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Overview
A hunter marries in an unfamiliar country and later travels back towards his own home with his wife and children. Hunger prompts him to propose killing a child; his wife refuses. He nevertheless kills children along the journey and eats their flesh. The mother laments their loss. Eventually all have been eaten. Birds are summoned with an offer of a daughter in marriage to whichever can open the father’s belly. Larger or earlier birds fail; Kambala-Matindi succeeds, releasing the children alive.
The successful bird chooses a daughter and carries her away. The family reaches the husband’s village, where his mother welcomes them and provides cattle and sheep for a feast. Later the wife wishes to revisit her own family. On this return journey the father again kills and eats their children, leaving only one beautiful child unharmed. This time no bird can recover those still inside him. The mother eventually tells her parents the full history. They confine the husband in a hut without food, and he dies. The wife finds no further husband. The first recovery is therefore temporary, and does not establish that all the children survive the final ending.
Origins & earliest records
Jacottet’s 1901 Textes Louyi publishes the original-language tale and French translation. The introduction distinguishes Kaboukou, Akaende and Maroumo; the selected tale’s individual contributor assignment is not confirmed from its inspected heading.
Records & interpretation
Complete selected episode and surrounding notes read. Outcomes and unexplained transitions are preserved; neighbouring rescue stories do not replace this tale’s final events.
Selected bibliography
Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.
- 01
Études sur les langues du Haut-Zambèze, III: Textes Louyi
XXVIII, Histoire d’un homme et de sa femme, pp. 80–83, complete first recovery, second failed recovery and ending.
- 02
Jacottet Textes Louyi: The Child-Swallowing Father
Édouard Jacottet, Études sur les langues du Haut-Zambèze, third part: Textes Louyi, Paris: Ernest Leroux,1901. Title and complete introduction independently read; misleading catalogue1869 date rejected. French translation with Louyi originals. Introduction names Kaboukou(1895), Akaende and Maroumo(1900), but retained contents omit promised tale-level initials, so individual attribution for these selections remains unresolved.
Family, evolution & connections
The swallowed children’s household - Jacottet XXVIII
Parentage explicitly stated in the French translation of this Louyi account.
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- Unnamed father and mother
- Unnamed rescued daughter; later spouse Kambala-Matindi
- Other unnamed children; count not normalised
The parents and children follow the text’s family terms; the daughter’s later spouse is recorded in her label. Unnamed characters retain descriptive labels. Repeated child counts are uneven, so no fixed census or invented names are supplied. The bird’s marriage is not drawn as biological parentage. French translation inspected; original Louyi not independently translated.
Unnamed children in Jacottet XXVIII
The French narrative identifies the swallowed children as this man’s own children. Its repeated counts and journeys are not converted into a fixed number of separately named offspring.
Wolf of the Seven Kids
Jacottet XXVIII has a bird pierce the father’s belly to release his children; Hunt’s Grimm tale has the goat mother cut her six surviving kids from the wolf. The former repeats the swallowing with a failed later rescue; the latter substitutes stones and ends in the wolf’s drowning. This is a comparison of separately recorded sequences, not evidence of influence.
Located primary passages
Specific passages supporting details in this entry, grouped by their published witness.
Études sur les langues du Haut-Zambèze, III: Textes Louyi
Édouard Jacottet, Études sur les langues du Haut-Zambèze, third part: Textes Louyi, Paris: Ernest Leroux,1901. Title and complete introduction independently read; misleading catalogue1869 date rejected. French translation with Louyi originals. Introduction names Kaboukou(1895), Akaende and Maroumo(1900), but retained contents omit promised tale-level initials, so individual attribution for these selections remains unresolved.
- A hunter marries a woman in a distant country and returns home with their children. Despite her refusal, he kills and eats the children during travel. Birds cannot release them until Kambala-Matindi pierces his belly, and the rescued children emerge. The bird receives a daughter as promised. On another journey the father repeats the killings; this time no summoned bird succeeds. The wife reports the events to her parents, who confine him without food until he dies. She does not find another husband. The song’s numerical statement and a later surviving-child line are not collapsed into a newly standardized family count.
French historical translation inspected; Louyi original not independently translated. Full volume, religious practices and other comparative works not claimed completely inspected. Individual narrator attribution held unresolved because detailed contents promised by preface are absent from retained table.
References
Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.
- Digitized primary collected textJacottet — Louyi leopard marriageResearch access: 2026-10-05
Image credits
A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.