Your True Tales
April 2006 – Page 2

Mompies
by Quagga

Mompies do exist!. And there is not just one, there seems to be several individuals, even occurring in other parts of South Africa and even West Africa. In September 2005, I and my friend, Klaas Mierkat (nickname Timon), stumbled upon three-toed bird-like tracks in ashy soil after a wildfire nearly destroyed the entire Lindley district, Riemland, South Africa. About 1-1.5 metres long and spaced around two metres apart.

For several nights, one could hear a long, continuous call coming from the wooded edges of the Sterkspruit, interrupted every now and then with short roars of growls. One night, this night sound was joined by the call of another, though it sounded as of it came from a smaller individual. On Tuesday, 27 September 2005, while taking some children into a dense riverine forest to learn them about animals and ecology, we found an abandoned nest. It was made from grasses, leaves and twigs scraped together to form a mound about a metre tall. Judging by the decay of the leaves, the nest was about one to two months old. Inside was only one egg, but egg thieves like hyenas and possibly baboons dug a large hole into the nest and removed and ate most of the eggs, as the broken egg shells all around on the forest floor indicated. The eggs looked like and were the size of those of ostriches, only slightly more elongated. Unfortunately, the last remaining egg was eaten early the next morning by a brown hyena.

Close to the nest were found an impression of a heavy creature in the long grass and shrub, with similar tracks to those found earlier. It seemed to me as if it lay with its head to the nest and the tail towards the stream. It was about 8 metres long. Close by, some of the higher branches on the trees were broken and certain trees, called white stinkwood, showed scrape marks done by claws, about 3-4 metres above ground level. Could it be the signs left by a young inexperienced female river monster (which I think is a type of relic spinosaur) who stayed in the vicinity and left the nest after some time?

Since I can remember, locals and elders told stories about a large dragon, called Mompies ("masked one") who lives in the Sterkspruit and is covered with algae, after catching fish and other aquatic creatures in stagnant pools in the stream. In the coastal forests of the Southern Cape Province, there was (or maybe still is) a large reptilian predator with a blue-green crocodile-like head, large sharp teeth, a lizard-like tail and a bad attitude, for it hunted small forest antelope called duiker, birds, monkeys, humans and even elephant calves. I can't remember its name, but remember from stories that it was killed by a swift leopard which cut open its soft belly skin so that its stomach contents and intestines spilled out.

In the Gambia river lives a large, heavy creature, covered in algae and slime, that leaves the mangrove swamps at night to hunt other animals and devours anything it comes across. The locals call it Ninki Nanka. These two creatures that I have mentioned sound similar or roughly the same to Mompies. As soon as I can find sound evidence for its existence, I'll let you now. It makes me proud to be an African, to live in a country and continent which still has so much to discover. EX AFRICA SEMPER ALIQUID NOVI (out of Africa always something new).

< Previous story | Next story >

< main menu