Shetani

Mostly malevolent, and found in many different forms and different types with different powers, shetani are a popular subject of carved artwork, especially by the Makonde people of Tanzania, Mozambique, and Kenya.

Whether one-legged or one-armed, cyclopic or with exaggerated orifices and appendages, the essential nature of the shetani is a distorted, asymmetrical human figure, a common world archetype,[4] A typical carving, done in ebony or African blackwood, might have "one eye, a toothless, open mouth and a body which was bent over backwards with its head facing the wrong way.

Examples include the dangerous ukunduka, which feed through sexual intercourse, and the chameleon shetani, a carnivore with exaggerated habits of the lizard, or the harmless medicinal shuluwele which gathers herbs for sorcerers.

[6] Some spirits, like the "exceptionally evil"[7] Popo Bawa ('bat-wing'), associated with "dirt and violent sodomy" and the smell of burnt sulphur,[8] are individuals with horrifying living reputations.

The best thing is simply to keep out of their way and try to make sure they keep out of yours – for example by hanging a piece of paper, inscribed with special Arabic verses, from the ceiling of the house.

His work was exhibited in international expositions of African contemporaries including Africa Remix in Düsseldorf, Paris, London and Tokyo.

In Alan Dean Foster's 1986 horror/fantasy novel, Into the Out Of, elders of the Maasai people become aware that from the south of them in the Ruaha wilderness of Tanzania a global crisis is approaching.

If not prevented, the barriers between the two dimensions will be permanently breached and uncountable hordes of shetani will overrun the world, enslaving the few humans they do not exterminate.