Bouda - The Case of the WereHyena

Have you ever heard of Boudas? And no I don't meanThe spiritual leader. Chances are if you are Ethiopian or from any of the neighbouring countries such as Sudan or Somalia, this name brings back some scary memories. For everyone else, let me explain.

The term Bouda is synonymous with “the evil eye” and it is said that people who wield this power can transform themselves into Werehyenas whenever they wanted to. Crazy right? Well that’s not all. One story by the Amhara people dates all the way back to creation and it goes that Eve gave birth to 30 children, and one day God asked her to show him all her children. She was suspicious of his intentions and hid 15 of them. When he found out about this, he cursed the children to be bouda as punishment.

Of course over the years, this story has completely changed. In the most widely believed version of the story, Bouda aren’t just humans who can transform into hyenas, but they can also be hyenas who transform into humans. It was also believed that all blacksmiths were bouda. Why blacksmiths you ask? Well some stories admit that it was a way of ideologically segregating the Ethiopian Jews who at the time pretty much had the monopoly on blacksmithing. The reason for that is a whole other story and dates back to bible times. Anyways, Ethiopian Christians accused Ethiopian Jews of unearthing Christian Corpses and consuming them. Bouda were also known to have a preference for children and lovers, often stalking and devouring both. So you can now understand why this name could trigger scary memories for kids from these areas.

Now did I personally believe the stories? Hell No! To me it just sounded like a justification for treating the Ethiopian Jews badly. I like to consider myself an intelligent person and of course I wasn’t going to buy into some silly story parents told their kids to keep them from playing with the blacksmith’s kids next door. Or so I thought.

Anyways my roommate at uni was Ethiopian. His name was Biruk and he came from a tiny ass village called Atuga that apparently had a population of about 200, and was always going on and on about these bloody creatures. He even swore that his friend had encountered one as a child and somehow survived to tell the tale. Yeah, right. The one person who magically survives what should be certain death, with absolutely no one around who can verify. What does he think this is, a movie? . And look I swear I’m not one of those people that are sceptical about everything, but come on, magical hyenas that eat lovers? Really? Moving on, I’m someone who loves to travel and the African continent has always been high on my list of places I wanted to travel through. Biruk had been here in Australia for about 3 years and hadn’t been able to visit home in that time. Since he was constantly going on about how homesick he felt, we decided to kill two birds with one stone. We planned a trip to Ethiopia for our end of semester break. The plan was to spend 1 week in Biruk’s village and then visit one or two other countries before we had to fly back. Of course his girlfriend weasled her way into our trip, you couldn’t pry her away from him if you tried. She didn't pay rent in our apartment and yet I felt like she spent more time there than I did. Great, now I was going to be a third wheel on my own vacation.

The day of our travel quickly came and we embarked on a journey that, unknown to me, was going to change my entire life. We landed at the airport in Bahir Dar and had to complete the rest of the trip by car. When you’ve been sitting in economy for almost 24 hours, a 6 hour car right is not something you want to do. But Biruk didn't want to wait another day to see his family. 6 painful hours later we arrived at our destination, and I have no idea what I had pictured in my head from Biruk’s story but it was not this. This place was a literal ghost town. Houses randomly distributed a lot of them in terrible conditions. As soon as Biruk and his mother laid eyes on each other the waterworks started, it was such an emotional reunion. Everything was going great, or well as great as it could be in such a small village. I was bored out of my mind, I had explored every possible place I could by now. I was counting down the days before our next location, Somalia. Three days into our visitation, Biruk woke me up in the middle of the night to ask me if I could hear a certain cackling sound. His expression was a mix of terror and excitement. “It’s a werehyena, I swear it’s a werehyena. See? I wasn’t lying”. I have no idea what this man was going on about, it sounded like a regular hyena to me which was of no surprise given where we were. On the evening before we were supposed to leave Biruk and his girlfriend had an argument and at some point left the house to talk. 2 hours later and there was still no sign of them, but it’s a small town so I didn't think there was anything to worry about. To be honest, it seemed to me like they needed to have a long talk after that argument. 4 hours later however, they still weren’t back. His mother was starting to worry so I offered to go for a walk and see if I could find them. My guess was that they had just lost track of time. I hadn’t even walked far when I heard the same cackling sound from the previous night. One part of me immediately told me to go back because a hyena was not exactly a friendly animal and I wouldn’t want to encounter it. Especially considering there seemed to be absolutely no one else out. But the more curious part of me wanted to see it just so I could shut Biruk up once and for all. So I quietly walked towards the sound. I had just come around a corner when I caught a glimpse of what looked like a hyena. It was eating something though which I couldn’t quite see. Any smart person would have turned around and gotten out of there as soon as they saw even a shadow, but not me. I stepped back and peered around the corner, trying to see exactly what it was. At this point everything happened so fast and I witnessed two of the most frightening scenes of my life. The hyena stood up, like a man and what I saw was no ordinary hyena. Oh no. It had the demeanour of a human but the terrifying teeth and face of a hyena and it was looking right at me. But there was something caught in it’s teeth and just as it was caught in the moonlight I recognised it immediately. It was Biruk’s.

Now I’m not sure how I am here telling this story because I’m pretty sure I passed out at that exact moment. I don't know how I am not dead. I also know no one will believe this story. Why would you? The one person who magically survives what should be certain death, with absolutely no one around who can verify. Infact you’re probably thinking, What does this guy think this is? A movie?