard to break from the outside or from the inside a rock, a tree truck, bonds, etc. to release some beings or themselves from confinement in a small enclosure or trap
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
To revenge on his wife and her kinsfolk, a man roasts her alive
In episodes related to deception, absurd, obscene or anti-social behavior the protagonist is an anteater
Because of its stupidity and unsocial behavior, the jaguar (ocelote, puma) suffers a reverse, is injured or dies
One of two animal-persons kills game. In the absence of the stronger one, the weaker one hides the meat to eat it alone later
A smaller animal kills or maims a big mammal (jaguar, tapir) biting his penis
Using a trick, (animal)-person kills a dangerous animal. Kinsmen and friends of the killed animal get to know about it and come to avenge its death. The person has narrow escape
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
Old man or old woman turns into anteater (origin of anteaters)
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
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
Hero is sent to get bark of a tree that is dangerous to those who come near it
Body members of a person has the form of cutting or piercing weapon
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
To kill the hero, his enemies involve him into a game with a dangerous ball (or ice, stone, bone, iron, a walrus head, a biting skull, etc.)
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.
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
Persons avenge the death of their father, mother or other relatives who are one (rare two) generations older than they
Person removes a thorn from the paw (bone from the throat) of a strong and dangerous animal or a demon, the animal (demon) is grateful