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| Mokele-Mbembe according to Roy P. Mackal |
Unfortunately, no matter how much I would love to see a
living dragon, once the actual reports are consulted the claims fall apart into
wishful thinking, misquoted scientists, reports of known animals, reports of an
unidentified rhinoceros, and hoaxes.
First the name “Mokele-mbembe” is a Lingala word that can
mean a variety of things including "one that stops the flow of rivers,
"one who eats the tops of trees," "monstrous animal “or
even”spirit beast." It is thus a generic local term for “water
spirit/monster.”
Now let’s look over the history of this entity starting with
the earliest reports and clearing up some of the misconceptions given in
Wikipedia…
The Early Reports
1776: Abbé Lievain
Bonaventure, a French missionary to central Africa
claimed to have seen enormous three clawed footprints “about three feet in
circumference."
1909: famed big-game hunter Carl
Hagenbeck claimed in his book Beasts
and Men, of hearing stories about a creature "half elephant, half
dragon” in the Congo. Naturalist Joseph Menges told Hagenbeck
about an animal alleged to live in Africa,
described as "some kind of dinosaur, seemingly akin to the brontosaurs."
Another of Hagenbeck's sources, Hans
Schomburgk, asserted that while at Lake Bangweulu his native guides
informed him of a large hippo-killing creature that lived in the Lake.
1909: According to
Lt. Paul Gratz the indigenous legends of
what would be modern day Zambia
spoke of a creature known by native people as the "Nsanga", which was
said to inhabit Lake Bangweulu. He was shown a
hide which he was told belonged to the creature, while visiting Mbawala Island. Gratz speculated that it was a
saurian after consulting with Carl Hagenbeck.
NOTE: According to Wikipedia Gratz described the creature as
resembling a sauropod.
This is not so. The original report states a saurian. A saurian is NOT a
sauropod but rather is a term that was used for any sort of lizard-like reptile
in the 18th and early 19th century. In fact it was
commonly used for crocodiles as well as any sort of prehistoric reptile. Inany
case it is obvious that Carl Hagenbeck is the source of the rumors that our
cryptid is a living dinosaur.
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| A lovely piece of Apatosaurus from Clipart |
1913: German Captain
Freiherr von Stein zu Lausnitz was ordered to conduct a survey of German
colonies in what is now Cameroon.
While there he heard stories of a brownish -gray animal with a smooth skin that
was between the size of a hippopotamus and an elephant. It was said to have a long, flexible neck a
very long tooth or horn on its snout. A few spoke about a long, muscular tail
like that of a crocodile. The creature was said to live in caves washed out of
the river bank and to attack canoes and kill the people but not eat the bodies
as it was completely vegetarian. Its preferred food was a kind of liana with
large white blossoms, a milky sap, and an apple-like fruit.
The Smithstonian/Le
Page Hoax
1919-1920: A 32-man expedition was sent to Africa from the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C.
between 1919 and 1920. The objective of this expedition was to secure additional
specimens of plants and animals. Supposedly the African guides found large,
unexplained tracks along the bank of a river and heard “mysterious roars”. A
train wreck supposedly killed four team members and injured several others so the
expedition was curtailed before anyone could confirm these rumors. However, the
“dinosaur” reports are actually due to the following report…
1919: In November reports began appearing in newspapers claiming
that the Smithstonian Institution encountered a living dinosaur that October.
It began with “A Tale From Africa, Semper Aliquid Novi” published in the London
Times. According to this report one of
the explorers named M. Le Page who was in charge of railroad construction in
the Congo
followed some strange footprints while hunting and encountered a monster.
The creature charged out of the jungle forcing Le Page to
flee. Now at a safe distance Le Page watched the animal through binoculars. It
was 24 feet long with a long pointed snout, tusks like a boar, a single short
rhino-like nose horn, a scaly hump on its back, and the front feet ended in
solid hooves like a horse while the rear feet ended in cloven hooves!
This which-what-who then supposedly rampaged through a
village, killing several natives. According to the Smithstonian “Primeval
monsters could of survived in the African Swamps”.
This story was expanded upon in latter newspapers until the
New York Times in December 13th 1919 claimed the hunter, now named
M. Gapelle, shot a “brontosaurus of the rhinoceros order” with large scales
reaching far down it’s body, a kangaroo-like tail, a horn on it’s snout, and a
hump on it’s back.
Things got so silly that Wentworth D. Grey, acting
representative of the Smithstonian African Expedition, contacted the London
Times on January 21st to contradict the reports. According to him
the dinosaur story was just a practical joke that had got out of hand and Le
Page/Gapelle did not exist but the name was coined from the famed
paleontologist L. Le Page.
So there you have it, the whole Smithstonian report was a
Hoax!
Other Early Sightings
1927: in the 1870s Alfred Aloysius Smith while working for a
British trading company in Gabon
hears native tales from the natives of a strange beast called the "jago-nini"
or "amali". The creature was said to be very large, leave three
clawed footprints, and would surge out of the water to devour people. Smith
speculated that it was responsible for the dead elephants occasionally
encountered with shattered tusks. He published this in his Trader Horn
in 1927.
1932: Ivan
T. Sanderson claimed that, while in Cameroon in 1932, he and zoologist
Gerald Russel was looking at some waterlogged caverns in the river bank when
they heard animal noises. Suddenly a large back surfaced before almost
immediately submerging. They latter encountered hippo-like tracks. The natives
said there were no hippos in the area and that the animal they saw was called "m'koo
m'bemboo". Sanderson latter joked that “The head alone was nearly the size
of a hippo”, something later cryptozoologist have taken seriously.
1938: Leo von Boxberger mounted an expedition to investigate
the Mokèlé-mbèmbé reports. He supposedly collected much information from
natives, but his notes and sketches had to be abandoned during a conflagration
with local tribesmen.
1939: the German
Colonial Gazette (of Angola)
published a letter by Frau Ilse von Nolde, who asserted that she had heard of
the animal called the "coye ya menia" ("water lion") from
both natives and settlers. It was a
hippo sized, long necked creature that lived in the rivers. It was known to
attack hippos but never ate them.
Conclusions
So the early
history of the Mokèlé-mbèmbé is nothing but recordings of native folklore, a single possible sighting, and a hoax. Note
how none of these early reports are anything like a brontosaurus. If anything
they seem to be describing a new form of rhinoceros. Only a few reports mention
a long neck but even they have mention three toed rhino-like tracks and a horn
on the nose. In addition the neck could be long only in comparison to a hippo
or elephant, so still be short by modern standards. Besides several extinct
rhinoceri had rather lengthy necks such as this hyracodon:
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| Hyracodon |
If the neck truly is long and the tail is indeed heavy and reptilian than the result still does not resemble a sauropod. Sauropods did not have three claws on all four feet. The front prints resembled nail less horseshoes, though early groups had a single thumb claw.
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| Another nice piece of Apatosaur clipart, this one showing acurate foot anatomy! |
If anything the result sounds more like the dragon on the Ishtar Gate. The
Dragon on the gate has often been linked to the “Congo dragon”. The Babylonian
dragon or Mushushu (Sumerian for "Adorned or Glamorous Serpents"
which were also called Sirrush by the Akkadians) was a common symbol in the Middle East and was considered a sacred beast. Most
identify it as a monitor lizard but the bird-like feet and single horn of the
animal on the Ishtar Gate caused early archeologists to compare it with the
Iguanodon. And so the dragon was linked to living dinosaurs and still used by creationists to ‘prove” that dinosaurs lived
with man.
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| Mushushu of the Ishtar Gate |
Unfortunately for
creationists the Iguanodon of the 18th century was a giant
rhino-like lizard that never existed. Better fossils showed that the Iguanodon
was actually a rather horse-like animal with a spike on the thumb not the nose.
In addition other images of mushushu exist that clearly show that the animal
had two horns. In addition the animal is clearly the ancestor of the Serpopard
(stylized snake-necked lions that have also been claimed to be sauropods by
creationists) and ultimately of the questing beast of King Arthur.
Today, despite
comparisons by some cryptozoologists to sea serpents, the mushushu is
considered to be a monitor lizard wearing a crown to show it’s sacred and
kingly status. Some papers even indicate that it was the source of the sacred
oil used during biblical times. In all it probably was the Nile Monitor and its
only link with the Mokèlé-mbèmbé is that some of the latter reports may
also be of monitors.
Well that’s long enough for this post. Maybe later reports
will be more dinosaurian, or maybe not. Next time a look at the alleged cave
paintings of the Mokèlé-mbèmbé
______________________________
Sources:
Carroll, Robert T.
"mokele-mbembe". The Skeptic's Dictionary. John Wiley &
Sons. Retrieved 28 December 2011.
Drinnon, Dale. “Ancient Babylonian
and Assyrian Dragons are also Euryapsids”. Frontiers
of Zoology. http://frontiersofzoology.blogspot.com/2011/08/ancient-babylonian-and-assyrian-dragons.html
Drinnon, Dale. “More Gargoyle
Dragons but out of Africa by Rome”.
Frontiers of Zoology. http://frontiersofzoology.blogspot.com/2011/08/more-gargoyle-dragons-but-out-of.html
Gardener, Laurence. Realm of the Ring Lords; Fair Winds Press. 2003
Gibbons, William J., Missionaries And Monsters;
Coachwhip Publications, 2006
Ley, Willy (1966). Exotic
Zoology. New York:
Capricorn Books.
Mackal, Roy P. (1987). A Living
Dinosaur? In Search of Mokele-Mbembe. E.J. Brill.
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