The Half-people, Half-creatures
Some of the amazimu, as stated in the last chapter, are described as having only half a body, but this by no means applies to all of them, and there is a distinct set of half-beings who cannot be classed as ogres.

In Malawi a being called Chiruwi is, or was, believed to haunt lonely places in the forest, carrying an axe. It has one eye, one arm, one leg, the other half of its body being made of wax. It challenges any person it meets to wrestle with it; if the person can overcome it then it offers to show them “many medicines” if they will let it go, and tells them the properties of the various trees and herbs. But if the person is thrown “they return no more to their village; they die.”

A little boy at Ntumbi, in the West Shire district, told me a curious story in which “a big bird,” with one wing, one eye, and one leg, carried some children across a flooded river.

In a tale of the Batswana, which is something like this, the children are pursued by an ogre, take refuge up a tree, and are rescued before it cuts it down by a “great thing called Phuku-phuku,” which is not further described. What seems to be a parallel version attributes the rescue to “a great bird,” which “hovered over them and said, ‘Hold fast to me.’” There is no indication that this bird was without the usual number of wings and legs; but it is quite evident that they are, as the editor of the South African Folklore Journal remarks, “a personage worth studying.”

A fuller form of the story, however, was obtained by the Rev. C. Hoffmann among the Bapedi. But even this throws no light on the bird’s nature; it is simply called nonyana votze, “a beautiful bird,” and carries the children home under its wings. In retelling it in a more popular form for young readers Mr Hoffmann calls it a peacock, and represents it as such in his illustration; but this must be a picturesque addition of his own, for the peacock was quite unknown in South Africa till introduced by Europeans, and it is very unlikely that the original narrators had ever heard of it.

The Baronga tell of a village of “one-legged people (mangabangabana), who also possess wings, or, at any rate, the power of flying. They seem to be quite distinct from ogres – called in Ronga simply “eaters of men,” though they sometimes have another name, switukulumukumba. A girl who escapes from the cannibals’ village is, later on, carried off by the flying half-people; but there is no suggestion that they intend to eat her.

In the story of Namachuke, however, the one-legged beings are certainly cannibal ogres. Part of this story is much like that given in the last chapter, of the girl escaping from the ogre’s house; but the opening is different, and there is also an unexpected sequel: Namachuke and her co-wives are beguiled by curiosity into leaving their home and following the monsters, and are devoured, together with the unfortunate children who have come to look for them.

Similarly, the Zulu amadhlungundhlebe, who had only one leg, were said to eat people.

But these are exceptions: the genuine half-people are more akin to Chiruwi, though their character varies; some are merely terrifying, like the one formerly believed to haunt the Cameroons Mountain, to see whom was death.

Sechobochobo of the Baila is “a kind of wood-sprite, described as a person with one arm and one eye, living in the forest; they bring good luck to those whoever sees them; they take people and show them trees in the forest which can serve as medicines. But the accounts of this being would seem to vary, for elsewhere we read, “If one chances to see it that person will die.”