Popobawa

The Account

Panics have swept the islands in 1965, 1970, 1995, 2007. Victims wake pinned; the creature threatens worse if the assault is kept secret. Whole villages sleep together on the beach when he returns.

From the Public Record

Popobawa, also Popo Bawa, is the name of an evil spirit or shetani, which is believed by residents of Zanzibar to have first appeared on the Tanzanian island of Pemba. In 1995, it was the focus of a major outbreak of mass hysteria or panic which spread from Pemba to Unguja, the main island of the Zanzibar Archipelago, and across to Dar es Salaam and other urban centres on the East African coast.

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