Ninki Nanka

The Ninki Nanka is a dragon-like swamp monster from the folklore of the Gambia and southern Senegal, a huge reptile with a long neck and crested head whose very sight is said to bring sickness or death.

The Story

Along the Gambia River, where tidal creeks wind through mangroves and freshwater swamps, people tell of a creature called the Ninki Nanka. It lives deep in the swamps and rarely shows itself. It does not need to attack anyone to be dangerous: according to the most common belief, anyone who sees it will fall ill and die, often within a few weeks. For that reason, many people say that to speak of it, or to go into certain swamps alone, is to invite trouble.

In the Mandinka language, Ninki Nanka is also used as a general word for a dragon, and stories about it are told among several peoples of the Gambia and the Casamance region of southern Senegal. Each community has its own version, and details of where it lives and what it looks like vary.

Appearance and Powers

Descriptions differ, but most agree that the Ninki Nanka is very large and reptilian, longer than a crocodile, with a long neck. Its head is variously compared to a horse's, a giraffe's, or a crocodile's, and is often said to carry a crest or horns. Mandinka accounts reported in the press describe a large body on small legs. Some tellers say its scales shine so brightly, like mirrors, that they dazzle. Whether it has wings or spits fire is not consistent across accounts, so those traits are left open here. Its main power is the deadly effect of being seen.

Origins and Sources

The Ninki Nanka comes from oral tradition. One early written mention is a British colonial commissioner's report of 1906, quoted by the historian Assan Sarr, which calls the "ninki nanko" a well-known Mandinka myth: a gigantic crowned serpent living in the thickest bush, which no local person would go near. It became widely known outside West Africa in 2006, when a team from the Centre for Fortean Zoology, a British cryptozoology group led by Richard Freeman, traveled to the Gambia to interview people who claimed to have seen it. The BBC reported on the expedition. Second-hand accounts gathered by the team described it variously as looking like a crocodile or as a winged snake that spat fire.

Legacy

The Ninki Nanka has become a symbol of Gambian folklore. The Gambia's tourism sector has promoted a Ninki Nanka Trail along the river, linking villages and wildlife sites upriver, and the creature has appeared in recent children's fantasy fiction. It is one of the few dragon-like beings of West Africa to be widely known abroad. For other African serpent beings, see dragons of Africa and Oceania.

Related

• Grootslang: The Grootslang, Afrikaans for "great snake," is a giant serpent of South African legend said to lurk in a bottomless cave or pool in the diamond country of the Richtersveld and the Orange River.
• Inkanyamba: The Inkanyamba is a giant storm serpent of Zulu and Xhosa belief in South Africa, said to live in deep waterfall pools such as Howick Falls and to cause violent summer storms and tornadoes when it is angry.
• Bida: Bida is the great serpent of Soninke legend that protected the ancient kingdom of Wagadu, bringing rains of gold in return for a yearly maiden, until the hero Mamadi beheaded it and the kingdom fell.
• Aido Hwedo: Aido Hwedo is the rainbow serpent of Fon religion in Benin, who carried the creator Mawu as the world was made and now lies coiled beneath the earth, holding it together.
• Dragons Across Cultures
• What is a Dragon?

Sources and Further Reading

• Assan Sarr, Islam, Power, and Dependency in the Gambia River Basin: The Politics of Land Control, 1790–1940 (University of Rochester Press/Boydell & Brewer, 2016)
• "Hunt for Gambia's mythical dragon," BBC News, 14 July 2006
• "Exploring the Gambia's new Ninki Nanka Trail," National Geographic, 1 October 2021

Cite this entry: “Ninki Nanka,” Draconika Encyclopedia of Dragons, https://www.draconika.com/dragons/ninki-nanka.