Mngwa
the Strange One
Also known a "Nunda", the Mngwa is a gigantic, ferocious, gray cat, said
to roam the wilds of Tanzania. The Mngwa is most often described as being "donkey-size" with brindled or striped fur.
It is also described as having protruding fangs like tusks. According to folklore, it can purr.
Although the indigenous natives have an oral tradition of Mngwa going back over a thousand years, the British settlers
dismissed tales of the ravenous beast as mere myth. That is, until some attacks in 1922 occurred. The creature
responsible for the attacks fit the description of the Mngwa. Although poisons in bait and traps were set, the killer
cat eluded its hunters. Some attacks continued well into the 1930's.
One of the few survivors of a Mngwa mauling identified his attacker as neither a leopard or lion - both big cats he was
familiar with - but the Mngwa. Also, clutched in the hand of one of the dead victims was some grey, matted brindle hair.
At the time, an expert examining the fur identified it as some sort of cat fur, but not a lion's.
In 1938, British administrator Captain William Hichens reported in
the British scientific journal Discovery that several natives in Lindi, Tanzania were attacked by
this animal (1922 attacks). * Initially Hichens supposed a man-eating lion was responsible, but the fur samples and tracks
were different than those of a lion. After several fatal attacks in Lindi, the Mngwa left the village as abruptly as
it had come.
There were also more mngwa attacks in 1937.
Hichens also recorded a Swahili war chant:
"I
dwell not in the city to become a worthless idler,
I plunge me in the forest to be eaten by the Mngwa!"
Furthermore, Hichens recorded references by the natives of lions, leopards, and Mngwa as separate beasts. Of the
three big cats, the people feared Mngwa the most.
Some detractors of Hichen's account point out that the Captain also reported sighting the Agogwe (a four foot tall hairy humanoid).
Although Hichens sighted the hominid in 1900, he didn't speak of it until 1938. He was criticized at the time for his
sighting, but was vindicated somewhat a year later when big game hunter Cuthbert Burgoyne claimed that he saw Agogwe in
Portugese East Africa. So either Hichens was "encounter prone" or he was just in Africa long enough to have seen some
rare animals. At any rate, Hichens never claimed to actually see a mngwa himself.
By 1954, Mngwa was mentioned in Frank W. Lane's Nature Parade by a hunter, Patrick
Bowen. Bowen attempted to track the animal and stated that although Mngwa's tracks were similar to those of a leopard,
it was much larger. Bowen might have glimpsed his quarry, because Mngwa was described again as having brindled fur that
was obviously not the fur of a leopard. Lane then speculated that the Chimiset attacks in the 19th century - once blamed
on a Nandi Bear - might actually have been attacks by the Mngwa.
However, descriptions of the cryptid Nandi bear differ vastly from those of the Mngwa.
So, what is this elusive creature? Its deadly attacks have left few survivors, some odd fur, and tracks. So far,
we have found no indication that any of this fur made it to modern times for DNA analysis. While the Mngwa leaves a
body count, it has defied tracking, poisoning, or trapping.
Some have speculated that the Mngwa may be an unusual coat variant of an African Golden Cat (Profelis aurata).
While African Golden Cats can be a silver-grey, it would also have to be a much larger subspecies because African Golden
Cats average about 2.5 feet in body length with a long 1 foot tail. Obviously, this falls far short of the reported
7 foot length of the Mngwa! The other possibility could be that Mngwa is some unknown species of African tiger.
Other cryptozoologists hope that the Mngwa is a survivor from the Pleistocene. It has been speculated that the Mngwa
may be some sort of saber-toothed cat or maybe Panthera crassidens (a lion-sized pantherine). Whatever the
case, until a specimen is captured or DNA evidence is collected, the Mngwa will remain a mystery.
* Hichen's
account:
1922: Going to relieve the midnight watch, an oncoming native constable one night found his comrade missing. After
a search, he discovered him terribly mutilated, underneath a stall. The man ran to his European officer, who went with
me at once to the market. We found it obvious that the askari had been attacked and killed by some animal - a lion,
it seemed.
In the victim's hand was clenched a matted mass of greyish hair, such as would come from a lion's mane were it grasped and
torn in a violent fight. But in many years no lion had been known to come into the town.
We were puzzling the problem at the boma next morning when the old Arab Liwali or native governor of the district hurried
into our office, with two scared-looking men at his heels. Out late the previous night, they said, they had slunk by
the market-place lest the askari should see them and think them evil-doers; and as they crept by they were horrified to see
a huge brindled cat, the great mysterious nunda which is feared in every village on the coast, leap from the shadows and bear
the policeman to the ground.
The Liwali, a venerable and educated man, assured us that within his memory the nunda had visited the village several times.
It was an animal, not a lion or a leopard, but a huge cat as large as a donkey and marked like a tabby. I had heard
this tale, and put it down as silly superstition, but the Liwali's assertion put a different light on things...
...That same night another constable was torn to pieces, and clutched in
his hands and scattered about the buckles of his uniform was more of that grey, matted fur...
1937: Not long ago a man was brought in to me at Mchinga
on a litter and terribly mauled by some great beast. He said it was a mngwa ... One well-known hunting-song tells of
the Simba [lion], Nsui [leopard], and the Mngwa all in one verse, plainly showing that there is no confusion in the native
mind between these three great carnivores.
