Cryptids and credulity

 

Credit: Martin Walsh, "The Zanzibar Leopard" blog

"Cryptids and credulity: the Zanzibar leopard and other imaginary beings" is an article by Martin Walsh and Helle Goldman, published in "Anthropology and Cryptozoology: Exploring Encounters with Mysterious Creatures" (dated 2017). I haven´t read the entire volume, in fact, I didn´t even know that cryptozoology had attracted the interest of mainstream scholars. Walsh and Goldman are skeptics, and regard cryptozoology as a rather naïve pseudo-science, a quixotic quest for animals that aren´t merely undescribed, but above all *unrecognized* by science (i.e. they might not even exist). In the opinion of the authors, cryptozoologists cherry-pick factoids from a broader context which may be better understood anthropologically. If a cryptid fits hand and glove in, say, a context of belief in witchcraft or ghostly beings, chances are that we´re dealing with an imaginary being from folklore, rather than an undescribed flesh-and-blood animal. This is doubly true of alleged ETs and other beings that sound too fantastic to be true. 

"Cryptids and credulity" is really a longer version of another text by Walsh and Goldman, "Chasing imaginary leopards" (first published in 2012). The two authors have spent considerable time at Unguja (Zanzibar Island), the main island of the Zanzibar Archipelago off the East African coast. Zanzibar is controlled by Tanzania. Their mission was to investigate alleged sightings of the Zanzibar leopard, a very real subspecies of the leopard. During the 1990´s, Western NGOs and conservationists became interested in the plight of this big cat, which had been hunted and killed by the natives with the tacit support of the local and national governments. Walsh, Goldman and other researchers assumed that the Zanzibar leopard was still extant, and local informants (including hunters) readily shared their stories with the foreigners. However, further research strongly suggested that the leopard had been hunted to extinction or at the very least to extreme rarity. Yet, people at Unguja saw them all the time! Very often, they claimed that a substantial portion of the leopards were kept by witches...

It turns out that belief in "kept leopards" is part and parcel of a complex lore centered on the realities of witches and witchcraft. The witches are said to own the leopards and control them through supernatural means, for instance by offering them enchanted food. Some leopards belong to witches´ guilds, but most are individually owned. The leopards are seen coming and going into certain houses. Both the cats and their keepers can be countered by powerful curses, but the witches have developed counter-curses and defenses of various kinds. The witches use the leopards to terrorize the general population, in a worst case scenario by letting the cats attack and eat people who fell afoul of the witch. Needless to say, there is zero evidence that kept leopards exist. It´s interesting to note that leopard-like spirits also play a role in the local folklore, perhaps suggesting that the boundary between paranormal entities and flesh-and-blood animals isn´t entirely clear. 

To Walsh and Goldman, we are thus dealing with culturally constructed narratives about imaginary beings controlled by other imaginary beings. While the Zanzibar leopard is (or rather was) a real animal, it also played a prominent part in folklore, so prominent that the lore still exists, despite the original animal being extinct! My impression is that the association between the leopard and witchcraft was one reason why people hunted and killed them. If so, it´s richly ironic that the belief in the evil powers of the big cat has survived the beast itself. (It´s almost a bit magical, so to speak.) The authors believe that the incomprehension of native folklore is the main reason why both Western and Tanzanian researchers constantly take the stories of kept leopards at face value, and go on virtual "kept leopard chases", always without finding anything tangible. The cryptid only exist in the imagination of the credulous cryptozoologist. 

Link:

Cryptids and credulity

Chasing cryptids in Zanzibar

 

Credit: Peter Maas

"Chasing imaginary leopards: science, witchcraft and the politics of conservation in Zanzibar" is a short paper by Martin Walsh and Helle Goldman originally published in the "Journal of Eastern African Studies" (November 2012). It was reprinted in 2017 in an academic volume titled "Contemporary Issues in Swahili Ethnography", edited by Iain Walker. The two authors of the paper have a blog called "The Zanzibar Leopard".

Zanzibar is an archipelago off the coast of East Africa. The main island is called Unguja. Zanzibar, a former British colony, is presently part of Tanzania. The Zanzibar leopard (Panthera pardus adersi) was a local subspecies of the leopard. Although the leopards were protected by the British colonial authorities, the Zanzibari natives hunted them anyway, since these big cats killed livestock and occasionally humans. After the 1964 Zanzibar Revolution, eradication of the leopard became quasi-official policy, and when Western conservationists became interested in protecting the animal during the 1990´s, they were either extremely rare or already hunted to extinction. (It´s intriguing to note that scientists have only seen the Zanzibar leopard in the wild on two occasions, both during the early 1980´s.) Walsh and Goldman, who carried out research at Unguja, believe that the Zanzibar leopard is most probably extirpated. 

There is just one problem. The natives keep seeing them...

The fact that Ungujans claim to know the whereabouts of leopards, including specimens in captivity, have led Western outsiders to assume that perhaps there still is a viable population of big cats on the island. It´s also a widespread belief among trained researchers hailing from Unguja. A number of researchers have experienced what the authors call "kept leopard chases", ultimately futile attempts to locate supposedly tamed leopards owned by villagers. The presumed owners often demand large sums of money to show their specimens, but in the end, nothing ever comes out of it. Attempts to persuade the leopard-owners to build miniature zoos where they can display the cats have also come to naught. 

Walsh and Goldman believe they have identified the explanation: the persistent belief in the survival of the Zanzibar leopard is a superstition, closely connected to ideas about witches and witchcraft. According to local lore, there are two kinds of leopards: wild and kept. The kept leopards belong to witches, who breed them in secret and can use them to attack and otherwise terrorize the village population. If I understand the paper correctly, the islanders were also scared of wild leopards, since nobody could know for sure whether they really were wild, or belonged to a witch. Hunters who shot and killed the (real) leopards had to have "magical protection" before embarking on an expedition into the forest. So strong was the superstition that the local government of Abeid Karume wanted to eradicate both leopards and witches at the same time! The non-existence of kept leopards neatly explains why the search for them always turns into a wild goose chase...

But why would anyone believe that the kept leopard are real flesh-and-blood "cryptids"? I get the impression that Walsh and Goldman believe that many Western researchers in Tanzania "go native". This is particularly the case with those who learn the local language (Swahili). Indeed, the authors seem to think that "going native" and adopting various "occult" beliefs is a persistent problem in anthropology! Another problem could be postmodernism (not explicitly mentioned), since the authors are critical of the idea that so-called "indigenous knowledge" has anything important to contribute to conservation efforts. Is "indigenous knowledge" a code word for native superstition? Of course, to a postmodernist this is presumably not a problem (the elusive kept leopards of Zanzibar Island simply being another Narrative), but to a conservationist NGO working on a shoe-string budget, it just might be! 

I suppose cryptozoologists might be somewhat disappointed that Panthera pardus adersi has been extirpated, ironically by the same people who still fear the power of leopard-related witchcraft, but then, finding cryptids outside Indochinese wet-markets have always been pretty hard. 

Link:

Chasing imaginary leopards

A demonic entity

“The Entity” is a scary documentary about the phenomenon known as sleep paralysis. Or perhaps the phenomena thought to be caused by sleep paralysis! The traditional explanation is that demons are attacking people in their sleep. The legends about incubi, succubi, the Old Hag and similar malevolent creatures are based on these frightening nocturnal experiences. (In Sweden, the Entity is known as “mara”).

One woman interviewed has been under constant attack by the Entity since she was a child. A man interviewed wonders why his brother had the same experiences of nightly terrors while sleeping in the man´s bedroom, but not after moving out. Could the explanation be more than just sleep paralysis? Or is the paralysis induced by something objective in the environment? There is also an interview with a person who exhibits an extreme form of sleep walking and memory loss, making the whole episode look like demonic possession!

And speaking of possession, “The Entity” follows a Catholic exorcist who is convinced that the phenomenon is indeed of the Devil. In the commentary section on YouTube, many people claim that the nightly tremors can be made to seize by simply calling on the name of Jesus. On the island of Pemba close to Zanzibar, the locals (who are Muslim) protect themselves against a nocturnal demon-attacker by talismans inscribed with the name of Allah…

One scholar shown in the documentary is David Hufford, author of an anthropological survey of Old Hag traditions, “The Terror That Comes in the Night”. Hufford experienced demonic attacks (or whatever they are) as a young man, and was surprised to learn years later during a field trip to Newfoundland that the people there had traditions about similar experiences. Interestingly, Hufford doesn´t believe that sleep paralysis can account for all reported cases – the experiences are just too varied.

Not for the faint of heart, and hardly as fun as Halloween, but nevertheless relatively interesting. In fact, I was surprised that a documentary about this strange topic even existed!

The rise of the Congo cannibals

“The Fall of the Congo Arabs” is an interesting but also slightly bizarre book, written by Sidney Langford Hinde. The author was a British explorer, doctor and military officer. The book was first published in 1897. Several new editions exist.

Hinde served in the so-called Congo-Arab War (1892-1894), which pitted the Congo Free State, the private colony of Belgian king Leopold II, against Arab and Swahili slave-raiders. The latter were led by Tippu Tip and his son Sefu. Tippu Tip was a Muslim warlord based on Zanzibar who had carved out a major sphere of influence for himself in East Africa. When Tip extended his power to the eastern parts of the Congo, a clash with the European colonial interests became inevitable. The war ended in the victory of the Congo Free State Forces and the resultant expulsion of the Muslim slave-traders from the region. Tragically, the humanitarian aspects of the mission (such as they were) were quickly overshadowed by Leopold II's insatiable greed, as the Congo Free State became a virtual slave society in its own right, with millions of Blacks being killed by forced labor. This sad state of affairs lasted until 1908, when an international campaign forced Leopold to cede control of the colony to the Belgian government.

“The Fall of the Congo Arabs” is written in narrative form, and often reads like a travelogue or novel, rather than a “serious” study. Hinde describes the hellish conditions in eastern Congo in a matter-of-factly and sometimes almost lighthearted way. This gives the book an absurd touch. Hinde describes areas depopulated by constant slave-raiding, “silent” rain forests stripped of most higher animal life, caravans constantly ambushed by Arabs or Pygmies, and even boy soldiers serving in the author's own detachments. Above all, he describes the horrendous practice of cannibalism. Most native peoples in the war zone were cannibals. Hinde's attempts to curb the practice were pretty feeble and came to nothing. Indeed, one of the Free State's foremost allies, Gongo Lutete, was a cannibal of some standing, apart from being a former slave-raider in Tippu Tip's service who had switched sides for reasons of Realpolitik. It seems everyone (except maybe White colonialists) run the risk of being eaten: slaves, children, the sick, fallen Muslim enemies, even the dead and the wounded on “our” side. “They are going to die anyway, so why not eat them?” Hinde even reveals a number of culinary tips on how to make human flesh extra tender…

The question of cannibals was apparently a contentious issue already during the 19th century, which may explain why the original publisher included an appendix further discussing the issue. The conclusion reached is that the cannibalism in the eastern Congo wasn't the result of starvation conditions due to the constant wars (which, of course, is the explanation that most readily comes to mind), but a genuine cultural tradition. Apparently, some European explorers had encountered natives who had plenty of food, yet preferred to consume fellow humans. It's also interesting to note that accusations of cannibalism are still common in war-torn eastern Congo today, and that these accusations have been taken seriously by UN officials.

To sum up, “The Fall of the Congo Arabs” is an interesting and disturbing book about an almost forgotten part of African, Muslim and colonial history. Recommended. Just don't do anything foolish after reading it…

Send Maurice Brinton to Zanzibar

"As We Don't See It" is a pamphlet published by Solidarity, a libertarian socialist group in Britain whose heydays were the 1960's and the 1970's. The group is mostly known for its often intriguing pamphlets, such as "The Irrational in Politics" (think Wilhelm Reich) or translated works by Cornelius Castoriadis. "As We Don't See It" is a short summary of Solidarity's political positions, and includes their original platform, "As We See It".

Most of the pamphlet is libertarian socialism 101, but one thing stands out: the complete rejection of Third World struggles, as when the anonymous author waxes ironic about "Karume's anti-imperialist regime in Zanzibar", "Sekou Toure's Guinea" or "The People's Republic of Uzbekistan". Yeah, very funny, guys. Now, please go back and reread Lenin's works on imperialist economism and social-chauvinism, more carefully this time...

Oh, I forgot. The brave Anglo-Saxons of Solidarity don't study Vladimir Ilyich. Well, my mistake. :P