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

Overview

Five fosa buy clothing and appear in a village in human form, seeking five sisters as wives. After marrying, they take the women home, accompanied by the sisters’ brother Betombokatsoro. He recognizes their animal identity and urges the women to leave, but they initially refuse. The husbands go out at night to catch eels and return asking whether their wives are asleep. Now frightened, the sisters ask their brother to answer for them. He says marauders stealing saonjo are keeping them awake, prompting the fosa to uproot the crop. The account’s named fosa spouses are marvellous narrative beings, rather than a zoological claim about the natural animal.

When the husbands leave for the forest again, Betombokatsoro persuades his sisters to escape. They put banana trunks wrapped in lambas in their beds and carry rice and other edible seeds away. The returned fosa receive no answer, conclude that the women are asleep, stab the substitutes and begin devouring them. On discovering wood rather than flesh, they pursue the fugitives. The sisters scatter their grain, and the angry animals stop to collect it and carry it home before resuming the chase. This delay allows the women and their brother to reach their parents’ village.

The pursuers enter that village in human appearance and are received as guests. Rhum makes them drunk: they can no longer maintain the clothing that conceals their animal identity, run on all four legs, bark, chase poultry and collect discarded bones. The villagers recognize and attack them with stones and sticks. Three are killed, while two escape. The ending explains an oath against entering human villages by day and a curse on descendants that eat human-raised poultry. It does not kill all five or describe every fosa as permanently converted from a human husband.

Five distinct spousesFine clothing conceals animal identityHumanlike arrivalBanana-trunk substitutes attackedDrunken four-legged exposureThree killed and two escape
01

Origins & earliest records

Renel 1910, second volume, tale 137, pp. 261–264, with local collection heading. The editor identifies a variant relationship to tale 10; individual contributor unnamed.

02

Records & interpretation

Complete tale 137, pp. 261–264, heading and relevant annotation read. Named animal group and particular ending distinguished from the three tailed brothers in the first volume.

Selected bibliography

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

  1. 01

    Contes de Madagascar, deuxième partie: Fables et fabliaux

    Charles Renel, editor and translator; Malagasy collection intermediaries · 1910

    Tale 137, pp. 261–264, complete; appendix collected narrative.

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. Historical collected French narrativeRenel 1910, second volume, tale 137Research access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

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