Ancient ✦ Wisdom ✦ Atlas

Motif family

Sacred Law and Social Order

The divine origin of law, ethical codes, and social obligations. Includes dietary laws, purity codes, social care mandates, and the idea that the moral order reflects the cosmic order.

58 traditions

2,825 occurrences

2,782 mapped motifs

10 sub-families

  • afro caribbean
  • ainu
  • akan
  • amazonian
  • andamanese
  • arctic inuit
  • arthurian
  • australian aboriginal
  • biblical
  • buddhist
  • burmese
  • celtic irish
  • celtic welsh
  • chaco amerindian
  • christian
  • christian apocrypha
  • comparative
  • confucian
  • daoist
  • egyptian
  • estonian
  • filipino
  • finnic
  • finnish karelian
  • germanic
  • greek
  • greek roman
  • hawaiian
  • hindu
  • indigenous australian
  • inuit
  • islamic
  • islamicate folklore
  • japanese
  • jewish christian
  • jewish pseudepigrapha
  • malagasy
  • maya
  • melanesian
  • mesopotamian
  • micronesian
  • nahua maya inca
  • native american great lakes
  • native american northeast woodlands
  • native american northwest coast
  • native american plains
  • native american southeast
  • native american southwest
  • navajo
  • norse
  • persian
  • roman
  • samoan
  • shan
  • slavic
  • sufi
  • zoroastrian
  • zuni

Conserved neighbors: covenant · divine judgment · royal legitimacy · betrayal violated trust · hospitality test stranger guest · curse blessing speech

Sub-families · the next landing down

Taboo and Ritual Restriction

94 motifs

Purification and Pollution

42 motifs

Sanctuary and Asylum

27 motifs

Apotropaic Protection and Sympathetic Magic

47 motifs

Family and Kinship Order

42 motifs

Revealed Command and Divine Authorization

67 motifs

Hospitality and Treatment of Strangers

14 motifs

Justice, Mercy, and Judicial Procedure

49 motifs

Civic Order and the Body Politic

53 motifs

Idolatry and False Worship

14 motifs

Not yet placed in a sub-family

2,333 motifs, showing the 60 most attested

Each motif link opens its evidence page: every tagged passage with its quote, and a path into the book where the passage lives.