Encounter Atlas
The agogwe is a small, human-like creature reported from East Africa. Witnesses describe it as about 4 to 5 ft tall, walking upright and covered in brown or russet hair. It is known almost entirely from two colonial-era accounts.
In December 1937 Captain William Hichens wrote in the journal Discovery that, years earlier, while waiting for a man-eating lion in the Ussure and Simibit forests west of the Wembere plains in Tanganyika, he saw two 'little men, about 4 feet high, walking upright, but clad in russet hair' cross a forest glade. His local guide called them agogwe, 'the little furry men whom one does not see once in a lifetime.' The next year Cuthbert Burgoyne wrote that in 1927 he and his wife had seen two small brown upright figures walk among baboons on a beach in Portuguese East Africa.
There is no physical evidence and no further well-documented sightings. Both men allowed that they might have seen some kind of monkey.
What witnesses report
- Small upright figures with reddish-brown hair
- Walking on two legs in forest glades
- Moving among baboons without alarming them
Famous cases
- 1937Capt. William Hichens' account of two agogwe published
Wembere River, Tanzania
Seen the Agogwe?
Tell us what happened. Every report is read by a person before it goes on the map, and you can stay anonymous.
