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Motif · motif_tree

Tree

A whole tree, trunk and canopy. Attested by a fetched feature on plants in Japanese tattoo tradition, which names the cherry tree as the most famous and the cedar and magnolia after it. CULTURAL_REVIEW_REQUIRED IS SET BECAUSE OF WHAT ELSE THAT PAGE SAYS: it describes kodama, spirits that reside in certain trees, as "revered and respected in Japanese culture", to the point that "cutting down a tree is considered a source of misfortune". That is a living folk-religious belief about the referent of this motif, and it belongs to T11.10, not to a decorative node.
Thin
Low confidenceneeds cultural review

0 attested · 2 promoted1 source · T2

Cultural review required

This entry makes claims about a community's practice that nobody qualified has confirmed. Treat it as research in progress, not settled fact.

What the research says

motifs_seed
Category
plant
Variants
cherry tree; bare tree; canopy only
Common themes
nature; botanical
Cultural flags
kodama tree spirits are a living Japanese folk-religious belief; recorded and routed to T11.10, NOT asserted here

Provenance

1 resolved

  • Flowers and plants in Japanese tradition (opens in a new tab)

    Tier 2

    Tattoo Life Crew, Tattoo Life

    Tattoo magazine feature. Verbatim: "In Japanese folk traditions, the flower has a place of honour: Sakura: cherry, Hasu: lotus, Kiku: chrysanthemum, Ume: plum blossom, Tsubaki: camellia, Botan: peony, Fuji: wisteria". Cited ONLY to establish that floral meaning is culture-specific rather than universal; the Japanese material itself belongs to T11.10, not to a theme node.

    professional tattoo source · published 2022-11-14 · retrieved 2026-08-28

Related concepts

2 links

Associated with · 2

  • → outgoingNatureThemeThin
    strength 0.50promoted · not an independent attestationneeds cultural review

    Promoted from motifs_seed.common_themes of motif_tree ('nature'). No new fact: this edge restates a value already present in the corpus. STRENGTH 0.5 set by the T11.11c rule: this pairing is asserted by ONE parent row's association column and by no second row; the pack's scale reads 0.5 as 'context-dependent'. Inputs are corpus counts only - no source count, tier or confidence is used.

  • → outgoingBotanicalSubthemeThin
    strength 0.50promoted · not an independent attestationneeds cultural review

    Promoted from motifs_seed.common_themes of motif_tree ('botanical'). No new fact: this edge restates a value already present in the corpus. STRENGTH 0.5 set by the T11.11c rule: this pairing is asserted by ONE parent row's association column and by no second row; the pack's scale reads 0.5 as 'context-dependent'. Inputs are corpus counts only - no source count, tier or confidence is used.