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Overview
A bonga girl living in a river pool appears as a beautiful human maiden to the buffalo-herder Dukhu and brings him food. She remains invisible to his watching sister-in-law. When she takes him home beneath the pool, the water stays only ankle-deep along the road; her household contains tigers, leopards and snakes, and a coiled snake serves as a seat.
Dukhu’s father drains the pool and finds her transformed into a large Ginduri fish. She sings appeals as he and his helpers kill, cut, wash and cook her, but finally leaps from the pot as the young woman. She marries Dukhu and the household prospers. She explicitly warns him that striking her head will end the marriage; when he eventually does so, she takes their child and leaves permanently. The tale’s coercion and violence are narrated events, not a recommended relationship pattern.
Origins & earliest records
Santal Parganas, eastern India; source-specific Santali storytelling
Records & interpretation
Complete relevant tale directly read with existing collection preface and narrator-chain record.
Selected bibliography
Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.
- 01
Folklore of the Santal Parganas
LXIX, Dukhu and His Bonga Wife, pp. 208–212
Family, evolution & connections
The bonga wife’s parents and son in Dukhu’s tale
Bompas’s 1909 English translation, tale LXIX.
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- Unnamed bonga father and mother (joint parents)
- Unnamed son (father: Dukhu)
Direct father–mother–daughter introduction and explicitly identified grandson at departure. Dukhu’s father Bhagrit is a father-in-law, not the bonga wife’s birth father. Tigers, leopards and snakes in her parents’ house are not called kin. The fish transformation does not introduce another mother. No universal bonga lineage is inferred.
Dukhu
The bonga maiden and Dukhu marry; his head strike later breaks her stated condition and she leaves with their child.
Unnamed child of Dukhu and his bonga wife
At departure she calls Dukhu the father of his parents’ grandson and carries the child away. No child name is supplied.
Unnamed bonga father and mother in Dukhu’s tale
She takes Dukhu to her parents’ underwater home; both parents expressly address her as their daughter. The household’s animals are not identified as relatives.
Bhagrit, Dukhu’s father
Bhagrit is Dukhu’s father and the bonga wife’s father-in-law. Her repeated parental address expresses this marriage relationship, not her birth parentage.
Primary records and illustrations
Cecil Henry Bompas, Folklore of the Santal Parganas (1909)
Part I, Santal folktales. LXIX, Dukhu and His Bonga Wife, pp. 208–212
Entire relevant tale read in retained primary transcription, including ending. Santal religious category retained; narrator’s particular transformations and family relations distinguished from general beliefs, ritual prescriptions or inferred outcomes.
References
Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.
- Historical translation of collected narrativesBompas, Folklore of the Santal Parganas (1909), LXIX, Dukhu and His Bonga Wife, pp. 208–212Research access: 2026-10-05
Image credits
A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.