Library of Cryptozoology

Bangweulu is also the home of the legendary monster known as the "Chipekwe". It is supposed to live in the deepest part of the Lake and at various times it has been known to drive all the fish from the open waters into the swamps. I suspect however, that this is the way in which the local inhabitants explain away the bad fishing season from January to August. There are many stories concerning the "Chipekwe" and there is no doubt that the lacustrine villagers have a very real fear of it. I have often been in a canoe fishing when suddenly the paddlers have turned the craft towards the shore and when asked for a reason they have answered that we were getting too near to where the "Chipekwe" lived. Once when crossing the open Lake in the Government boat Mwewa the engine cut. Immediately all talking by the District Messengers and the other African passengers was reduced to whispers. When I asked why this was so, I was informed that "Chipekwe" had grea...

 ... on such journeys in Africa–at any rate in those days–there was generally something of interest to be gleaned, and I remember that it was on my return from Kapopo to Mkushi [in early 1901] that I first became interested in that grand mystery of mysteries, the Chipekwe. It happened in this way. One day before I had left Kapopo, Jones received an excited note from Louis De Fries, relating a curious adventure. De Fries was at that time trading not far from Kapopo and in the neighbourhood there was a lake–a rather remarkable and mysterious lake, of immense depth–known to the map-makers as Lake Choa. Well, early one evening, it seems, Louis De Fries was out for a stroll along the shore, when he saw some large object floating on top of the water. He made out a head–but it wasn't, certainly, a crocodile: he made out the ears–they certainly weren't the ears of a hippo: and stranger still, he could see quite distinctly what appeared to be a large horn. It looked almost like a rhino:...

 ... the natives in many parts of Central Africa believe in the existence of a gigantic water animal which has been described to me by the Buanga natives inhabiting the swamps of the south of Lake Bangweulu, as a water rhinoceros; they had even a name for it, which was chimpelwi, and described it as able to kill a hippopotamus with which it was in the habit of fighting; the bones of one of these animals, they averred, were to be found in the swamps. An authenticated case of a white man having seen such an animal was told me by the man himself, an acquaintance of mine named Defries [sic]. It is, of course, necessary to state he is an extremely abstemious man, besides being a good sportsman, a trained naturalist, and for a considerable period rubber conservator for North-western Rhodesia. When carrying out his duties in the latter capacity he had reason to pass by a small lake between Lakes Chaa and Kapopo on the upper Kafue River. This lake or rather lakelet is so deep as to be unfa...

Millais writes me on June 22nd, 1925, about the matter of an animal called the "Chimpekwe," in N.E. Rhodesia, which, I believe, is completely extinct, although I think it must have been in existence in the early years of the 19th century for I have heard the natives talk of it but never met one who had actually seen one. They say it had horns on its face like a rhino and was as large as a hippo. It may be a myth, but if so it seems strange to me that a name (or rather several names in different parts of Africa) should be used to describe it.

They [the Lamba] say that the ichisonga is a water animal which resembles a rhinoceros, having a horn on its forehead. It is said to inhabit the Kafue river. When it hears the hippo in a pool it comes out of the river, lest it be scented, and goes along the bank. When it reaches the pool it enters the water again, chooses the biggest bull hippo it can see, and stabs it with its horn. It does not eat the hippo, but merely kills it. It eats grass. The Lambas say, further, than when people kill an elephant near by the ichisonga roars and drives the people away. It then comes and remains near the dead animal, maybe for several days, until the people get tired of waiting and the dead animal rots. This creature is said to be prompted by ... jealousy.

 ... many natives in North-Eastern Rhodesia speak of the existence of an animal named the "chimpakwe," which they say resembles the hippo in its amphibian habits, but possesses a horn like the rhinoceros. I chatted with one or two old chiefs on the subject of this strange animal, a beast quite unknown to science, and gathered that the "chimpakwe" existed many years ago in North-Eastern Rhodesia, but at the present day he is probably to be found only in the Luapula River and some deep pools around the borders of the Congo Free State and North-Western Rhodesia. According to the natives, he is an extremely wary creature, and no white man has ever shot him, although it is stated that one or two white hunters have been so impressed with native assertions regarding the "chimpakwe" that they have spent some time in looking for the beast. I have never been told by natives that the "chimpakwe" killed the hippo, and the stories of its existence that I have...

I cannot discuss the rhinoceros and the hippopotamus without some reference to an animal which is most emphatically stated by the natives to frequent some of the deepest pools and rivers of the Congo-Zambesi watershed ... I do not say that I am convinced as to the existence of a huge water rhino in Central Africa, but I do say this, that, in my opinion, it is by no means unlikely that the "Chimpakwe," as the Awisa term it, is something very much more material than a myth. I have asked many old chiefs in North-Eastern Rhodesia about the "Chimpakwe," and they have all assured me that this mighty two-horned amphibian was, many years ago, an inhabitant of the Luangwa river. One old Awisa headman told me that his father had shot one with a gun which an Arab hunter had given him. The natives stated that since the water in the Luangwa has decreased in volume and height, the chimpakwe has disappeared, but that he might to-day be found in the deeper waters of the Luapula, an...

Don't you remember my telling you of the three-horned water-rhino which the boys say kills the hippo in Lake Bangweolo and in the swamps near Leauli, and on the Kafue? I heard of it from my boys at the Falls, and we were discussing it at the District Commissioner's, when S—, who had come down from Mwomboshi to take over, told us that a week or two before two white men had arrived at his place who said they had seen it.

Native rumour states that in Lake Bangweolo there is a water rhino. Should this prove correct, it will be interesting to see what adaptation of the rhino's foot has taken place to fit the animal for an aquatic existence.

It [Lake Chirengwa] is reported to be the home of that mythical animal the chibekwe, or water-rhinoceros, which lives in such secluded places and in deep lakes, has apparently the peculiarity of leaving no spoor, and whose daily food is a big hippopotamus.

... mythical monster which was said to have once inhabited the lake. This monster, [the kapopo] according to the story-teller, an old Bisa man named Chiwawa, used to come out of the lake and make periodic descents upon villages by night. Its body was as large as seven oxen, and its neck was long and sinuous like that of a python. From its head projected one horn, from underneath which glared a fierce, lidless eye. When it emerged on land the earth shook, and when it roared the sound was heard all over the lake. This blatant beast would make a sudden descent upon a village, and, inserting its long neck through the narrow doorways, would peer round and drag out and devour the unfortunate inmates one by one. It had a special penchant for chiefs and their offspring ... one remembers the veracious native tales about the famous chibekwe, or water rhinoceros, with three horns, which used to devour the hippopotamus on Lake Bangweolo.

My boatman informed me that he had seen an animal, with long wide spreading horns like an ox, called liombikalela –perhaps the modern bison; also another animal, which does not live in the water, but snorts like a hippopotamus, and is like that animal in size–it has a horn, and may be the Asiatic rhinoceros. And we passed some holes of a third animal, which burrows from the river inland, has short horns, and feeds only by night. I did not notice the burrows at the time of passing, but I give you the report as I got it ... and there is a pretty little antelope on the Sesheké, called " teeanyane ," which seemed new to me. These animals did not lie in my line, so you must be content with this brief notice.

There is an undiscovered antelope in these parts; also an animal which from its description and horns I conceive to be the Indian bison. It is named in Serotse Liombikala. Large horns like an ox. Gondi, short horns–burrows. Bumé or Boomy, one horned animal, probably a variety of Rhinoceros. ... Few die under this treatment [of suction and an emetic] unless bitten by the Mokhoapa, a black snake or a little yellow basilisk .

We have heard little recently of the crowing crested cobra but in the 1930's and early 1940 there was much correspondence about this strange Northern Rhodesia creature in the Journal East Africa and Rhodesia . The correspondence seems to have ended with a note concerning an inquest which was held in 1940 at Namwala on a native who had died from snake bite. The oldest inhabitant insisted that the snake was a "Nyukanga" described as a reptile 300 [30?] feet from head to tail, with a red gullet, and which crowed like a cock. It lived in trees. It is rumoured that the District Commissioner returned a verdict of "Death from Supernatural Causes".