Lurking in Liberia

 

Could an unknown (and gruesome) species of crocodile or monitor lizard be lurking in inland Liberia? Cryptozoology blogger Karl Shuker has some ideas about the problematique. 

The existence of this cryptid seems unlikely, but it´s interesting to note that the natives don´t consider the gbahali to be supernatural, but just another dangerous animal. My wild guess, offered from the wilds of my armchair, is that the man-eating beast is a misidentified Nile crocodile of extremely large size (a form that would itself be unknown to science). 

If a White man with a herpetology degree survives a gbahali attack while lurking in Liberia, we´ll finally know...

The Gruesome Gbahali: Lurking in Liberia?

Chimp colony

This short documentary was actually part of a promotion campaign for the science fiction film “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes”. Not sure why, since this material is real. Some of it is also rather scary!

The YouTube channel Motherboard takes us to Liberia, more exactly to a place known as “Monkey Island” where aggressive chimps show up in huge flocks, stopping people from going ashore. The locals at the mainland seems to believe that the chimpanzees have a taste for human flesh (or perhaps White human flesh) and generally avoid the place…unless paid around 80 dollars!

The reporter then reveals the truth about Monkey Island. It´s a place where a US-sponsored medical research facility “retired” chimpanzees infected by hepatitis during laboratory experiments. The Americans responsible for the operation stayed behind even when Liberia descended into a brutal civil war during the 1990´s.

Today, the facility is long gone, but some of the native care-takers still bring food to the stranded chimps, which are much less aggressive towards them than to the mainland locals. The contrast between how the chimpanzees approach the two groups of people is fascinating…

At least the people responsible for the research lab were just as helpful towards the human refugees during the uncivil war, as they were towards the apes. 

PS. Yes, I know, Pan troglodytes isn´t a "monkey". 

A Liberian mystery

A review I once posted on Amazon...

This is the flag of Grand Bassa County in Liberia. It was adopted in 1965, when Liberia's leader William Tubman awarded each Liberian county its own flag.

The dark blue stands for loyalty, while the four stripes symbolize the four men from Grand Bassa who signed the Liberian Declaration of Independence in 1847: John Day, Amos Herring, Anthony William Gardiner (a future president) and Ephraim Titler. It should be noted that an additional eight people also signed the declaration, six from Montserrado County and two from Sinoe County.

The national flag of Liberia also celebrates the signers, but weirdly only has eleven stripes! I don't know the solution to this mystery, but my best guess would be that the man who drafted the declaration, Hilary Teague, wasn't counted as a “signer” by those who designed the flag. However, his name does appear on the document itself…

With this little Liberian mystery, I leave you for today!

Very difficult reading

"Brothers and strangers" is a scholarly book about the often tricky relations between African-Americans and Liberia, a West African republic founded by freed Black American slaves.

The subject is interesting, but unfortunately this book is too detailed and super-scholarly, attempts to deal with a dozen different subjects all at once, and often looses the red thread.

If you want to write a dissertation on Marcus Garvey's or W.E.B. Du Bois' contacts with Liberia, you probably would have to sift through brother Sundiata's magnum opus. Personally, I consider this to be one of the most difficult scholarly books I've ever attempted to read. And I have an MA, for crying out loud!

Hopefully, more accessible books on Liberia and Liberia's impact on Black America exist. Still, I give the book three stars, since I'm in general agreement with much of the contents.