INTRO:
Hello and welcome to Myth Monsters, my name is Erin and I’ll be your host for these little snack bite size podcasts on folklore and mythical monsters from around the world.
These podcasts focus on the actual cryptids, folklore and mythic monsters from global mythology, rather than focusing on full stories of heroes and their big adventures.
I’ll also be dropping in some references that they have to recent culture and where you can see these represented in modern day content so you can learn more, and get as obsessed as I am about these absolute legends of the mythological world.
We’re looking at the cryptids again this week, which you all know I love, and we’re also heading back to Africa, which we’ve not done for a while too!
DESCRIPTION:
Yes, this week we’re looking at the wonderful legend of the Congo, the Mokele Mbembe. If you’ve not heard of this monster, where have you been?! It’s one of our big cryptids and is probably the biggest and most popular African cryptid.
The Mokele Mbembe is described as an elephant-sized water beast that is said to be a long-necked, long-tailed, herbivorous creature that lurks in deep swamps and lakes in the Congo river. It is particularly associated with the Likouala region and Lake Tele, but is also reported from a number of other bodies of water - apparently it lives in the caves that have been washed out by the river in the clay during the evening.
Before we get into the monster, let’s talk about its environment, because I had no idea about anything to do with the Congo before I researched this one. It’s the second longest river in Africa, and the world’s deepest river at 720ft deep - which in comparison to Loch Ness for example, which is the UK’s deepest body of water, is 750ft deep - is not far off! You would think that maybe the Congo is deeper, but alas no - Loch Ness is pretty crazy deep. The Congo runs through the Republic of Congo, obviously, Angola, Zambia, Cameroon and Tanzania, so you can imagine how many different nationalities might have seen this monster.
Now Mokele Mbembe is said to be of a brownish-grey colour with a smooth skin and has a long neck and tail like an alligator, and only one tooth - however, it’s very long and looks like a horn in some cases. It looks very similar to a sauropod, which was a four-legged, long-necked dinosaur back in the day - but I guess that’s more suited to our origin a bit later on.
It’s said that although it’s incredibly rare to see, it’s also incredibly violent and aggressive to any boats or ships that came across it, however, it would never eat the humans on board - it would just kill them as they are herbivores and they only hunt for food in the daytime. It is usually reported alone or in male-female pairs, although at least two claimed sightings of a mother and a single calf have been recorded, so we do know that they are apparently mating and there is more than one, therefore is a cryptid species.
It’s said that it’s really similar to the Loch Ness monster because of its links to being a lake dinosaur similar to Nessie itself, but it’s also linked to elephants, rhinos, hippos and even crocodiles - making it one of the major threats to Africans around this area.
I think though in summary, a German explorer back in 1938 explained the monster the best;
The belief in a gigantic water-animal described as a reptile with a long thin neck, exists among the natives throughout the Southern Cameroons, wherever they form part of the Congo basin and also to the west of this area, doubtless wherever the great rivers are broad and deep and are flanked by virgin forest. This belief seems to be widespread throughout the Congo Basin. The monster is herbivorous and mainly feeds on the luxuriant aquatic vegetation of this region: to do this it does not come out of the water until after sunset. Its preferred habitat is in places where, as a result of the force of the current, deep and peaceful creeks have formed. These are the features common to all indigenous stories of this kind.
ORIGIN:
Now let’s move onto etymology - Mokele Mbembe is a Lingala word, which is the spoken language of the Congo, which means ‘one who stops the flow of rivers’. I imagine this is because of the beast’s large size that it could possibly stop rivers if it turned sideways slightly, much like that ship that got stuck in the Suez Canal a few years back. It does have some other names however, such as n'yamala, jago-nini, badigui, kikuru, zuje, nsanga, mbilintu or most often emela-ntouka. These are all different language names for the same kind of monsters, however, the emela-ntouka was definitely one in and of itself, as well as the nsanga - which was believed to be more of a crocodile. Both of these we’ll cover in other episodes, but sometimes they were used for the Mokele Mbembe too.
The first written description of the Mokele Mbembe was in 1909, and was mentioned in a book called Beasts and Men, by an infamous game hunter Carl Hagenbeck. He said that when the locals told him to go looking for this, they described the monsters as ‘half-elephant and half-dragon’. However, Hagenback described the monster himself in the book, saying that ‘it can only be some kind of dinosaur, seemingly akin to the Brontosaurus.’
This was followed by a German officer in 1913 called Ludwig Freiherr von Stein zu Lausnitz who went out to the Congo to lead an expedition, and sent through his observations to a famous German writer, Wilhelm Bölsche, who was then writing a book on dragons called Drachen: Sage und Naturwissenschaft or translated into English by Willy Ley, The Dodo, The Lungfish and the Unicorn in 1948. This described the Mokele Mbembe as the smooth skinned, long necked monster we know today and was the wide-spread inspiration for where this monster came from after word of mouth.
There were a couple more sightings between the 1910’s and the 1980’s with a few especially during the 1930’s with an anonymous Belgian traveller (I think it was Poirot personally) saying;
"It exceeds the tallest trees, the body is like that of a formidable ox, with a large tail; its neck is immense and ends in a rather small head on which it has a large crest like a coxcomb; it dwells in the swamps and swims at a very great speed" ... In Kasai, I even heard of a native chief who jealously guarded the tail of a brontosaur.
That actually leads us on really nicely to the Saurian idea of the Mokele Mbembe. There have been tales throughout the 1900’s that there were still saurian dinosaurs living out their days in the forests of Africa - completely away from society and hidden from human sight. Saurians are described as large, smooth skinned, four legged dinosaurs that have long necks - much like a Brontosaurus for example. However, they are not known for their swimming either way - but it is truly believed that there were dinosaurs living in these parts of Africa until quite recently.
There’s even a Marvel universe where they meet an X-Men villain called Sauron, much like the LOTR character yes, but he’s literally a full on dinosaur with hypnosis and flight powers - and that’s some random place in the African rainforest too, but I digress. But reports of this were an actual media sensation in the early 1910’s across Europe and America, and at the time, dinosaurs were really popular, with the Brontosaurus being the top dog in the public view - the discovery works with the large amount of dino propaganda at this time in other places in the world.
However, after this first load of sightings in the early 1900’s, interest in this creature picked up again in the early 2000’s with a BBC show doing a whole programme on it called ‘Congo’ in 2001. They worked with locals to try and figure out the Mokele Mbembe, and they just identified it as a Rhino, however Rhinos had not been in that area for years - so the conclusion was that it was a mix of myth and memory playing here.
Then in 2016, another documentary crew went out and spent 4 weeks out in the swamps to collect stories, with actually 50% of the people believing that the monster died centuries ago, but definitely existed. In 2018, another group went out with a DNA scientist from Denmark, but they didn’t find any Mokele Mbembes, they just discovered a new type of algae which is still pretty cool if you ask me.
In terms of real life comparisons, other than the list of real life monsters of Africa that I’ve listed previously, the most reasonable and agreed upon explanation is that the mokele-mbembe is a legend based on the black rhinoceros, a no-extinct species which was native to central Africa, where the stories of the mokele-mbembe came from. No sauropods have ever been found though, and sightings have been rare - so it’s tricky to even put this monster up against others.
CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE:
Now onto modern media, there’s very little because of the nature of this monster - it’s certainly not as modern-media heavy as our other sea monsters of the ilk such as Nessie, just as it doesn’t have as much airtime in a western space.
For art, as this is a cryptid, I would recommend looking up the independent art for this one, as you’ll struggle with any official art of them so to say. I found my one after a little bit of digging, but it could realistically be any dinosaur painting.
In movies, we have a few like; Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend, The Dinosaur Project, Godzilla: King of Monsters and the Explorer.
For TV, we have; The Secret Saturdays, Congo, MonsterQuest: The Last Dinosaur and The Secret Files of the Spy Dog.
In video games, we have ones such as; Senran Kagura, Shin Megami Tensei & Steppenwolf: The X Creatures Project.
My book recommendation this week I would really recommend one of two books. Firstly for specifically Mokele-Mbembe stuff, I would really recommend Mokele-Mbembe: Mystery Beast of the Congo Basin by William J Gibbons, or if you’re after cryptids unspecifically, Tales of the Cryptids: Mysterious Creatures That May or May Not Exist by Kelly Milner Halls for some really good cryptid coverage, by a very renown cryptid author too.
DO I THINK THEY EXISTED?
Now it’s time for, do I think they existed?
I am going to say that I’m most likely going to go with my same response as to what I did with Nessie, because we know that the Congo could definitely hold this beasty because Loch Ness holds Nessie - but it has a much longer journey to travel through about 5 different countries.
However, what we can look at is the differences between the two - some say that Nessie was a plesiosaur, which are aquatic based dinos, that are designed to swim within large bodies of water, with flippers and fins to match. But the Mokele Mbembe was thought to be a sauropod, which is basically just a Brontosaurus type dino, which had no swimming skills other than being able to hold their head very highly above water.
Considering the water in the Congo has currents up to 30mph in speeds, you would need to be either a pretty big dinosaur, or a water based one in order to survive here in this environment. So I’m really not sure on this one. I’m probably going to have to say no, but I am basing this on my very limited knowledge of dinosaurs and water safety.
I also just think that we’d probably know if a bunch of dinosaurs that big were still hiding out in the river Congo - I feel like it would be something that would be noticed by now at least. Especially if they’re vegetarians, they need to eat plants that grow on the ground too - and if they’re sauropods, then they can also go on land, so who knows!
But what do you think? Did the Mokele-Mbembe roam the waters of the Congo? Let me know on Twitter!
OUTRO:
What a monster, I love me a seabeast! I actually watched the new Netflix film, the Sea Beast this weekend, and I do highly recommend it for a swash-buckling sea monster movie with Karl Urban in the lead role too, so can’t complain with that at all.
Next week, we’re heading over to China and we’re looking at possibly one of the closest we’ve come to a God on this podcast - but it's one that’s all over modern media in various ways. Yes, next week, we’re looking at the legendary Monkey King, Wukong - grab your staff and come drifting in on the wind next Thursday!
A quick reminder that next week will be the last episode before my two week break - and after this, I’ll be off til the 6th October so don’t be surprised when no episodes come out!
For now, thank you so much for listening, it’s been an absolute pleasure. If you enjoyed this podcast, please give it a rating on the service you’re listening on - I’ve got the twitter for any questions, or suggestions on what monsters to cover next and I’d love to hear from you. The social media handles for Tiktok, Youtube and Instagram are mythmonsterspodcast, and twitter is mythmonsterspod. But all of our content can be found at mythmonsters.co.uk - you can also find us on Goodpods and Patreon if you want to help me fund the podcast too.
Come join the fun though and share this with your pals, they might love me as much as you do.
But for now, stay spooky and I’ll see you later babes.