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Overview
After a mother’s burial, a red-leaved plant grows on her grave and becomes the bush Borevui. While the three sons hunt, it becomes a girl, cooks their food and returns to plant form. Discovered by the youngest, she identifies herself as their sister and rejects the brothers’ proposed marriages. A man later abducts her from a spring and takes her to his mountain home.
Each brother comes searching and is killed and cooked by the husband. Borevui quietly obtains and saves their livers in a coconut-shell bowl of water. After later garden work, she blows on the water until the brothers regain their bodies alive. They kill the husband when he turns against her, burn his house and take their sister home. The grave-grown sibling and organ-based restoration are explicit; her identity is not merely an ordinary kidnapped woman.
Origins & earliest records
Annie Ker, Papuan Fairy Tales (London: Macmillan, 1910), Borevui and her Three Brothers, pp. 131–134.
Records & interpretation
Ker’s English collected narrative; the described powers belong to this selected account.
In the literature
“they stood before her alive and well”
Borevui and her Three Brothers, printed p.134
Borevui restores her murdered brothers from their preserved livers.
Selected bibliography
Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.
- 01
Papuan Fairy Tales: Borevui and her Three Brothers, pp. 131–134
Historical collected narrative; no individual narrator supplied in this chapter.
- 02
Papuan Fairy Tales — Borevui and her Three Brothers
London:Macmillan1910, title page and table of contents inspected in Wikisource scan-backed transcription. Introduction describes northeast-coast collection, mission residence, oral settings, tobacco exchanges and consultation of elders; individual narrators unnamed in these selected chapters.
Family, evolution & connections
Borevui and three brothers — Ker’s narrative
Borevui and her Three Brothers, pp. 131–134.
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- Four expressly identified siblings (birth mechanism not reconstructed)
- Eldest unnamed brother
- Second unnamed brother
- Youngest unnamed brother
Borevui’s explicit sister identification and the three distinct brothers in the narrative. The root groups stated siblings and is not an invented parent. Borevui emerges at their dead mother’s grave; emergence is not presented here as an ordinary birth or the mother’s resurrection. Brothers remain unnamed; no father or maternal/paternal side for the grandmother is supplied.
Borevui’s three unnamed brothers in Ker’s tale
Borevui rejects the brothers’ proposals by expressly identifying herself as their sister. She emerges as a plant and girl at their dead mother’s grave; the story does not identify her as that mother resurrected.
Borevui’s unnamed mountain husband in Ker’s tale
The man carries Borevui away and is subsequently called her husband. He kills her three brothers; she restores them and they kill him. The narrative marriage does not imply that the earlier brothers’ proposals were accepted.
Located primary passages
Specific passages supporting details in this entry, grouped by their published witness.
Papuan Fairy Tales: Borevui and her Three Brothers, pp. 131–134
London:Macmillan1910, title page and table of contents inspected in Wikisource scan-backed transcription. Introduction describes northeast-coast collection, mission residence, oral settings, tobacco exchanges and consultation of elders; individual narrators unnamed in these selected chapters.
- After the mother of three sons dies, a red-leaved plant on her grave becomes Borevui. She secretly prepares food; when each brother proposes marriage, she identifies herself as their little sister. A man abducts her while she fetches water and takes her beyond the mountains.
- Her husband successively kills the visiting brothers and cooks their flesh while she is in the garden. Borevui quietly saves each liver in a coconut-shell bowl of water. After the third murder she blows gently over the bowl and restores all three alive. They ambush and dismember the husband, burn the house and return safely home with her.
Borevui and her Three Brothers, printed pp.132–134, murders and restoration
The source calls her the brothers’ sister, not their mother literally resurrected. The mother’s grave supplies the transformation setting; the three brothers are unnamed. Restoration and revenge are both part of the episode; no copied closing yam formula or instruction. The husband’s killing of the brothers is distinct from their killing him.
References
Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.
- Primary collected narrativeKer 1910: Borevui and her Three BrothersResearch access: 2026-10-05
Image credits
A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.