The Yumboes of the Paps
In Senegal, people said little silver-white people lived inside the hills near the sea, and came out at night to feast on stolen couscous.
What was reported
In Wolof folklore, yumboes are small fairy people, about knee-high, with pale silvery skin, who live underground in the hills called the Paps (Les Mamelles), near Dakar and Gorée island.
At night they come out to dance in the moonlight and hold feasts. They borrow fire and steal couscous and fish from people's homes, and some said their servants had no bodies, only hands and feet, so dishes seemed to float by themselves.
Explanations offered
The yumboes are folk figures, recorded by European travellers in the 1800s, which may have given them some of the look of European fairies. The Paps are two volcanic hills, one now topped by a lighthouse.
- When
- Told for generations
- Where
- Les Mamelles, Dakar, Senegal
- Witnesses
- Wolof folklore
- Status
- Legend
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