Are there bears in Africa? To any reader who is more or less familiar with zoology, this question may seem strange. Of course not. And the reader will explain that bears in Africa are contrary to science.
In fact, let's remember the range of the bear tribe. Representatives of seven species of this family are widely scattered around the world. A huge polar bear lives in the polar regions of the North; in Asia, Europe and America - brown; baribal is common only in North America, sloth bears, Malay and Himalayan can be found only in Asia, and spectacled bear - in South America.
But what about Africa? Why such injustice? Yes, injustice, but not really. In ancient times, the picture was somewhat different, the bear was still found in Africa, but only in the northwest, not far from Tetuan. Most likely, he wandered here in the most ancient era, when the path from southern Spain to North Africa was opened through Gibraltar: as studies have shown, the waters of the Atlantic either broke through the isthmus, filling the Mediterranean "bowl" to the top, then retreated, and then a "bridge" was formed … Herodotus mentions bears in Libya (the ancients meant all of North Africa by "Libya").
The nose of the already scarce data on these animals on the Black Continent has clearly diminished. Only in 1668 the Dutch geographer, historian and traveler O. Dapper wrote that in the Kingdom of the Congo bears are found much larger than European ones, as well as wild cats, reptiles and vipers.
But we will allow ourselves not to believe Dapper, since bears in the Congo are too much, and secondly (and this is the main thing), the list of animals itself suggests the sad idea that an excellent connoisseur (for that time) of history and geography was rather poorly versed in zoology and taxonomy …
Centuries have passed, and the events that played out in East Africa at the beginning of this century have forced scientists to think about revising old truths.
English naturalist J. Williams returned from an expedition set up to study the Nandi tribe living in the western regions of Kenya. Studying the customs and traditions of the tribe, scientists have heard more than once about a giant bear that is found in the forests near the villages. The Africans called it Chimiset, and the British, not seeing it yet, christened it Nandi Ber. After a long search, the members of the expedition managed to get on his trail. And soon Williams himself saw the nandi-ber.
The animal was larger than a brown bear, its muzzle was elongated, its ears were small, and its neck was almost indistinguishable. The ground at that time was dry, and the trail was almost invisible. The naturalist showed the locals many drawings of various animals, and they chose only one of them: the image of … a polar bear!
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“He looks a lot like a chimiset,” they said. The testimonies of the Africans completely matched Williams' verbal portrait after that memorable meeting. This event was echoed by the reports of other travelers, who stated that they more than once observed a strange animal at night that came close to the tents.
And the evidence continued to flow. Here are the lines from the notes of Major Tulson, a famous hunter and connoisseur of African animals, dating back to 1912: “It was already evening when a battle came running and said that a leopard had attacked them. I jumped out and saw a strange animal - the back of the body was slightly lower than the front, there was thick black fur on the back, and the manner of walking was bearish. Unfortunately, it was dark and I couldn't see the head."
A few days before this incident, the Dutch asked Tulson what kind of strange bear-like animal is found in these parts - it attacked the dogs and put them to flight: Tulson found it difficult to answer.
The builders of the railway also talked about their encounters with an unusual animal. “I was on a railcar. At 5:00 am, 16 miles, 200 feet (approx. 50 m) ahead, I saw an animal, which I first mistook for a hyena. Seeing me, the beast rushed into the thicket, says one civil engineer. - Then I was still surprised that the hyena walks so early. And in the evening I saw this beast again. He was not inferior in height to a lion, but the hair on the back was thick, and the nose was flattened, the neck was very short, and the legs were overgrown with wool. I've traveled a lot in Africa, but I've never seen anything like it."
This is how the legend of the nandi-ber was born. The locals could not say anything definite. For them, it was either "a big beast that walks like a man," or a "half-human-half-gorilla," spewing fire, with one eye in his forehead, and uttering a terrible howl. Frankly speaking, such data to identify a mysterious animal was clearly not enough … But scientists were still able to draw some conclusions.
According to B. Percival, many common details can be identified. This animal is large, sometimes stands on its hind legs, hunts mainly at night, sometimes aggressively, attacks people and animals. That this is not an aardvark (as supposed) is obvious. The latter is too small and humble for a nandi-ber. Besides, not a predator. The version that the chimiset is nothing more than a giant baboon lived longer than others.
Sometimes these monkeys of the monkey family attack people, but all such attacks are of a gregarious nature and do not fit in any way with the single raids of the chimiset. The attempt to identify the chimiseta with the hyena also turned out to be unsuccessful - there were too many differences.
Not believing in the existence of the African bear and at the same time not finding a mysterious animal analogy in the local fauna, zoologists decided this: the chimiset was generated by a mixture of ideas about two animals - the spotted hyena and the honey badger, a representative of the weasel family. The bloody manners of the first were attributed to the calm disposition of the second.
But the zoologists did not take into account one thing: the locals know all their animals perfectly and would never confuse a hyena (a popular character in many fairy tales and legends) with a honey badger - a medium-sized mammal that is not dangerous for humans at all. Besides, the honey badger's voice is not bearish at all, but grunting; in addition, we must not forget about the footprints, which do not at all look like the paw prints of the hyena and honey badger. Moreover, they are different from the tracks of a lion, leopard and other felines.
Decades have passed. The legend lived on. “I have lived in Nandiland for 68 years, and all these years I have been hearing talk about this beast,” the owner of a restaurant in Kisum told the Soviet journalist S. Kulik. “The British call him nandi-ber. Hunters often told me that they met a fierce beast in the mountain forests, which climbs on its hind legs and climbs trees. They often found footprints of an unfamiliar animal, unlike either lion or leopard."
And here is what Bob Foster, one of the best hunters in Africa, says: "I am not claiming that it was a bear, but this large animal is larger than a man and, undoubtedly, is still unknown." Foster once tracked him down: “He walked slowly on four legs, waddling. I can't say about the color of the coat, but it was long, the ears were large and round. Dubu (also called chimiseta) proceeded to the cave, but soon went out and climbed a tree …"
Taking an interest in Foster's story, experts did the same experiment as naturalists did several decades ago: they showed local residents a dozen photographs, among which was a picture of a bear.
The hunters called a lion, a rhinoceros by their proper names, confessed that they had never seen a walrus, laughed at the striped leopard - a tiger, indifferently looked at the Australian koala, but recoiled from our bear in horror: "Chimiset!" And they did not look at him anymore: according to legend, an evil night spirit is hidden in the chimiset. In two neighboring villages, they reacted to the photographs in the same way.
Over the years, as we can see, the legend of the African bear has not disappeared. And is it a legend? Is there too much evidence and is the reaction of the inhabitants to the strange animal too strong? Even if this is not a bear, but some other large mammal unknown to science, does that change anything?