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

Overview

Garawada gives her mother-in-law green figs while eating the ripe ones herself. The angered older woman, called a witch, makes forked branches close around her. Garawada remains trapped and gives birth in the tree. Her son falls to the ground, survives on wild ginger shoots and later brings fruit to sustain her.

A family-identifying pari taught by his mother accompanies his search for playmates. After misunderstanding and accidental injury, an uncle recognises the boy and brings men to release Garawada. The branches cannot be pulled apart, so they cut down the tree. As it falls she slips from its leaves, runs to the beach and becomes a gwagadogo, described as a crab living in a sand hole. She does not return; the uncle cares for her grieving son. The story does not give the ordinary boy a nonhuman species identity.

Magically bound in fig treeFamily-identifying songCrab transformation
01

Origins & earliest records

Annie Ker, Papuan Fairy Tales (London: Macmillan, 1910), The Jungle Boy, pp. 21–24. Individual narrator unnamed.

02

Records & interpretation

Complete selected tale read in digitized transcription; bodily and narrative claims limited to that witness.

In the literature

“there was turned into a gwagadogo”
Annie Ker, collector and English reteller; selected narrator unnamed · Papuan Fairy Tales
The Jungle Boy, final transformation paragraph

Garawada runs to the beach and becomes the sand-hole crab.

Selected bibliography

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

  1. 01

    Papuan Fairy Tales: The Jungle Boy, pp. 21–24

    Annie Ker, collector and English reteller · 1910

    Full selected narrative inspected.

  2. 02

    Papuan Fairy Tales — The Jungle Boy

    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

Garawada and her son — Ker’s The Jungle Boy

The explicit mother–son relationship in Annie Ker’s 1910 English-language telling.

Parentage stated directly in the narrative; the unnamed son is retained as a source-specific node. The boy’s uncle is explicit, but his maternal or paternal side is unstated and therefore omitted from this branching representation. Garawada’s witch mother-in-law is a marriage relative, not established as her biological mother. Crab transformation and ginger nourishment are not additional parentage.

Annie Ker, Papuan Fairy Tales (1910), The Jungle Boy
Documented · canonical kinship

Garawada’s unnamed son

Ker’s tale explicitly identifies the boy born while Garawada is trapped in the fig tree as her son. Her later crab transformation does not change the stated parentage; the tree and the ginger shoots that feed him are not parents.

Annie Ker, Papuan Fairy Tales (1910), The Jungle Boy
Documented · canonical kinship

Garawada’s unnamed witch mother-in-law

The woman who traps Garawada is explicitly her mother-in-law. No husband is named, and the account does not identify which side of the family supplies the boy’s later rescuing uncle.

Annie Ker, Papuan Fairy Tales (1910), The Jungle Boy

Located primary passages

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

Papuan Fairy Tales: The Jungle Boy, pp. 21–24

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. Garawada keeps ripe figs and gives green ones to her witch mother-in-law, who closes the tree’s fork around her and leaves. Garawada gives birth there; her child falls to the ground, survives on wild ginger and later gathers berries and fruit to sustain her. He learns an identifying family formula before seeking playmates.

    The Jungle Boy, fig quarrel, imprisonment, birth and growing child

  2. The child accidentally spears a playmate and frightens the others. An uncle captures him, learns he is Garawada’s son and brings men to cut down the imprisoning tree after its branches resist release. Garawada slips away, runs to the beach and becomes gwagadogo. The grieving boy is raised by his uncle and accepted by the children.

    The Jungle Boy, children’s game through recognition, failed release and ending

Identifying formula is neither quoted nor given as a ritual instruction. Wild ginger called dabedabe does not identify this child with the separate pig-born Dabedabe hero. Uncle relationship is explicit, but maternal versus paternal side unspecified. The boy remains a human child; Garawada never returns in this telling.

References

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

  1. Primary collected textKer 1910: The Jungle Boy, pp. 21–24Research 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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