Mysterious Creatures : A Guide to Cryptozoology

Sources: William Grant Stewart, Popular
Superstitions and Festive Amusements of the
Highlanders of Scotland (Edinburgh: A.
Constable, 1823); James M. Mackinlay,
Folklore of Scottish Lochs and Springs (Glasgow:
William Hodge, 1893), pp. 164–166,
171–187; Helen Drever, The Lure of the Kelpie
(Edinburgh: Moray, 1937); Gwen Benwell and
Arthur Waugh, Sea Enchantress (London:
Hutchinson, 1961), pp. 174–176; Katharine
M. Briggs, A Dictionary of Fairies (London:
Allen Lane, 1976), p. 246.
Kenaima
Little P eop le of South America.
Etymology: Wapisianas (Arawakan) and
Yecuana (Carib) word used for various demons
and entities.
Variant name: Kanaima (Pemon/Carib).
Behavior: Nocturnal.
Distribution: Guyana; Venezuela.
Sources: Bernard Heuvelmans, “Annotated
Checklist of Apparently Unknown Animals
with Which Cryptozoology Is Concerned,”
Cryptozoology 5 (1986): 1–26; John E. Roth,
American Elves (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland,
1997), pp. 90, 94.
Kènkob
Small H om inid of West Africa.
Variant name: Bétsan.
Physical description: Height, 3–4 feet. Long
beard.
Behavior: Excellent singer. Good marksman.
Hunts apes, baboons, wild pig, antelopes, and
elephants.
Distribution: Sierra Leone; the Fouta Djallon
Mountains, Guinea.
Significant sightings: Gaspard Mollien reported
a race of small people with good singing
voices in the village of Faran in the interior of
Guinea in 1818.
S. W. Kölle’s informant, a chief in Sierra
Leone named Yon, spoke of two kinds of shortstatured
groups in the interior, the Kènkob and
the Bétsan.
Possible explanation: An undiscovered group
of short-statured hunter-gatherers possibly re-
lated to the Mbenga Pygmies of Gabon and
Cameroon.
Sources: Gaspard Mollien, Voyage dans
l’intérieur de l’Afrique aux sources du Sénégal et
de la Gambie, fait en 1818 (Paris: Mme. Ve
Courcier, 1820), vol. 2, p. 210; Sigismund
Wilhelm Kölle, Polyglotta Africana (London:
Church Missionary House, 1854), p. 12.
Keshat
Wildm an of West Asia.
Etymology: Adygey and Kabardian (Circassian),
“mountain man.”
Physical description: Height, 5 feet. Covered
with brownish hair. Protruding face.
Behavior: Upright gait. Not aggressive but
might attack a lone hunter. Agile. Occasionally
raids crops in villages. Said to engage in bartering
with humans and use a crude language.
Tracks: Humanlike but wider than a man’s.
Habitat: Forests.
Distribution: Caucasus Mountains in the
Adygey and Kabardin-Balkar Republics, Russia.
Source: John Colarusso, “Ethnographic
Information on a Wild Man of the Caucasus,”
in Marjorie Halpin and Michael M. Ames,
eds., Manlike Monsters on Trial (Vancouver,
Canada: University of British Columbia Press,
1980), pp. 255–264.
Ketos
Sea Monsterof the Mediterranean Sea.
Etymology: Greek, “sea monster” or “whale.”
Variant name: Cetus (Latin).
Physical description: Serpentine. Doglike
head. Fishlike tail.
Distribution: Eastern Mediterranean.
Significant sightings: After a flood, a Ketos appeared
on the coast near ancient Troy,
Çanakkale Province, Turkey, and ravaged the
countryside. King Laomedon sent his daughter
Hesione as a sacrifice to appease the monster,
but the hero Herakles arrived in time to rescue
her and kill the beast. A Corinthian vase painting
from the sixth century b.c. depicts the incident,
including the Trojan monster, which
looks like a huge skull with forward-projecting
teeth and bony plates around the eye sockets.
KETOS 271