Popobawa, also Popo Bawa, is the name of an evil spirit which is believed by residents to have first appeared on the Tanzanian island of [1]. In 1995 it was the focus of a major outbreak of collective hysteria or panic which spread from Pemba to |Unguja, the main island of the |Zanzibar archipelago, and across to Dar es Salaam and other urban centres on the East African coast. Popobawa has since joined the global pantheon of occult beings, a development fuelled by journalists' reports and the dissemination of these on the internet.