Each time, the horned father would expel the prospective sons-in-law in a rage, so that in the end there were no more young men coming to propose marriage to his two daughters. No human men, that is.

One day, two young gentlemen, who had long scarves tied around their heads, came to speak with the horned man. Now this is most unusual attire for men in southern Africa. But the real purpose was to hide their hairy second faces, for each one had two faces. Each face had eyes, one pair looking in front, the other pair looking backward; they had two mouths, one in front for talking to human beings, one at the back, for eating them. It was this last feature, the man-eating mouth, which they wished to hide, because their hyenalike teeth, fit for crushing human bones, would certainly arouse suspicion.

These two man-eating gentlemen behaved with perfect courtesy, so that their horned host not only felt no suspicion, he found them more polite than any of the previous suitors. They saw the horns but made no comments and kept their faces straight. Of course, their own malformation was much more serious but perhaps more useful, considering their craving for human flesh. Feminine flesh in particular.

The old woman was a pitiful creature: one arm, one leg, one eye, one ear. "To taste me," she told the frightened girls.

They told the father that their king had sent them to negotiate the acquisition of two young wives. As brideprice they had brought long knives and shining spear blades. They even offered to use their ironware to buy cattle if he preferred, but the horned man gladly accepted their well-forged blades in exchange for his daughters. At no time did he suspect that he was offering his daughters for the king’s supper.

Here the horned man has acted foolishly. One of a Bantu father’s major duties is to arrange the marriage of his daughters. Failing to do so stigmatizes him as a bad father. Horns are signs of a fool’s nature, the nature of a goat who stays with men until they slaughter it. The so-called gentlemen are in “reality” the spirits of hyenas. They “normally” hold their necks stretched out in such a way that their animal mouths point upward when they walk on their hind legs like human beings. These dangerous snouts are wrapped up in cloth. On their throats they have a “talking mouth” and a nose, cheeks, eyes, and eyebrows like human beings. The hyena is associated with witchcraft and a double life, half human, half predatory.