Encyclopaedia of Cryptozoology
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Nanauner
Category Cryptohominid
Proposed scientific names
Other names
Country reported Kenya
First reported 1980
Prominent investigators James H. Powell
Bernard Heuvelmans

The nanauner is a cryptohominid reported from the montane forests of southern Kenya, around the Soit Ololol Escarpment and Loita Hills. Descriptions of it were collected from the Maasai and Kipsigis inhabitants of Lolgorien by James H. Powell, on behalf of Bernard Heuvelmans.[1]

The Maasai and Kipsigis described it as a powerfully-built biped resembling a man, but a little larger, covered in long black hair, with a very broad chest.[1] Powell believed that the nanauner and the gerit could represent a relict East African population of gorillas (Gorilla beringei), while Heuvelmans and later authors[2] have classified them with the larger cryptohominids reported from much of Africa, thought to be australopithecines or early Homo species.[3]

The nanauner shares its name with a Maasai "forest devil" or storm god, half-man and half-lion, called Nenaunir or En-e-'n-aunir.[4]

Notes and references[]

  1. 1.0 1.1 Heuvelmans, Bernard (1980) Les Bêtes Humaines d'Afrique, Plon, ISBN 978-2259005609
  2. Newton, Michael (2005) Encyclopedia of Cryptozoology: A Global Guide to Hidden Animals and Their Pursuers, McFarland, ISBN 9780786420360
  3. Heuvelmans, Bernard "Annotated Checklist of Apparently Unknown Animals With Which Cryptozoology Is Concerned", Cryptozoology, No. 5 (1986)
  4. Hollis, Alfred Claud (1902) The Masai: Their Language and Folklore
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