The water monkey. Originally, this was going to be the title of my book, ‘Wild Coast’, because I wanted something that was common to Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana. Well, what is it?
During my travels, I’d come across several versions of this monster, but the worst of them lived in the rivers. No matter who was describing him – or when – he was always the same; long-haired, humanoid, clawed, teeth like a tiger and an appetite for entrails.
The Amerindians told Evelyn Waugh (in 1933) that it would drag a man to the bottom, and smash every bone in his body. As if this wasn’t bad enough, the beast had another nasty trait. In 1769, one Dr Bancroft brought the world news of a Guianese ‘Orang-outan’ that clambered from the rivers to ‘ravish the female of the human species’.
I often wondered about the origins of this entrail-eating sex-pest. Some say he’s a horribly-mutated variant of the West African gorilla, who survived in the imagination of the slaves. But all Guianese seem to claim him – and fear him (once, I even met a Hindu woman who told me which rivers were haunted).
It’s no great surprise therefore that his name tends to vary. To the Amerindians, he’s the Water Tiger, or the Dai-Dai. To some Africans, he’s the Massa Couraman, but to the Bonis (descendants of the runaway slaves in Guyane Francaise) he takes on a deviant female form; the Ouata-mama. Perhaps, however, the most grotesque name of all is that on which Evelyn Waugh alighted; this was no tiger, it was the Water Monkey.
More about John Gimlette: http://www.guyanagraphic.com/content/john-gimlettes-voyages
