Nandi Bear
Of all the animal species native to the African continent, one family is notably absent: the Ursidae, or bears. Nevertheless, there may yet exist in Africa a creature which, if not of the bear family, at least answers to the description of a bear. Along the River Tana in east-central Kenya, there exists some animal called duba by the natives; Bernard Heuvelmans suggests that this word derives from one of two Arabic words: either dubb (bear) or dubbah (hyena). Most commonly, the predator is known simply as the Nandi Bear, after a Kenyan tribe.
Whatever the case, authors of the past have placed bears in Africa. The Greek author Herodotus, when reporting on the fauna of Libya, says there were pythons, lions, elephants, asps, horned asses (antelope?), and bears. Heuvelmans quotes this passage to illustrate that bears existed "even in the heart of Africa," although by Libya the Greeks referred only to North Africa; Kenya, for instance, would have been placed by the Greeks in �thiopia.
But Herodotus is not the only classical author to mention the bears of Africa. Pliny also reports that bears live in Africa, although he disputes these claims. More recently, Dr. O. Dapper wrote in 1668 that the Congo was inhabited by "squirrels with tails much larger than those in Europe, bears, wild cats, and very venomous vipers...".
Geoffrey Williams, who was a member of the Nandi Expedition in the early years of this century, recorded in the Journal of the East Africa and Uganda Natural History Society an encounter he had on the Uasin Gishu plateau.
...I was travelling with a cousin on the Uasingishu just after the Nandi expedition, and, of course, long before there was any settlement up there. We had been camped...near the Mataye and were marching towards the Sirgoit Rock when we saw the beast...I saw a large animal sitting up on its haunches no more than 30 yards away. Its attitude was just that of a bear at the 'Zoo' asking for buns, and I should say it must have been nearly 5 feet high...it dropped forward and shambled away towards the Sirgoit with what my cousin always describes as a sort of sideways canter...
I snatched my rifle and took a snapshot at it as it was disappearing among the rocks, and, though I missed it, it stopped and turned its head round to look at us...In size it was, I should say, larger than the bear that lives in the pit at the 'Zoo' and it was quite as heavily built. The fore quarters were very thickly furred, as were all four legs, but the hind quarters were comparatively speaking smooth or bare...the head was long and pointed and exactly like that of a bear ... I have not a very clear recollection of the ears beyond the fact that they were small, and the tail, if any, was very small and practically unnoticeable. The colour was dark...
Williams went on to describe traditions among other Kenyan tribes of the bear-like animal. He cited this belief in the area near the town of Kabras (about 30 miles south of Uasin Gishu), in the Kakumega country.
... [I] was twice warned by the people not to sleep with my tent door open for fear of the 'Shivuverre,' which they describe as a nocturnal beast something like a hyena only infinitely larger and very savage. I heard of a skin in Kabras and tried very hard to obtain it; but could not do so.
The Nandi say that they once killed one years ago owing to its having climbed upon the roof of a hut and broken through.
It killed the people inside the hut, but others burnt the place down with the animal inside. They say the reason it is never killed is because it is entirely nocturnal, it is very rare, and only attacks solitary people, who never return to tell the tale ...
I might add that the beast was not the least like either a baboon or an ant-bear [aardvark], of this I am quite certain.
Major Toulson, a military settler upon the Uasin Gishu plain, reported his sighting of the Nandi bear to British anthropologist C.W. Hobley. Hobley brought many of the surviving accounts of the beast to light. Toulson's encounter took place in 1912:
...one of my boys came into my room and said that a leopard was close to the kitchen. I rushed out at once and saw a strange beast making off: it appeared to have long hair behind and was rather low in front. I should say it stood about 18 in. to 20 in. ant the shoulder; it appeared to be black, with a gait similar to that of a bear--a kind of shuffling walk...
Another encounter was reported by N.E.F. Corbett, the District Commissioner of Eldoret. His report came in March, 1913.
I was having lunch by a wooded stream, the Sirgoi River, just below Toulson's farm...to my surprise I walked right into the beast. It was evidently drinking and was just below me, only a yard or so away...it shambled across the stream into the bush...[I] could not get a very good view, but am certain that it was a beast I have never seen before. Thick, reddish-brown hair, with a slight streak of white down the hindquarters, rather long from hock to foot, rather bigger than a hyena, with largish ears. I did not see the head properly; it did not seem to be a very heavily built animal.
Several reports come from the workers on the Magadi Railway, being built about the same time. Several tracks were found on the ground where the railroad was to be laid; a man named Schindler found a number of particularly clear tracks and drew sketches of them. They resemble those of some sort of dog, save for having five toes and a rather long heel. Schindler's tracks were approximately 8 1/2 inches long, from heel to toe.
On the morning of March 8, 1913, one of the workers had an encounter with the Nandi Bear. He was an engineer named Hickes, and his sighting took place about 9:00 in the morning.
It was almost on the line when I first saw it and at that time it had already seen me and was making off at a right-angle to the line... As I got closer to the animal I saw it was not a hyena. At first I saw it nearly broadside on: it then looked about as high as a lion. In colour it was tawny--about like a black-maned lion--with very shaggy long hair. It was short and thick-set in the body, with high withers, and had a short neck and stumpy nose. It did not turn to look at me, but loped off--running with its forelegs and with both hind legs rising at the same time. As I got alongside it, it was about forty or fifty yards away, and I noticed it was very broad across the rump, had very short ears, and had no tail that I could see. As its hind legs came out of the grass I noticed the legs were very shaggy right down to the feet, and that the feet seemed large... This strange beast was first mentioned to me by Mr. Clifford Hill, who, on the first survey of this railway, had a young Dutch boy with him who came across one on the Koora Plains (Mile 71)... A native servant of one of the engineers, Mr. Archibald, also reported that he saw this strange animal, which he says, stood on its hind legs and looked at him... The only other instance of its actually having been seen is reported by a sub-contractor, Mr. Caviggia, who saw one at Mile 38, and his description is very like mine.
Hobley went on to cite still more reports, this time of a weird creature reputed to inhabit the lands to the south.
There are also stories of another unknown beast from the lower and middle valley of the Tana River. Mr. Cumberbatch, the District Officer of that region, tells me that the German missionaries who have lived for many years at Ngao state that the Pokomo natives knew of a forest beast called the 'Koddoelo,' and is said to have been killed near Ngao some years back ...
The animal was described to the District Officer by a Pokomo...as being as large as a man, as sometimes going on four legs, sometimes on two, in general appearance like a huge baboon, and very fierce.
To drive home the point that the koddoelo was probably analogous with the Nandi Bear, he generalized the reports of the animal as follows:
Colour, reddish to yellow; length, about 6 feet; height, about 3 feet 6 inches at the withers; hair long, and all accounts agree on the point of a thick mane; tail short and very broad; claws very long; head, fairly long nose, teeth long but not so long as a lion; fore-legs said to be very thick...
The Assisstant District Commisioner on the Tana also sends a further account of the animal, based on recent inquiries, and it was described to him by Pokomo, who said they had seen it, and their account is as follows:- Light in colour, long hair on neck and back, usually goes on fore-legs but can go and hind-legs, not known to climb trees, rather smaller than a lion, tail about 18 inches long and some 4 inches broad, is nocturnal in its habits, fore-legs very thick; said to leave a track with one deep claw mark behind the marks of its four toes...They say it attacks a man on sight. One is said to have killed a rhino near Makere... One tried to raid a goat kraal last January...
Bernard Heuvelmans makes a special note of Hobley's statement that the Koddoelo had a fifth claw-mark behind the marks of its four toes. He conjectures that Hobley may have meant to say "beyond the marks of its four toes," meaning simply that claw-marks could be seen (as on Schindler's tracks), or that a fifth toe was sticking out of the foot sideways, similar to many types of ape footprints. He says that the Nandi tend to think of the animal as more like an ape, specifically a huge baboon.
He also states that the proper name usually cited for the animal, chemosit, could be a descriptive term rather than a nominative one. He cites as evidence the fact that a devil named Chemosit figures in the folklore of the area; thus, the natives may have meant to say that the animal was like Chemosit, which is to say demonic or fierce, rather like many cultures' custom of calling dangerous animals "devils".
Heuvelmans also goes on to describe the habits of this legendary devil. He says that one of the monster's habits is to lie on a low branch, and to swipe at passers-by, ripping open the head and devouring the brain. And more reports of the animal were yet to come.
In 1919, a farmer named Cara Buxton related the following story:
A short time ago a 'Gadett' visited the district. This name is given to the animal by the Lumbwa and signifies the 'brain-eater.'
Its first appearance was on my farm, where the sheep were missing. We finally found all ten, seven dead and three still alive. In no case were the bodies touched, but the brains were torn out.
During the next ten days fifty-seven goats and sheep were destroyed in the same way; of these thirteen were found alive... Finally it was tracked to a ravine and killed by the Lumbwa with their spears. It turned out to be a very large hyaena of the ordinary spotted variety. It had evidently turned brain-eater through some type of madness.
So the discussion of the many Nandi Bear reports is complete. But what is the Nandi Bear exactly? Heuvelmans mentions that the strangest fact about the Nandi Bear is not its appearance, but its supposed ferocity; even those animals notorious for attacking man will do so without provocation only extremely rarely. As A. Hyatt Verrill has noted, those that are man-eaters usually turn out to be old, weak, or otherwise limited in their hunting ability. However, Heuvelmans goes on to suggest that over-hunting by humans, disease, or encroachment on territory can make any animal into a man-eater.
Many reports, especially Buxton's, clearly argue for identification of the animal as a hyena, possibly an undiscovered species. The temperament of the animal seems to fit that of hyenas almost perfectly; bloodthirsty and savage, at times timid, and mainly nocturnal.
Alternately, the animal could just as easily be a freak specimen of a known type: extremely large and possibly rabid to boot. An identification as a hyena, I feel, is most likely.
However, other reports suggest still more explanations. Some cited by Heuvelmans seem to describe some type of animal related to the aardvark (Orycteropus), possibly a third species (two, O. capensis and O. aethiopicus, are already known). Still other reports, especially those of the African natives, seem to suggest a kinship with the ape family, specifically baboons.
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