A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.

Overview

The elder of two brothers goes hunting after their father’s death. Rain drives them into a Ma-kishi house, where their playing of a mbanza alerts returning residents. Threats from inside delay the first arrivals, but the chief puts both hunters outside. The younger kills eight opponents and the elder kills the remaining four. Against the chief, however, the elder’s repeated decapitations fail: another head appears after each cut.

After acknowledging that force has failed, the elder becomes a bagre fish. The chief swallows him. He searches the inner organs, finds the house keys, takes them and emerges. His younger brother’s next cut kills the chief, and the hunters use the keys to release and feed the people confined in the rooms. This transformation belongs specifically to the elder hunter. The later part of the printed tale shifts to their mother’s two younger children and a deceased father’s advice; those younger siblings are not retrospectively made participants in the first fish-changing encounter.

Human hunterBagre-fish transformationSurvives passage inside opponentTakes captive-room keys
01

Origins & earliest records

Musoki supplies tale VIII. Chatelain says he was a Mu-suku passenger traveling with him from Loanda to St. Vincent in May 1890, an enslaved personal servant being taken toward Lisbon. The printed dialect is that of the Dande River. This named contributor’s circumstances are retained rather than replaced by an anonymous community attribution.

02

Records & interpretation

Complete tale VIII, The Children of the Widow, bilingual pp. 110–115; English narrative pp. 111, 113 and ending p. 115; contributor note VIII pp. 282–283, notes 384–391. Elder hunter and fish transformation English pp. 111 and 113.

Selected bibliography

Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.

  1. 01

    Folk-Tales of Angola

    Héli Chatelain, collector, editor and literal English translator; named contributor in origin · 1894

    Complete tale VIII, The Children of the Widow, bilingual pp. 110–115; English narrative pp. 111, 113 and ending p. 115; contributor note VIII pp. 282–283, notes 384–391. Elder hunter and fish transformation English pp. 111 and 113.

Family & connections

A source-supported family tree or inspiration record has not yet been compiled for this profile. Related reading below indicates a connection in subject matter, not a proven lineage or creative influence.

References

Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.

  1. Collected Ki-mbundu text with facing English translation and contributor notesChatelain 1894 — Bagre-Changing Elder Brother of the Widow’s TaleResearch access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.

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