Pongo and Engeco

Andrew Battell, an English sailor held prisoner by the Portuguese in Angola, which described two anthropoid monsters named Pongo and Engeco.

The greatest of these two Monsters is called, PONGO, in their Language: and the lesser is called, Engeco. This Pongo is in all proportion like a man, but that he is more like a Giant in a stature, then a man: for he is very tall, a hath a mans face, hollow eved, with long haire upon his browes. His face and eares are without haire, and his hands also. His bodie is full of haire, but not very thicke, and it is of a dunnish colour. He differed) not from a man, but in his legs, for they have no calfe. Hee goeth alwaies vpon his legs, and carrieth his hands clasped on the nape of his neckc, when he goeth vpon the ground. . . . They goe many together and kill many Negroes that trauaile in the Woods. Many times they fall vpon the Elephants, which come to feed where they be, and so beate them with their clubbed fists, and pieces of wood, that they will runne roaring away from them. Those Pongoes are never taken alive, because they are so strong, that ten men cannot hold one of them. . . . [Bernard Heuvelmans, On the Track of Unknown Animals , p.43]

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