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

Overview

Ker locates the tale among the men of Bou, south of Wamira. A sow bears five piglets and one human child, Dabedabe. As he grows, he prepares a garden to feed his mother, but her owner kills her to feed the workers. Dabedabe collects her bones and leaves in grief. Rejected at Qamana because of sores, he lives in a cave, where a child tends him until he heals.

Learning that bound men await slaughter at a feast, he brings the bones to a river. Some become men who gather carrying poles; the remainder become numerous pigs. He exchanges the pigs for the captives’ release. The ending attributes changed feasting practice to his intervention. That historical claim remains the narrator’s explanation, without assuming that a tale proves regional practice or a literal biological human–pig ancestry.

Human child of sowMother’s bones retainedBones become men and pigsCaptives ransomed
01

Origins & earliest records

Annie Ker, Papuan Fairy Tales (London: Macmillan, 1910), Dabedabe the Good, pp. 13–18. Individual narrator unnamed.

02

Records & interpretation

Complete selected tale directly read in digitized transcription.

In the literature

“they became pigs, a great number.”
Annie Ker, collector and English reteller; selected narrator unnamed · Papuan Fairy Tales
Dabedabe the Good, second bone transformation at the river

The remaining bones of Dabedabe’s mother become pigs for the ransom.

Selected bibliography

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

  1. 01

    Papuan Fairy Tales: Dabedabe the Good, pp. 13–18

    Annie Ker, collector and English reteller · 1910

    Full selected narrative inspected.

  2. 02

    Papuan Fairy Tales — Dabedabe the Good

    Annie Ker, collector and English reteller; selected narrator unnamed · 1910

    Annie Ker, London:Macmillan1910, title/contents/introduction already independently read. Missionary English collection chiefly from an unnamed northeast-coast village; named individual narrator not supplied for selected chapter. Chapter text currently inspected through public reader after direct localHTTP403; no bypass or new printed-page-pixel claim.

Family, evolution & connections

Dabedabe and the sow’s six children

The Bou tale as published by Annie Ker in 1910.

Explicit parentage in Ker’s historical English telling. Unnamed relatives remain unnamed. Human and pig births are narrative assertions; no zoological lineage is inferred. The pig owner’s form of address is not proof of birth fatherhood.

Annie Ker (1910), Papuan Fairy Tales: Dabedabe the Good
Documented · canonical kinship

Unnamed sow mother

Ker’s Bou tale states that a sow bears five pig young and a sixth, human child, Dabedabe. The pig owner’s paternal address does not independently establish birth fatherhood.

Annie Ker (1910), Papuan Fairy Tales: Dabedabe the Good
Documented · canonical kinship

Five unnamed pig siblings

The five pig young and Dabedabe are expressly the same sow’s offspring in this tale. Later beings made from her bones are a separate transformation episode, not additional narrated births.

Annie Ker (1910), Papuan Fairy Tales: Dabedabe the Good

Located primary passages

Specific passages supporting details in this entry, grouped by their published witness.

Papuan Fairy Tales: Dabedabe the Good, pp. 13–18

Annie Ker, London:Macmillan1910, title/contents/introduction already independently read. Missionary English collection chiefly from an unnamed northeast-coast village; named individual narrator not supplied for selected chapter. Chapter text currently inspected through public reader after direct localHTTP403; no bypass or new printed-page-pixel claim.

  1. A Bou sow bears five pigs and the human Dabedabe. Their owner captures the offspring; as a young man Dabedabe organises a garden to feed his mother, but the owner kills her to feed its workers. Dabedabe collects her bones and leaves in grief, finally settling at Qamana beyond sight of Bou. Rejected for sores, he shelters in a cave, where a child tends and heals him.

    Dabedabe the Good, Bou birth, capture, garden, mother’s slaughter and Qamana refuge

  2. Learning of captive men bound to poles for a feast, he asks for delay. Some maternal bones become men who gather many carrying poles; the rest become pigs, bound and brought to the feast. He exchanges pigs for the captives’ freedom. The closing teller attributes subsequent pig rather than human feasts and plentiful pigs at Qamana/Bou to his intervention.

    Dabedabe the Good, proposed feast, river transformations, ransom and historical ending claim

Pig siblings and mother are explicitly familial; the owner’s term my son is not proof of biological paternity. Qamana child is a carer, not an invented son. Collection’s historical practice claim is not independent ethnographic verification or a universal regional chronology. His mother is not narrated as reconstituted alive.

References

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

  1. Primary collected textKer1910: Dabedabe the Good, pp. 13–18Research 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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