POPOBAWA

Malevolent bat

The Popobawa, sometimes written Popo Bawa, is a malevolent spirit, a shetani, of the Swahili tradition of the Zanzibar archipelago, in Tanzania. Its name means literally, in Swahili, bat's wing — from popo, bat, and bawa, wing — in reference to the shadow cast during its assaults rather than to any fixed appearance. It is described as a shapeshifter able to take human or animal form, which visits houses at night and assaults their occupants physically and sexually, sometimes accompanied by a smell of sulphur. The first documented accounts date back to 1965 on the island of Pemba, shortly after the Zanzibar revolution. A popular origin story attributes it to a sheikh who released a djinn to take revenge, then lost control of it. The Popobawa is known above all for the wave of collective panic of 1995, which spread from Pemba to Unguja, then to Dar es Salaam and other towns of the East African coast. During these episodes, inhabitants spent the night outdoors, gathered around fires. The victims said they were threatened with further visits if they did not tell of their assault. Scholars have read in it a memory of the traumas of slavery, or linked it to the phenomena of sleep paralysis.