The Tokoloshe - South Africa's poltergeist?

Even as a white South African I grew up in great fear of the "Tokolosh".
It is a devious "spirit" with poltergeist activities. On the other hand it is a tiny demon, with a penis so long it must be swung across its shoulder.
There's a big tradition of black women sleeping on a bed supported by bricks, and it is believed that the bricks kept away the "tokoloshe".
Powerful shamens can even make the tokoloshe a slave.
I sometimes wonder though, with all the colonial violence and rape that went on, whether the tokoloshe is not partly metaphor?
Most colonized people had so much violence and dispossession that the "evil" they suffered became personified, and the children of the colonizers began to regard their homes as the proverbial "Indian graveyard": unhomely territtory.
Well, to curse somebody with the tokoloshe, or to have one is considered quite real in SA. How would the the Western world deal with it?

reply to post by halfoldman

Well, here's a short outsider view:

South African folklore: The tiny terror that is the “Tokoloshe”
by Philip on December 9, 2006

by Philip | December 9th, 2006



I love hearing strange traditional tales from foreign lands, so I thought I might introduce you to some eccentric South African stories that people grow up with here.

I distinctly remember a time swimming at Muizenberg when some swimmers started screaming and shouting that there was a Tokoloshe in the water.




The Tokoloshe is a small man-like creature, sporting a giant “male appendage” which it has to carry on his shoulder. The Xhosa people are highly superstitious and take they’re folklore quite seriously. A common sight is for Xhosa men and women to raise their beds with bricks above the height of this mischievous little man, whom also spreads HIV and many African nations share this fear.

“A Zimbabwean monthly newspaper, Vic-Falls News, reports that counsellors at an AIDS workshop have agreed that evil spirits called “tokoloshes” probably spread the HIV virus by sexually abusing women during the night. Tokoloshes exist, in one guise or another, in the minds of the people throughout Africa. Africans raise their beds on bricks to prevent tokoloshes, tiny spirits less than three feet tall with only one buttock and an extraordinarily long penis slung over the shoulder, climbing up and getting under the sheets beside them. Frigidity in a woman is claimed to be the work of a tokoloshe lover. As an explanation for the 4 million Zimbabweans who are HIV-positive, it takes some beating.”

He is supposedly friendly to children and mostly a nuisance to adults unless it is under the influence of a evil witch mistress. He is mainly invisible and performs this by sucking on a stone. If the presence of a Tokoloshe is suspected, a sangoma (witch doctor) is summoned to exorcize the area, with muti (traditional medicine).

For more info and accounts of the Tokoloshe take a look at this very well written article.

Tags: folklore, HIV AIDS, Language Culture & Heritage, tokoloshe, Travel Tips, Xhosa
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reply to post by halfoldman

People sometimes think the tokolosh is a joke, but to be cursed with one is very serious.

I love hearing strange traditional tales from foreign lands, so I thought I might introduce you to some eccentric South African stories that people grow up with here.

I distinctly remember a time swimming at Muizenberg when some swimmers started screaming and shouting that there was a Tokoloshe in the water..."

"The Tokoloshe is a small man-like creature, sporting a giant “male appendage” which it has to carry on his shoulder. The Xhosa people are highly superstitious and take they’re folklore quite seriously. A common sight is for Xhosa men and women to raise their beds with bricks above the height of this mischievous little man, whom also spreads HIV and many African nations share this fear.

“A Zimbabwean monthly newspaper, Vic-Falls News, reports that counsellors at an AIDS workshop have agreed that evil spirits called “tokoloshes” probably spread the HIV virus by sexually abusing women during the night. Tokoloshes exist, in one guise or another, in the minds of the people throughout Africa. Africans raise their beds on bricks to prevent tokoloshes, tiny spirits less than three feet tall with only one buttock and an extraordinarily long penis slung over the shoulder, climbing up and getting under the sheets beside them. Frigidity in a woman is claimed to be the work of a tokoloshe lover. As an explanation for the 4 million Zimbabweans who are HIV-positive, it takes some beating.”

most compellingly, and as warning not to msess with the Tokoloshe see www.vanhunks.com...





[edit on 26-1-2010 by halfoldman]

reply to post by halfoldman

Hail (stones) on the roof like a storm, animals fleeing, kids talking to "dead" people, cold water being very hot.
In the middle of the night the sheets are drawn away!
Soon the cups and plates are breaking, sometimes flying through the air.
That's the tokoloshe.

As Africa continues to develop they'll switch over to UFO's. I'm not aware of any giant penis monsters here in the states unless you count Ron Jeremy. He looks like the little Tokoloshe. I'd say logic wouldn't allow a thing like that to exist here but who knows, we have the mothman.

Oh please,

You've got no idea how many times I've pissed myself laughing with reading the front of a newspaper saying "The tokolosh raped my sister". Have you ever heard of something so stupid? This is just another thing that these blacks have made up.

Regards,
Latixus.

reply to post by latixus


"These Blacks"? Could you be a bit more condescending? Folk Lore from all over the world tells of creatures just like these creatures are reputed to be...and loe and behold, some of those tales were told by *gasp* whites and oriental peoples... Oh, noes...another cherished bit of bigotry down the tubes...