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

Overview

The young men initially travel as escorts for Kooma and her companions. At the bog they send the girls ahead, remove their clothes and smear their bodies with mud. They then overtake the maidens and threaten to eat them. Kooma repeatedly hands over oxen; the men eat each animal until only one is left. The narrative calls the attackers Mahelethumas, while the collector tentatively compares them to werewolves.

Kooma’s rolling pot hides the girls and surviving ox in a bush. The attackers search unsuccessfully, return to the bog and wash at a brook. At home they claim to have escorted the chief’s daughter successfully, and her father thanks them. Their threatening identity is therefore concealed from that household. The tale’s final sentence reports that all the original escorts were killed; it supplies no account of the killers or circumstances.

The directly described change is removal of clothes and mud coating, followed by the new name and human-eating threats. No wolf anatomy or explicit animal-body metamorphosis is shown. The untranslated address within Kooma’s response is also identified as unclear by Jacottet; it is not treated here as the name of an additional evidenced being.

Mud-coated bodiesThreaten to eat maidensConsume successive oxenWash before false reportUnspecified later killing
01

Origins & earliest records

Jacottet’s complete bilingual XXXV supplies this episode. The narrator is not individually identified in the inspected tale. Notes explicitly acknowledge uncertainties in the attackers’ classification and Kooma’s pot transformation.

02

Records & interpretation

XXXV, Kooma, complete bilingual pp. 238–247; English pp. 238, 240, 242, 244, 246. Mud-smeared escort and food horn p. 240; pot/body inconsistency p. 242 note; final family visit, marriages and escorts’ deaths p. 246.

Selected bibliography

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

  1. 01

    The Treasury of Ba-suto Lore, vol. I

    Édouard Jacottet, collector and translator; J. C. Smith, English text assistance · 1908

    XXXV, Kooma, complete bilingual pp. 238–247; English pp. 238, 240, 242, 244, 246. Mud-smeared escort and food horn p. 240; pot/body inconsistency p. 242 note; final family visit, marriages and escorts’ deaths p. 246.

  2. 02

    The Treasury of Ba-suto Lore, volume I

    Unnamed Sesotho narrative contributor; Édouard Jacottet, editor and translator; J. C. Smith, English text correction · 1908

    The Treasury of Ba-suto Lore, volume I, Morija: Sesuto Book Depot; London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., 1908, actual title-page OCR. Preface and introduction xxii previously independently read. Complete selected XXXV, Kooma, complete bilingual pp.238–247; mud episode and classification note p.240; final outcome p.246 independently read with explanatory notes; facing Sesotho placement inspected, not independently translated.

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.

Located primary passages

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

The Treasury of Ba-suto Lore, vol. I

The Treasury of Ba-suto Lore, volume I, Morija: Sesuto Book Depot; London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., 1908, actual title-page OCR. Preface and introduction xxii previously independently read. Complete selected XXXV, Kooma, complete bilingual pp.238–247; mud episode and classification note p.240; final outcome p.246 independently read with explanatory notes; facing Sesotho placement inspected, not independently translated.

  1. Mud-smeared male escorts threaten to eat the women, consume offered cattle and conceal their conduct.

    XXXV, Kooma, complete bilingual pp.238–247; mud episode and classification note p.240; final outcome p.246

Werewolf is the editor’s tentative comparative classification, not a narrated wolf transformation. Threatened cannibalism is distinguished from the actual eating of cattle. No reason, execution procedure or named killer supplied by the ending. Specific narrator not inferred from the volume-level list; J. C. Smith English correction credited.

References

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

  1. Collected Se-Suto text with English translation and notesJacottet — complete selected bilingual taleResearch 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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