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Overview
!Ko-g!nuing-tara is the wife displaced by a female hyena in this |Xam narrative. While companions gather edible larvae, the hyena mixes her darkened armpit perspiration into the food given to the wife. !Ko-g!nuing-tara notices the unpleasant smell and tells her younger sister to leave it for her alone, since the sister must care for her child. As she eats, her ornaments, cloak, petticoat and shoes loosen and fall away. She feels herself becoming a beast of prey, springs up and runs into reeds.
Her younger sister repeatedly brings the child to suck. The wife still speaks and recognises her family, but fears that her thinking and memory are failing. On a later visit she tells the sister not to keep coming, because she no longer feels that she knows. Meanwhile the hyena wears the abandoned ornaments and occupies her place at home. After the imposture is disclosed, Dawn’s-Heart and other people accompany the sister to the reeds with goats. The wife rushes towards a goat, allowing the party to catch her. The people treat her and remove her animal hair; she asks them to leave the tufts on her ears so that she can hear.
The main narrative’s note identifies the removed coat as hair through which she had become a lynx. The edition separately reproduces an extract from Bleek’s 1875 report that describes a different sequence: the wife is initially a beautiful woman associated with Lynx, becomes a lioness through poisoned food, is made a woman again, and finally becomes a meat-eating lynx because she can no longer eat the food used against her. That report also supplies a preceding child-recognition episode. Its fuller transformation sequence is kept distinct from the 1879 narrative printed beside it.
Origins & earliest records
Bleek and Lloyd, Specimens of Bushman Folklore (1911), III.—30, pp. 84–98. The heading credits |han#kass’o, April and May 1879, who heard the tale from his mother |xabbi-an and her mother #kammi. The edition separately appends an extract from Bleek’s Second Report (1875), p. 11.
Records & interpretation
Complete pp. 84–98 and notes read. Printed 1879 narrative and appended 1875 report are distinguished, especially beast-of-prey/lynx versus lioness/woman/lynx sequences. Hyena escapes injured, not killed; child-star identification in the report is explicitly tied to the occasion of inquiry.
In the literature
“the kaross also sat down.”
III.—30, !Ko-g!nuing-tara, Wife of the Dawn’s-Heart Star, Jupiter; complete pp.84–97 and all notes; full appended1875 report extract pp.96–98; brief main narrative excerpt p.87 · Bleek–Lloyd original English translation; Lucy C. Lloyd, editor
A wife consumes adulterated food while protecting her younger sister and child from it. Her ornaments and clothes loosen of themselves; she becomes a beast of prey and retreats into reeds. Her younger sister brings the child to nurse while her recognition gradually weakens. The household eventually recaptures her; the ending preserves hair tufts on her ears. The main text does not explicitly narrate a final return to ordinary human form, and its note calls the hair that of a lynx.
Selected bibliography
Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.
- 01
Specimens of Bushman Folklore
III.—30, complete pp. 84–98: main 1879 wife/hyena narrative with notes, then separately reproduced 1875 report extract, original report p. 11.
- 02
Specimens of Bushman Folklore — III.—30, !Ko-g!nuing-tara, Wife of the Dawn’s-Heart Star, Jupiter; complete pp.84–97 and all notes; full appended1875 report extract pp.96–98
London: George Allen & Company,1911; original bilingual edition. Complete selected English narrative/all notes and full embedded report quotation read; original84/87/93/97/98 pixels inspected.
Family, evolution & connections
Dawn’s-Heart’s wife and younger sister — the 1879 account
III.—30, the 1879 narrative and its explanatory notes, pp.84–97.
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- Two sisters (sibling grouping, not a parent)
- Her unnamed nursing child (sex unspecified)
- Her younger sister, the child’s maternal aunt
Explicit sister, wife, sister-in-law and mother designations in the printed account. The root groups siblings; it is not an unnamed parent. The child’s sex and paternal descent remain unspecified here. The appended 1875 report has different family details and is excluded. The hyena’s mistaken marriage is not kinship with the real wife. The younger sister’s OCR name is uncertain.
Dawn’s-Heart, Star Husband
The narrative calls her Dawn’s-Heart’s wife and identifies her younger sister as his sister-in-law. This is the 1879 account printed in III.—30, not a merged pedigree incorporating the appended 1875 report.
Her younger sister in the 1879 narrative
Her younger sister repeatedly carries the child to her for nursing. The sister has no independently verified spelling here; the OCR of her personal name is uncertain, so this record retains a role label.
Her nursing child in the 1879 narrative
The explanatory note on p.85 identifies the child as hers. The main account does not supply a child’s sex or establish the appended report’s daughter identity; those details are not imported into this family.
Located primary passages
Specific passages supporting details in this entry, grouped by their published witness.
Specimens of Bushman Folklore
London: George Allen & Company,1911; original bilingual edition. Complete selected English narrative/all notes and full embedded report quotation read; original84/87/93/97/98 pixels inspected.
- A wife consumes adulterated food while protecting her younger sister and child from it. Her ornaments and clothes loosen of themselves; she becomes a beast of prey and retreats into reeds. Her younger sister brings the child to nurse while her recognition gradually weakens. The household eventually recaptures her; the ending preserves hair tufts on her ears. The main text does not explicitly narrate a final return to ordinary human form, and its note calls the hair that of a lynx.
- Complete embedded1875 report extract gives a different outline: a star daughter identified at the inquiry as Regulus is swallowed and later released grown, then produces another star child. Other animals seek recognition as mother before the true mother is accepted; rejected animals retaliate. Wife is called Lynx, turned lioness, recovered as a woman and then becomes meat-eating lynx. Brothers aid recovery in that outline, unlike the main1879 husband/sister/people scene. This extract’s reported identities and transformations are kept source-specific; no independent1875 edition or entire earlier narrative read.
III.—30; complete embedded quotation of Second Report1875p11, as printed1911pp.96–98
No entire volume, original performance/manuscript archive or independent |Xam translation read. Embedded1875 outline distinguished from main1879 narrative; practical treatment/dance protocols omitted.
References
Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.
- Primary collected narrative and appended historical report extractOriginal 1911 edition: Wife of the Dawn’s-Heart Star, JupiterResearch access: 2026-10-05
Image credits
A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.
