The Dodu: Man Beast of Cameroon – Africa’s Own Sasquatch Part I

Some readers may no doubt know of Ivan Sanderson’s delightful book Abominable Snowmen – Legend Come to Life. In this very readable tome, written in Sanderson’s classic Scottish old-school intellectual style, the wily naturalist makes reference to the unknown bipedal hominids of Africa, some of whom were small in stature. Most notable is the Agogwe of East Africa which is really a miniature hominid similar to the Orang Pendek of Sumatra in that it is short, has reddish-brown hair and is rarely seen.

So too is the Séhité of the Cote d’Ivoire, one specimen of which was supposed to have been captured by a hunter and put in a cage. The leading local official was scandalized by this reddish hair covered little man thing and ordered that it to be clothed and sent to the capital Abidjan, by way of Bouaké. Unfortunately there is no record of what happened to the little red hominid.

There is also the unclassified Kalenoro of the island of Madagascar which is said to stand about a metre (3 Feet) tall and is possessed of feet and hands which each only contain three digits. It too is a hairy creature, but has dark hair all over its body. None of these purported hominids is by any means of the stature of the unknown hairy bipeds we know of in North America. Reported sightings of these African creatures are decidedly rare and can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

I was privileged to be part of a group of explorers who were the first white men to hear of the existence of another manlike creature in Africa. My purpose in being in Africa was not to seek hominids, but rather to seek answers to mystery of Mokele-mbembe. It was quite by chance that we stumbled across this unknown man beast thanks to an illustration in Loren Coleman’s book The Field Guide to Bigfoot, Yeti and other Mystery Primates Worldwide.

In November 2000, Dr Bill Gibbons and Dave Woetzel had carried out a reconnaissance in preparation for a full-scale expedition aimed at locating and documenting a Mokele-mbembe. While showing Baka pygmies and Bantus illustrations of the usual suspects thought to be the most likely candidates for Mokele-mbembe. They looked at drawings of apatosaurs, diplodocuses and brachiosaurs, but then, while casually flipping through the pages, they caught sight of a drawing by Harry Trumbore which appears in Loren’s aforementioned book.

They were surprised by the appearance of this creature in a book the white men from far away had brought. They asked Gibbons and Woetzel how they knew of this creature which, they said, was sometimes seen in the general region around where the pygmies encamped in the forest. The white explorers replied this animal was from Madagascar, far from the Cameroon forests and couldn’t possibly be the same creature. The pygmies were adamant that this was the creature knew as Dodu because there in the illustration was the telltale distinguishing feature which was the presence of only three digits on the hand and feet rather than the five found in the primate realm. Gibbons and Woetzel did not really know what to make of this peculiar beast.

It was not until a subsequent expedition to Cameroon that Gibbons would receive a clearer picture of what the Dodu was. You can read more about that in Part II.

John Kirk About John Kirk
One of the founders of the BCSCC, John Kirk has enjoyed a varied and exciting career path. Both a print and broadcast journalist, John Kirk has in recent years been at the forefront of much of the BCSCC’s expeditions, investigations and publishing. John has been particularly interested in the phenomenon of unknown aquatic cryptids around the world and is the author of In the Domain of the Lake Monsters (Key Porter Books, 1998). In addition to his interest in freshwater cryptids, John has been keenly interested in investigating the possible existence of sasquatch and other bipedal hominids of the world, and in particular, the Yeren of China. John is also chairman of the Crypto Safari organization, which specializes in sending teams of investigators to remote parts of the world to search for animals as yet unidentified by science. John travelled with a Crypto Safari team to Cameroon and northern Republic of Congo to interview witnesses among the Baka pygmies and Bantu bushmen who have sighted a large unknown animal that bears more than a superficial resemblance to a dinosaur. Since 1996, John Kirk has been editor and publisher of the BCSCC Quarterly which is the flagship publication of the BCSCC. In demand at conferences, seminars, lectures and on television and radio programs, John has spoken all over North America and has appeared in programs on NBC, ABC, CBS, PBS, TLC, Discovery, CBC, CTV and the BBC. In his personal life John spends much time studying the histories of Scottish Clans and is himself the president of the Clan Kirk Society. John is also an avid soccer enthusiast and player.

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