Ya Biyu and Kuwara

Overview

Ya Biyu and Kuwara are named as twin sister and brother, children of Yerima by a concubine. They enter the ring together and Kuwara’s song is sung for both. Ya Biyu is explicitly able to fight, with an announcement that she equals ten. The account attributes illness to the pair, but the shared notice and joint performance are retained as one attested sibling profile rather than counted as a large imaginary population.

The song connects the night with inability to sleep and asks women to spin because the spirit cannot dance without cloths. It calls Kuwara a twin and compares him with water in which cotton has soaked, then asks that the speaker’s own bori be preserved. These are the source’s particular textile and relational images. No separate birth miracle or physical doubling is described, so the ordinary fact of twins is not itself presented as the supernatural power.

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. 371; complete 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. 371; complete spirit notice and ritual representation.

Family, evolution & connections

Six children in one Yerima youth account

The second account on p366, with individual notices through p371; not a consensus Bori family.

Attributed six-child list, corroborating Mai-Lema song and explicit twin notice. Ba-Jin-Chiwu alternatively has Sarikin Rafi as father. Geshe is explicitly Kaura’s foster-father. The first account’s different four-child placement list is not merged here; its wording does not independently establish all birth parents. Mothers are generally unstated except the twins’ unnamed concubine mother.

References

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

1. Digitized historical ethnographic accountTremearne — Ya Biyu and KuwaraResearch access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

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