Ambize

 


I'm starting a new thing, I'm going to do the monster alphabet. I've already found and planned out monsters for every letter, even q and x. So this week we're starting with A.

The ambize angulo, better known to the internet as the ambize (pronounced am-bee-zay, ending like say or day), is an aquatic monster from the Congo River and its tributaries. It straddles the line of folklore and cryptid, being part of the local folk tales and being encountered by 17th century European travellers.

The ambize is described as a cross between a pig and a fish, having the overall form of a fish with a pig's head and blubbery skin. It has a rounded tail that is swung up and down while swimming, like a sea mammal. The ambize's most bizarre feature is that it has giant fleshy human hands in place of fins. Although this appears to be a feature that has been exaggerated with time, as earlier reports give it more proportional human arms in place of the hand fins, which is still strange. The females also have human like breasts while nursing their young. These combination of features caused passing explorers to compare the ambize to an ugly mermaid.

The ambize was a herbivore and ate various grasses and soft plants that grew in the river. The locals rarely hunted the creatures and had some amount of fear of it. Samuel Purchas and Olferd Dapper both attempted to hunt the beast, with Mr Dapper being successful. Purchas described his hunt as perilous with the ambize ultimately escaping. Where as Dapper described the ambize as slow moving and easy to harpoon, yet it made unnerving human like cries when attacked. The creature was hauled onto shore and eaten by Dapper's crew, who found the flesh to be pork like. Unfortunately the fatty skin rotted to quickly for Dapper to preserve the hide for return to Europe. According to the local Kikongo people various parts of the ambize's body were used in folk remedies. The ear bones were used to cure malaria, the powdered skull was used to treat kidney stones and the ribs made into protective amulets.

It's likely that the origin of the ambize are misidentified encounters with the African manatees. Manatees live in various rivers in west Africa, to the north of the Congo. While they do enter the first hundred miles or so of the Congo they don't venture far up it. Although like many modern animals the African Manatee's range has been reduced and it likely occurred further up the Congo in the 17h century. As for the strange human like arms manatees actually do have very human looking arm bones under the flesh of their flippers, although it's not something you would casually notice while the animal is alive. It's noteworthy that North American manatees have also been compared to mermaids.




The arms of a manatee 



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