Actions

Agogwe

From Kook Science

Agogwe
a.k.a. Agogure, agogue
Country Tanzania, Mozambique
Region(s) East Africa

Agogwe is a crypto-hominid said to dwell in the forests of East Africa, the name having been introduced into popular Western use by a British colonial administrator, Captain William Hichens, who, in 1937, described his encounter with the "little furry men, whom one does not see once in a lifetime" for the journal Discovery.

Reported Sightings

Colonial Era

  • William Hichens (d. 1944), in an article for Discovery: the Popular Journal of Knowledge of December 1937, in which he describes having seen near the Usure and Simbiti forests (western Wembere Plains) of Tanganyika (Singida, Tanzania) "two small, brown furry creatures[...] like little men, about four feet high, walking upright, but clad in russet hair," adding "They may have been monkeys, but if so, they were no ordinary monkeys, nor baboons, nor colobus, nor Sykes, nor any other kind found in Tanganyika. What were they?"
  • Cuthbert Burgoyne (1875-1955), in a letter to Discovery of February 1938, responding to Hichens's earlier reporting, in which he describes spying via telescope while off the coast of Portuguese East Africa (Mozambique) a group of baboons hunting shellfish on the beach, whereupon "two little brown men walked together out of the bush and down among the baboons", stating that "they where certainly not any known monkey and they must have been akin or they would have disturbed the baboons. They were too far away to see in detail, but these small human like animals where probably between 4 and 5 feet tall, quite upright and graceful in figure." He further related that an unnamed friend, a big game hunter, had likewise reported seeing such creatures while inland.

Related

  • Charles Cordier (1897-1994), a Swiss zoological collector and field naturalist, reported sighting what was locally referred to as the kakundakari in the Belgian Congo. Several sources have subsequently conflated the agogwe and kakundakari, arguing they each describe the same crypto-hominid.

Resources