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Keyword: popobawa

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  • Belief in sex-mad demon tests nerves

    05/16/2005 9:08:23 AM PDT · by new cruelty · 161 replies · 3,746+ views
    Reuters ^ | Mon May 16, 2005 | William Maclean
    CHAKE CHAKE, Tanzania (Reuters) - Mohammed Juma starts to sweat and fidget as he recalls his rape by Popo Bawa, the most feared spirit-monster of the Zanzibar spice islands. "We believe reading the Koran is our only defense, nothing else," says the 41-year-old driver and father of four. "But Popo Bawa is real, and well prepared." Vacationers on the Indian Ocean islands tend to smile dismissively at accounts in guidebooks of the bat-like ogre said to prey on men, women and children. But for superstitious Zanzibaris a visit from the sodomizing gremlin is no joke. Although no one ever has...
  • Terror, tourism and odd beliefs: Superstition as a political barometer

    12/23/2003 1:37:16 AM PST · by propertius · 4 replies · 198+ views
    The Economist ^ | December, 2003 | The Economist
    FEW readers of The Economist (or many FReepers too), one would imagine, have seen a one-eyed dwarf with bat-like wings, pointed ears and sharpened talons. Even fewer are likely to have been sodomised by one. Many of the people of Zanzibar, however, sincerely believe in Popobawa, an incubus who supposedly rapes men who doubt his existence. Isolated sightings are reported every year. Locals say that Popobawa appears accompanied by a puff of smoke, usually on Pemba, the smaller of the spice islands that make up this semi-autonomous part of Tanzania. At times of stress, Popobawa seems to go on a...