Haukachi

Overview

Haukachi is a son of Geshe and Magajiya raised by Yerima. The account explains his right-leg lameness through a particular episode: he runs away from Yerima to play with six youths in Zakuwa’s cave. Zakuwa, identified in this account with Geshe and therefore his own father, sees him and bites the leg. Haukachi draws his sword and strikes the lion down. The passage does not describe a subsequent revival or prove that every account identifies Geshe with the lion.

The representation places cloths over both shoulders and binds the right thigh, then crosses each foot over the other three times. It repeats the leg actions before the drums and finishes by kneeling and striking the ground. The song encourages him to step out and says he can dance like those with sound legs and parents. His praise calls him Yerima’s heir, reflecting fosterage while the prose separately names his birth parents.

Origins & earliest records

A. J. N. Tremearne combines interviews and descriptions of bori performances with comparative interpretation. These selected notices do not consistently name individual speakers; printed attributes are distinguished from his conjectures.

Records & interpretation

Complete selected notice in chapter XXVI, printed pp. 372–373; full chapter read.

Selected bibliography

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

1. 01

   The Ban of the Bori: Demons and Demon-Dancing in West and North Africa

   A. J. N. Tremearne, collector and colonial-era interpreter · 1914

   Chapter XXVI, printed pp. 372–373; complete spirit notice, song and attributed relationships.

Family, evolution & connections

Haukachi’s explicitly named parents

Selected named notices in Tremearne’s 1914 historical Bori account, pp. 301–302, 306–307.

The mother notice names her only child; the Geshe notice independently calls him Haukachi’s father. Joint root groups two parents. Other children she nursed are not added as births. Yerima’s protective care does not make him another biological parent. This is source-specific religious genealogy, not biological descent or universal contemporary doctrine.

References

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

1. Digitized historical ethnographic accountTremearne — HaukachiResearch access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

Human representatives of Mai-Lema’s companions including Haukachi in photograph55, 1914

Photograph55 names Haukachi among the seated companions surrounding Mai-Lema, alongside Ba-Jin-Chiwu, Yaura, Sa’idi and Zanzammo. This is a group representation recorded in the source, not an isolated portrait of Haukachi’s supernatural body.