Here's the full text from the
Fortean Times article appearing in issue #86 ...
Ouch Ouch Ouch!
Buggered by batman
Last year, there was widespread fear in Zanzibar concerning the return of the popobawa, a dwarf with a Cyclops eye, small pointed ears, bat wings and talons, notorious for swooping into houses and raping men. The name is derived from the Swahili words for bat and wing.
One victim was Mjaka Hamad, a quietly-spoken peasant farmer aged 55 from the village of Sogea. At first he thought it was a dream, but the stifling force pushing him into his mattress dragged him from his sleep. "I couldn't imagine what was happening to me," he said. "You feel as if you are screaming with no voice. It was just like a dream, but then I was thinking it was this popobawa and he had come to do something terrible to me, something sexual. It is worse than what he does to women. I was fighting it."
The popobawa first appeared on Pemba, the smaller of Zanzibar's two main islands, around the time that the country's president was assassinated in 1972. Fear overcame shame as the popobawa instructed its victims that unless they told others of their ordeal it would be back. The island was in uproar as men went about announcing that they had been sodomised. After a few weeks the popobawa departed. There was another period of attacks in the 1980s, but nothing more until April 1995, when the winged beast swooped on Zanzibar's largest island.
Hamad was one of its earliest victims. He knew it was not a dream because when he woke his whole house was in uproar."I couldn't see it. I could only feel it. But some people in my house could see it. Those who've got the spirits in their heads could see it. Everybody was terrified. They were outside screaming 'Huyo!' It means the popobawa is there. I had this bad pain in my ribs where it crushed me. I don't believe in spirits so maybe that's why it attacked me. Maybe it will attack anybody who doesn't believe," he warned.
There is no known protection against attack by the popbawa except for seeking safety in numbers. Whole families took to sleeping arm-in-arm in front of their houses. Some said the popobawa took human form during the day. Fingers were pointed. A mentally ill man was hacked to death after inexplicably confessing he was the popobawa. The country's main hospital treated men with bruises, broken ribs and other injuries which the victims blamed on the creature. One month later, the popobawa disappeared.
Even sceptics admit that for true believers the attacks are real. Some attribute the return of the beast to times of political tension. The islands faced the uncertainty of elections and calls for self-government. The chief minister blamed the opposition for bringing the popobawa, while his opponents responded by wondering if he himself might not be the creature.
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