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.

I hope you had a lovely Valentine’s day! Unfortunately, we don’t really have a particularly romantic monster this year, unlike the special that we had last year. This monster is definitely the opposite of romantic. 

DESCRIPTION:

This week we’re looking at another sex based demon for the loveliest time of the year - the Popobawa from East Africa, specifically Tanzania and Zanzibar.

Before I start, if you’re under 18, this episode is a bit explicit in parts. As much as this is an educational podcast, that I love doing for all ages -  I’m not down for exposing this kind of monster and their MO to kids without their guardians knowing, so if you’re happy for your kids to listen to this one, go ahead - but if not, turn it off now. I will also say that there’s a lot of mention of sexual assault with this monster, so if this is something you’d rather not listen to, I totally understand. 

The Popobawa is described as an evil spirit that is obsessed with raping as many people as possible - yep sorry, straight into the bad stuff I’m afraid. It’s described as a bat-like creature, with a singular cycloptic eye, wide wings and long claws, with a large set of sharp teeth. Very similar to a bat in most of its looks, bar the one eye really. It however does also have legs and a torso, but the feet are claw looking.

Although, this is just its original form - they are shapeshifters, able to transform into humans and animals - so of course, there’s not really much you can look out for. They roam in both day and night, however, are more likely to attack in the night - which is what most people fear. 

The Popobawa is a type of shetani, which is an evil spirit from Eastern African countries such as Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique. They mostly take on the shape of disfigured animals, and come in different categories. The Popobawa are considered exceptionally evil and are associated with the bat, but also dirt and sulphur. 

Before an attack, the victim will most likely smell something disgusting which is that sulphur I mentioned, and find that they have general poltergeist activity in their homes. However when everyone is asleep, they attack - it’s mostly a physical assault, but unfortunately, they are most known for their sodomy of victims, be that man, woman or child and may even attack every person in the family home before moving onto the next house. When I say next house, I literally mean the next house down the street too. It feeds on this stolen sexual energy, and most favours attacking men because they have the most potent of these energies.

If you are attacked by a Popobawa, you are advised to tell people about it - as knowledge of the creature in your neighbourhood actually puts them off. It also protects the victims from having repeated visits from the monster - however, of course, trying to convince people to talk about being sodomised is pretty difficult, so this monster does tend to attack in a rampage until someone spills the beans. Also if you deny that this monster exists, you are prompting it to target you - and enrage it, so it’s always advised that you acknowledge its potential involvement for these kinds of cases too.

Can you stop this monster from attacking? If it’s got to the point of attack, not really - however, you can prevent it by staying up all night around a lit fire with your community to reduce the amount of potential victims in a night or you can speak to a local shaman to bless the house, exorcise it, sacrifice livestock - or you can put charms around a fig tree.

This monster specifically hangs around the island of Pemba and Zanzibar, which are technically part of Tanzania - but are completely detached from the mainland. However, this monster has been reported in the mainland itself too, so it’s certainly not exempt from the spell of the Popobawa.

ORIGIN:

Now onto etymology, the word Popobawa is Swahili and comes from two root words, popo meaning bat and bawa meaning wing. So it literally translates into bat wing - the plural is actually Mapopobawa, but the ma is just how Swahili nouns are pluralised, so not much depth in here, in English it’s still Popobawas as expected.

In terms of history, this monster is actually pretty modern. The first sightings only go back to the 1960’s and the reason these sightings happen is pretty interesting. 

The most popular origin story is that in the 1970’s, an angry sheikh released a Jinn, or a genie, to get revenge on his neighbours - if you want more details, there’s an episode on them! The sheikh lost control of the monster, and it ended up becoming demonic and evolved into the Popobawa. However, this was actually made up by a non-native and considering that Zanzibar was an Arab-run slave market - it was most likely developed from the memory of horrific slavery, with people being taken from their homes by Brits, Arabs, Persians, Indians, Portuguese and Africans - who were the most prevalent slavers in this part of the world. 

In terms of sightings though, it seems that rampages of this monster always seem to occur during political discourse in the country, the first report in 1965 came during a revolution on the island of Pemba - then again in 1970, 1980, 1995, 2000 and 2007. These were all years of political cycles throughout the country, and it was even claimed that the monster was the vengeful ghost of President Abeid Karume, who was assassinated in 1972 by another party or that it was summoned by the Chama Cha Mapin duzi party - who started the revolutions. 

In 1997, a Popobawa apparently spoke to a village through a possessed girl - unfortunately I couldn’t find what she said, but she apparently spoke in a deep man’s voice, and many strange noises were heard in the distance.

The most horrific though was the incident in 1995, where it was in the eye of the storm for a mass hysteria incident, where the two islands of Pemba and Zanzibar were spreading fear of the monster in the mainland - so much so that the Popobawa got credit for a whole load of rapes and home invasions across the country. After this event, many criticised the idea of a monster causing this havoc, and stated that it may be a sleep paralysis event or they could have been attacked by western monsters such as the Incubus, Succubus or Night hags - all of which I’ve covered in other episodes. 

Of course, we can see the similarities with Succubus and Incubus within this monster - a sex energy stealing spirit. However, the intentions of this monster are clearly very different, whilst Succubus and Incubus deceive people to have sex with them consensually as they are usually disguised as loved ones, and do it to create half-demon babies; the Popobawa just does it for fun by the sounds of it - at least the others have some purpose I suppose.

It’s also an interesting idea that they could just be a sleep paralysis demon - the victims are asleep when the assaults happen, however, it would be strange if the entire house had the same dream right?!

CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE: 

Now onto modern media, there’s nothing I could specifically find on the Popobawa itself - however, I do have some sex-based demon recommendations, most of these are 18+ though bear in mind!

For art, I would recommend looking at independent artists this week, as I can’t seem to find anything official for this monster - and there are some really cool pieces representing the horror of this one.

In movies, we have; Siren, Conan the Barbarian, Jennifer’s Body, Grim Prairie Tales, Ghostbusters, The Archangel Murders, The Ninth Gate, The Haunted, Case 39, Demon Hunter, Soulkeeper, VHS, Def by Temptation and Tomie

For TV, we have; Lost Girl, The Gates, South Park, Darkstalkers, The Life and Times of Juniper Lee, Being Human, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Hex, Reaper, The Secret Saturdays,  Masters of Horror, Charmed, The Dresden Files, Star Trek, Torchwood, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, Twin Peaks, Dragon’s Dogma and X-Files

In video games, we have ones such as; Devil May Cry, World of Warcraft, Diablo, Divinity Original Sin 2, Succubus in Wonderland, Warrior Kings, Overlord, Succubus, Planescape Torment, Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance, Castlevania, Catherine, The Witcher, City of Heroes, Darkstalkers, Dragon Age, Final Fantasy, Mass Effect, The Last Sovereign and Elder Scrolls.

My book recommendation this week is Demon Lovers: Witchcraft, Sex, and the Crisis of Belief by Walter Stephens for a really in depth scholarly approach to the subject or have a look at Popobawa: Tanzanian Talk, Global Misreadings by Katrina Daly Thompson for a really in depth look at this monster specifically. 

DO I THINK THEY EXISTED? 

Now it’s time for, do I think they existed?

You know what, and this is a wild card for me - but I don’t know for this one. I think following all of these reports, it’s definitely difficult to say no fully, however, of course there is a rule that it’ll more likely attack you if you don’t believe in it and I’m not sure I want to wish that upon myself. 

I think it’s a really interesting idea that a monster can be almost deemed political, even though it physically has no impact on politics - it certainly makes it quite unique from my perspective. I do also think that it’s plausible for the psyche to take over, much like in these mass hysteria events involving it - if you’re looking out for something like this, you can totally end up seeing it in everything. I do that in the dark, and end up psyching myself out and seeing things that I know aren’t there, but my brain puts them there by overthinking - humans and brains are weird right? 

But what do you think? Does the Popobawa roam the Tanzanian islands? Let me know on Twitter!

OUTRO: 

A really different monster this week, and from a culture that we don’t really cover very much, and it’s slightly related to the holiday that’s literally just gone - so we’ll take what we can at this point. 

Next week, we’re heading over to the east, specifically Japan to look at a cute idea, but horrible execution - it’s the ghostly possessor, the Inugami. Make sure you’re ready to bark like a dog next Thursday!

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, Buymeacoffee 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.