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Overview

Three brothers court the daughters of a witch without recognizing their mother's nature. At night she sharpens a knife to kill the visitors, but the youngest, Dan-Kuchingaya, stays awake and interrupts her. He exchanges the boys' loin-cloths with the daughters' garments. Feeling for clothes in the darkness, the mother kills her own daughters instead. The brothers escape through a tunnel, although Dan-Kuchingaya remains long enough to announce what has happened and earn her vow of revenge.

She later appears as a woman soliciting men at the brothers' town market, with forty needles concealed in her hand. The eldest brother ignores the boy's warning and goes aside with her; she plucks out his eyes and disappears. Dan-Kuchingaya returns in the appearance of a beautiful milk-selling girl and invents a complaint about cattle whose eyes have been taken. Without recognizing her enemy, the witch recommends a black goat's eyes together with an ointment she supplies. Once away he resumes his own form and announces the deception. The brothers obtain a black goat, and the boy places its eyes in the elder brother's sockets; the tale reports restored sight, overturning her revenge without a final narrated death for the witch.

Nocturnal attempted killingGarment-recognition deceptionDisguised market revengeEyes removedDeceived into aiding restoration
01

Origins & earliest records

Tale 94 is credited Mohamma in Tremearne's narrator key. Selected witness: second edition 1913; exact narration date unspecified.

02

Records & interpretation

Complete main tale 94, printed pp. 428-432, directly read; comparative versions distinguished from main action.

Selected bibliography

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

  1. 01

    Hausa Superstitions and Customs

    Mohamma, storyteller; A. J. N. Tremearne, collector and translator · 1913

    Second edition; tale 94, pp. 428-432.

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 primary narrativeHausa Superstitions and Customs - tale 94Research access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

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