A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.
Overview
The boar seizes and eats villagers until they flee by canoe, leaving one woman behind. She hides in a burrow and gathers food at night. Her son grows up there and builds a chain of raised platforms stocked with spears to confront the beast. When he provokes it from its den, ordinary spears fall away like dead leaves. It follows his shadow, tearing up the ground as he jumps between platforms.
Two larger named spears, guarded by his mother, finally pierce and kill it. The son sends its bristles on a raft instructed to approach mourners and avoid others. Former villagers recognize the bristles, investigate, and return when they see the smoked flesh; the slayer becomes their chief. The boar’s menace, resistance and shadow-tracking are explicit, but the story supplies no numerical size or extra tusks.
Origins & earliest records
Annie Ker, Papuan Fairy Tales (London: Macmillan, 1910), The Boar Slayer, pp. 121–126.
Records & interpretation
Ker’s English collected narrative; the described powers belong to this selected account.
In the literature
“tracking him by the shadow”
The Boar Slayer, printed p.123
The pursuing boar follows the boy’s shadow beside the platform.
Selected bibliography
Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.
- 01
Papuan Fairy Tales: The Boar Slayer, pp. 121–126
Historical collected narrative; no individual narrator supplied in this chapter.
- 02
Papuan Fairy Tales — The Boar Slayer
London:Macmillan1910, title page and table of contents inspected in Wikisource scan-backed transcription. Introduction describes northeast-coast collection, mission residence, oral settings, tobacco exchanges and consultation of elders; individual narrators unnamed in these selected chapters.
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.
Papuan Fairy Tales: The Boar Slayer, pp. 121–126
London:Macmillan1910, title page and table of contents inspected in Wikisource scan-backed transcription. Introduction describes northeast-coast collection, mission residence, oral settings, tobacco exchanges and consultation of elders; individual narrators unnamed in these selected chapters.
- A woman left behind when villagers flee a man-eating boar survives in a burrow and secretly raises her son. He prepares platforms and bundles of ordinary spears; his mother guards two great named spears, Karaganigani and Karakatekate. Ordinary missiles fail, and the boar follows the boy’s shadow. His mother hands over the great spears: the first wounds it and the second kills it.
- The son smokes the carcass and sends a raft bearing bristles toward the dispersed people. It avoids people who do not mourn but lands for a mourner. Five emissaries identify the bristles and return with proof of the slaughter. The villagers return, eat the boar’s flesh and make the youth chief.
The Boar Slayer, printed pp.124–126, bristle raft and return
Tracking a visible shadow is not explicitly a magical shadow-seizure power. The mother’s essential aid is retained alongside her son’s feat. The raft’s discriminatory arrival is a narrative marvel, not ordinary navigation. The communal return is the complete episode’s outcome, not an assumed endless monster menace.
References
Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.
- Primary collected narrativeKer 1910: The Boar SlayerResearch access: 2026-10-05
Image credits
A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.