THE NANDI BEAR

THE NANDI BEAR
(Kerit, Keteet )

The Nandi bear is a creature said to live in East Africa. It takes its name from the Nandi people of Kenya, in the area the Nandi Bear is reported from. It is also known as Chemosit, Kerit, Koddoelo or Ngoloko. The Samburu “Nkampit” appears also to be a version of this creature.

The legendary creature are only the brains of its victims after making away with the head. This lead people to move wearing baskets and pots in their heads as a false bait.

The Nandi people call it “Kerit”. Local legend holds that the Nandi bear has reddish hair, long feet and is said to scalp people. In 1961, Gardner Soule noted that sightings were reported in Kenya throughout the 19th century and early 20th century but it has “never has been caught or identified”.

Sightings of the Nandi bear decreased over time. In 1983, Richard Meinertzhagen speculated that it may have been an “anthropoid ape now extinct on account of decreased rainfall.”

One of the earliest recorded accounts of the Nandi Bear was in 1905 when explorer Geoffrey Williams encountered a beast in Uasin Gishu. The ferocious monster was heavily-built and had a long pointed head. It looked like a bear, he would later say, but bears had not been seen this far south in Africa for thousands of years. Williams did not talk about the frightening experience for 7 years, and only then, after other sightings were reported.

One of the most credible was by the District Commissioner of Eldoret, NEF Corbett. While fishing in the Sirigoi River in March 1913, he encountered the beast but survived to tell the story. “It was evidently drinking and was just below me. I heard something going away and it shambled across the stream into the bush,” he later said.

Various different cryptids have been lumped together under the name of Nandi bear, and cryptozoologists have identified it as an amalgamation of various animals, including perhaps two genuine unknown animals: a giant hyena and a giant baboon, although identities of a living chalicothere and an unknown bear have also been suggested. There have been few or no sightings since the 20th Century, and it has been suggested that the Nandi bear, if it existed, is now extinct.

The Nandi bears Golf club in Nandi Hills gets its name from this animal.