Popobawa - Meaning of The Name

Meaning of The Name

Popobawa is a Swahili name which translates literally as "bat-wing" (from Swahili popo, "bat", and bawa, "wing"). This name is said to have originated as a description of the dark shadow cast by the spirit when it attacks at night: it does not refer to the actual form of the spirit, which is liable to change. Swahili speakers also use a plural form of the name - mapopobawa - to refer to multiple manifestations of the feared spirit. This plural is anglicized as "Popobawas".

Read more about this topic:  Popobawa

Famous quotes containing the words the name, meaning of and/or meaning:

    There is the name and the thing; the name is a sound which sets a mark on and denotes the thing. The name is no part of the thing nor of the substance; it is an extraneous piece added to the thing, and outside of it.
    Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)

    The literature of the poor, the feelings of the child, the philosophy of the street, the meaning of household life, are the topics of the time. It is a great stride. It is a sign,—is it not? of new vigor, when the extremities are made active, when currents of warm life run into the hands and the feet.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    Delusions that shrink to the size of a woman’s glove,
    Then sicken inclusively outwards:
    . . . the incessant recital
    Intoned by reality, larded with technical terms,
    Each one double-yolked with meaning and meaning’s rebuttal:
    For the skirl of that bulletin unpicks the world like a knot....
    Philip Larkin (1922–1986)