What Is The Izimu And Why Is It So Scary?
In African folklore, humans are always the hunters, perched at the top of the food chain and feared by all common characters in folktales. Their ability to start a fire, an entity that consumed all flora and fauna gave them so much power in all folklore. They were referred to as izothamlilo, meaning those who dwell by the fire. In these stories, humans were feared by all animals in the forests. However, the narrative shifts when the stories introduce the ever-hungry creature called “izimu“, or “amazimu” when there’s more than one.
This creature is frequently featured in stories where humans are the main characters. It’s known for haunting the woods and wastelands, kidnapping humans, and taking them into the mountains and deep dark forests. Their names and stories exist in so many Bantu languages and dialects, but these stories mean the same thing. All Bantu tribes share similar stories of amazimu within their communities.
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Amazimu were known for having pale skin and long hair, and believed to be banished spirits from heaven. They hunted for humans, and when caught, would disappear without a trace. The assumption was they were cannibals because those caught by them barely escaped to tell the tale. They used physical disguises to camouflage themselves in the bushes. This helped them stalk the villagers and get used to their routines easily.
Physical descriptions of izimu give it a human form. It speaks and can hold conversations with both humans and other creatures like it. They spoke a foreign language and some, by living closer to villagers, began to understand the local languages. Some interpretations have said izimu is an ogre. But I have a different theory about these creatures.
It is easy to mistake them for cannibals when you take their narratives at face value. But, now if you look at most of the folktales, there is another set or community of cannibals identified by another name, “amadlabantu” or “inzawu” (that’s a story for another day). Amadlabantu is a direct translation of “creatures that eat humans,” from the Bantu language, specifically of the Nguni people.
Our ancestors have a tendency to attach phrases, proverbs, songs, and stories to things they have seen, witnessed, or heard about. Oral traditions of storytelling were the backbone of preserving their history, culture, and traditions. However, things they deemed phenomenal or unusual were barely told as they are or how they seemed. They came up with creative stories that painted a picture of what was happening or what had happened. As generations passed, these tales became more regarded as mere stories for entertainment with educational connotations.
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So then what are amazimu? Let me share a few of my favorite stories about the creature and see what they could be.
There is a story of a girl who was forced to marry an izimu. The young girl was taken in and forced to cook and perform all household duties for this creature. She was bound by chains and not allowed to leave the place. Sounds like something in the history books? This may be a good example of those who were taken and treated as sex slaves or household slaves.
In the story of The Child In The Drum, an izimu kidnaps a girl and puts her in a barrel. Other titles to the story are The Talking Drum, or Izimu And Its Talking Drum. He would go from village to village entertaining the locals with his “talking drum.” She was barely fed and kept locked up in the barrel. History says some of the native Africans were picked up by slave traders and kept as entertainers. Think about Sarah Baartman, a woman taken from Southern Africa and paraded throughout Europe as an entertainment piece.
In other stories, we see amazimu setting up traps and snares for cattle herders and women traveling alone to fetch water and firewood. Easy prey. Few escaped their clutches, and those that did would either be caught again, or encounter a different izimu that would not hesitate to take them forcefully.
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After carefully looking into history and engaging in several conversations, compared with these stories, only one thing makes sense. These are things that may have happened. We cannot fully confirm if amazimu actually ate their captives. However, we can talk about things we can prove. We have proof that people were taken from their villages and they were never seen again. In these tales, the same happens and has a clear pattern that is linked to history. We have proof of people being received ashore in foreign lands, and subjected to unfair and inhumane manual labor without any form of gratification. A common thread in these stories is how prisoners were bound in chains, and kept in little huts near large water bodies.
Amazimu are physically identified by their pale skin and long hair. A very befitting description of a non-native African. Their light skin, regarded as pale, made it easy for them to be detected in the woods, hence they needed camouflage. At some point, slave traders found it easier to recruit and work with locals who were hungry for power and wealth in hunting for slaves. This would also explain how amazimu eventually learned the common languages spoken by the locals.
These stories were packaged in a way that kept them attractive even to the modern-day world. Most of these stories are still kept in their original language format, with minimum translations in English or other languages. These stories were told in a way that toned down the trauma they narrate while keeping the tradition and experiences alive. They were passed down from generation to generation until they reached a point where they were just stories.
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