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

Overview

A learned man traveling to Mecca meets a speaking female hyena when his thin mare is exhausted. She offers to eat the mare, strengthen herself and carry him instead. After repeated assurances he agrees. She tears up the mare, takes its flesh home and eats with her cubs, then refuses to return. The traveler waits until a jackal learns what happened and undertakes to recover the promised mount.

The jackal draws her out with a supposed fat dead cow, presenting a piece of meat and scattering horse equipment along the route. She offers to carry him to hurry the journey; he gradually equips her with saddle-cloth and bit and puts spurs on himself. When she tries to avoid the traveler, he turns the bit and spurs her back to him. The pilgrim mounts and reaches Mecca without dismounting.

At the mosque he entrusts the hyena to boys and repeats the jackal’s warning not to mount her or lead her to the stream. They disregard it, ride beyond the town and gallop. She carries them into the bush, throws them and goes her own way. The man returns from prayer to find both boys and hyena missing. Her final escape completes a story in which fluent promises coexist with predatory self-interest; no bodily transformation is narrated.

Speaking female hyenaFeeds cubs with stolen mareLured by promised cowEquipped as riding animalCarries pilgrim to MeccaThrows disobedient riders
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Origins & earliest records

Malam Shaihu supplies the written Hausa material translated and transliterated by R. Sutherland Rattray. The compiler’s Author’s Note describes a mixed written and Arabic-manuscript mediation process; this tale is not labeled a verbatim oral field transcription by a separately named narrator.

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Records & interpretation

Hausa Folk-Lore, Customs, Proverbs, etc., Volume I (1913), tale 9, complete pp. 186–198; compiler methodology p. xii.

Selected bibliography

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

  1. 01

    Hausa Folk-Lore, Customs, Proverbs, etc., Volume I

    Malam Shaihu, manuscript contributor; R. Sutherland Rattray, transliterator and translator · 1913

    Hausa Folk-Lore, Customs, Proverbs, etc., Volume I (1913), tale 9, complete pp. 186–198; compiler methodology p. xii.

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.

References

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

  1. Bilingual manuscript tale; digitized primary OCRShaihu/Rattray 1913 — Pilgrim-Carrying Hyena of Shaihu’s TaleResearch access: 2026-10-05
  2. Compiler methodologyAuthor’s NoteResearch 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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