Hyenas are cunning sorcerers, deluding people in order to prey on them. They are evil spirits or demons because they possess more magic power than men. An important lesson in this story is that no father should marry his daughter to any man—no matter how well-mannered—whose origins are not known.

When the men and his daughters were ready to depart, the horned man gave them some goats to serve as food on their journey back. Quickly, the small group traveled all through the day and by sunset, having made good time, arrived in the foothills of the mysterious Dragon Mountains. There the men slaughtered the goats, which the girls offered to roast over a fire, but the men said they preferred their meat raw.

Suddenly, uncontrollably, the desire for meat overcame the two hyenamen. They could no longer resist the sight of all that fresh meat. They tore off their head-cloths, fell down on their hands, and walked on all fours to the meat—their heads turned downward, with the human faces pressed against their breasts, and their cannibal faces turned forward—the formidable jaws opened showing rows of sharp teeth. They were now hyenas, no longer men. They devoured the two goats in a few moments. With relish, they cracked the bones in their snouts—dripping with blood. The girls were terrified but knew they could not escape, for hyenamen can run much faster on four feet. From time to time they glared at the girls with smiling snouts, their hanging tongues watering in hungry expectation.

They forced the girls to accompany them while they traveled on during the night, the hyenamen’s luminous, green eyes could easily see the dark hill paths. At last, they arrived in the compound of the cannibal king. The girls were taken to a hut and its door was carefully tied shut behind them. Then their cheerful traveling companions went away, for just then there was a big hunt on. Silence filled the compound as the night wore on.

The girls sat there, huddled together, terrified at what might happen next. Their situation appeared absolutely and utterly hopeless. But after a while, they heard a banging noise coming slowly nearer: “Nooka! Nooka! Nooka!” Suddenly, the door of the hut came unfastened, and, to the girls’ surprise, there appeared an old woman at the entrance—a pathetic creature with only one leg, one arm, one ear, and one eye.

She peered at the girls with her only eye and said: “Poor creatures. Young flesh. You will not live long. You are lucky, the cannibals went out in the hills to hunt. I am the only one here, and I am human. Look what they did to me! They cut off a leg and an arm, to taste me, just to see if I was suitable for dinner.