Stories of ‘white’, that is ‘good’ witches, and ‘black’ witches abound in the history of Zanzibar and the neighbouring island of Pemba. The locals believed that they would be sent out on malevolent errands under cover of darkness. The belief was that the animals were captured and then used by these ‘leopard-keeper’ witches against their victims. They purportedly strengthened the witch’s powers. Meanwhile, it appears that leopards had a very bad reputation as agents of bad witches. You could hunt pigs as they were vermin, but not leopards. In colonial times, until 1963, the Zanzibar leopard was protected and could only be shot with a permit. The Island’s leopard was smaller in size and its spots had evolved to be smaller and more widespread. Isolation let to a sharp decrease in genetic diversity and certain traits were lost while others were emphasised. Due to its small population it has suffered from what scientist, Ernst Mayr, called the ‘founder effect’. The Zanzibar leopard is regarded as a regional sub-specie of the mainland leopard, separated as the seas rose at the end of the last glacial age, about twenty thousand years ago. Kisutu means a cloth used during a wedding – which might have some connection to the fate of leopards in the past. The Zanzibar leopard is known as ‘Chui Konge’ and ‘Chui Kisutu’. Maybe this word sounds like the animal’s cough. In the Kiswahili language, a leopard is ‘Chui’. Nowadays tourists flock there to see the delightful endemic Red Colobus monkeys. But of the secretive leopards, there was only talk. My mother loved orchids and we drove through the forest in the back of an open jeep looking for them.
I visited Jozani Forest with my parents and remember the huge trees hanging with lianas and orchids. The remnant thick wetland reserve was called Jozani Forest and it was there that the endangered leopard made a last stand. It is tucked into the waist of Africa, south of the equator and right in the path of the great Indian Ocean monsoons. Zanzibar is a small island, off the eastern coast of Africa, measuring approximately 85 kms by 38 wide. When I lived in Zanzibar in the 1960s, I was told that leopards were still found in the island’s heartland. He tracked down those residents quoted in the tabloid to document the story of a hairy man like creature lurking around Elkhorn.īeast of Bray Road werewolf dogman dogmen werewolves Wisconsin Wisconsin werewolf In a segment called “ The Beast of Bray Road” Reporter Art Hackett set out to confirm the sightings of a “ Wolfman” in Walworth County. Photo Credit: In April of 1992 a national tabloid had a mystery out of Wisconsin splashed across its headlines. This is turn brings me to the realization that somewhere there is a Hollywood producer utterly bereft of ideas (more than one, probably), sitting there working on 300 Part 2: 600!, or a gritty, angsty remake of My Mother the Car, when instead she could be pushing a rollerskate wearing disco werewolf project. Incidentally, the name “Beast of Bray Road” makes me think, for some reason, of the Bay City Rollers, which brings to mind an image of rollerskate wearing disco werewolves.
One witness saw a wolf creature with muscular arms, “jointed like a man’s,” holding food with its palms turned upward. That seems unoriginal at first, but how many cryptid stories have the guts to just go right to “werewolf”? In truth, some of the reports from the 1980s suggest more of a Bigfoot type creature, or even just a crazed bear, but some describe a giant, upright, seemingly intelligent wolf creature. The Beast of Bray Road sounds very badass. Nothing about Wisconsin strikes terror into my heart, but apparently they have a beast. It’s from Wisconsin, which just seems weird. This cryptid gets a spot on the list for a few reasons: 1).
0 kommentar(er)
