| Motif | Name | Description |
| 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) |
| a22 | To the sky from a bonfire | After getting into the fire or boiling water, one or two persons ascend to the sky and turn into the Sun and/or Moon |
| a22d | The burned up persons turn into constellation | The burned up persons turn into a constellation or into the dark spot on the Milky Way |
| a3 | Male sun and female moon | The Moon is female or bisexual, the Sun is male |
| 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 |
| b17 | Night in container | Darkness is a particular object that can be carried (usually brought from its original owner in a container) |
| b19 | The night and the married life | People had trouble making love before night came into being |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| d4a | Theft of fire | Fire is stolen from its original owner or brought back to the people from somebody who had stolen it before |
| 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 |
| e11 | The burned skin | Magic person reveals his true nature and/or remains with the real people after the object responsible for preserving the non-human appearance (usually an animal skin) is destroyed (usually burned) |
| e17 | Origin of design | Humans acquire (the idea of) ornamentation of the vessels, baskets, body, etc. or the idea of the system of signs after somebody gets to see the pattern on the body of zoomorphic and/or supernatural creature |
| e18 | Snakes and containers | People learn how to decorate ceramics or baskets (usually learn decorated patterns) thanks to a water creature |
| e21 | Avenged victim of water creatures | 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 |
| e9 | The mysterious housekeeper | Person observes traces of some activity that takes place in his (rare: her) house in his (her) absence and then takes by surprise the responsible one |
| e9f | Parrot-wife | Man maries parrot- or parakeet-woman |
| f27 | Girls and the water spirits | 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 |
| f31 | The snake egg | Girl or woman is imperceptibly impregnated by snake when the content of a broken egg of a snake flows into her vagina or when she touches a dead snake |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| f40b | A man in a village of women | A man gets into the village of women. Usually he has to satisfy every woman against his will or every woman claims him for herself |
| f40c | Patriarch kills the boys | A powerful man kills every baby boy born by his wives or by his sister |
| 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) |
| 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 |
| h24 | Container opened too early | Container with valuables or with dangerous creatures is opened (before time). Its content goes out of control or disappear |
| h37 | Magic device lost by a failure | 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| i45b | Not to point at the rainbow | It to point at the rainbow, pointing finger or entire arm will rot, wither or become crooked |
| i66 | Ashes on Milky Way | Milky Way is ashes or smoldering coals |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| j35 | Helpful tree-frog | A tree-frog kills or neutralizes dangerous person or creature who chases heroes |
| j36 | Turtle as antagonist | Hero's parents are killed by turtle who pulled them under the water |
| j37 | The antagonist is carried away by bird | A man turns into powerful bird or creates it. The bird carries away his enemy |
| j38 | Talons got stuck | A mighty bird thrust its talons into a big fish, whale, water monster, etc. Talons get stuck, the bird is either pulled down under the water or makes itself free with great difficulty |
| j4 | Revenge for the death of the male relatives | 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 |
| 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 |
| j4b | Revenge inside the family | 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| j60 | Two-fold impregnation | A woman is impregnated by two different males and gives birth to twin sons who have different fathers |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| k25 | Magic wife | A man consciously marries a woman related to the non-human world |
| 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 |
| l107 | The ear-sleepers | Anthropomorphic beings have huge ears (use them for blankets, umbrellas, etc.) |
| l11 | Turtle-bench | In a non-human world objects of everyday life have appearance of animals and monsters, mainly fish, amphibians and reptiles |
| l14 | Reared up serpent | 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) |
| 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 |
| l22a | People become blind | After breaking some taboo, coming across a strange object or person, people fall asleep and awake blind |
| 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 |
| l44a | Give me your liver | A man hides in a shelter. An ogre wants him to give certain parts of his body. The man gives the ogre instead parts of the body of a killed animal. The ogre does not understand the deceit, gives in response parts of his own body and dies |
| l45 | Duped watchman | An ogre or a stronger animal catches a man or a weaker animal or drives him into a small enclosure and goes away for a time leaving a watchman. The hero dupes the watchman, escapes. (Most, though hardly all American cases can have post-Columbian African origin) |
| 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 |
| l88 | Ogre returns to life | A man kills an ogre. When he later comes and touches the ogre's remains, the latter revives |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| m29k1 Not used in statistics | The turtle (toad, frog) is a tricky failure | A turtle (tortoise, toad, frog) behaves foolishly creating serious problems for himself |
| 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 |
| m30 | Trickster falls down | Person or creature who has no wings or is unable to fly on a long distance attempts to ascend to the sky or to fly far away but falls down or, deprived of his wings, remains in a place from which he is unable to return |
| 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 |
| 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 |