East African legendary creatures

creature from east African folklore

Popobawa, also Popo Bawa, is the name of an evil spirit or shetani, which is believed by residents of Zanzibar to have first appeared on the Tanzanian island of Pemba. In 1995, it was the focus of a major outbreak of mass hysteria or panic which spread from Pemba to Unguja, the main island of the Zanzibar Archipelago, and across to Dar es Salaam and other urban centres on the East African coast.

Ethiopian and Eritrean folklore

The dingonek is a creature said to have been seen near Lake Victoria in 1907 by big game hunter John Alfred Jordan and members of his hunting party, as recounted by fellow big-game hunter Edgar Beecher Bronson in his 1910 memoir In Closed Territory. This account was followed by an article published in 1913 in the East Africa Natural History Society by Charles William Hobley, in which he claims to have encountered further accounts of similarly described creatures. In 1918, an article published by ''MacLean's'' declared that the beast was a newly discovered animal species.

The agogwe is a purported small human-like biped reported in East Africa. It was reported to be tall with brown or russet hair.

thumb|A Makonde elephant shetani Shetani (the word is both singular and plural in English, the plural in Swahili is mashetani) are spirits of East African mythology and popular belief. Mostly malevolent, and found in many different forms and different types with different powers, shetani are a popular subject of carved artwork, especially by the Makonde people of Tanzania, Mozambique, and Kenya. Physically, shetani of various types appear as distorted human and animal figures.