British reporter Ralph Izzard was in India covering the traumas of Partition, when he heard word of a legendary creature – long believed to be extinct – which had been spotted by a woman in Arunachal Pradesh. Izzard was immediately possessed by the desire to hunt the beast down, and thus began his search for a creature named the Buru.
According to Apatani legend, Burus had once inhabited swamplands that the tribe desired to settle in. Bluish white, and around four metres long, Burus were described as having stumpy legs, a powerful tail, a triangular head that ended in a snout, and a row of spikes along their backs. They could be very dangerous, but the Apatani tribe was able to successfully exterminate them by draining the swamps – all except one Buru, who dug a deep hole in the centre of the swamp to hide.
The tribe feared attack, so they enlisted the help of two sentient brass shields called Mwamwa (one male, and one female). The Mwamwa agreed to help, and ventured into the swamp to challenge the Buru. Alas, the female Mwamwa perished, but the male was able to chop off the last Buru’s head.
That was believed to be the end of the Burus – until the famous apparent sighting several years later by a young woman who was collecting water at a spring in the night.
This story sparked Ralph Izzard’s penchant for adventure. During World War II, he had served as both a reporter and a spy, dodging several close shaves in his experience. When the war ended, his thirst for adventure had not yet been quenched, so when he heard the story of the Buru, he decided to find it. As he set off in his search, another theory crossed his mind – what if the Buru was actually a dinosaur that had somehow survived the mass extinction millions of years ago?
Determined to find the creature, Izzard painstakingly hacked through the Indian jungle, enduring swarms of mosquitoes and ever-present leeches. But after searching high and low, Izzard was met with disappointment, for no Buru had been spotted. However, he did write a book about his experiences called Hunt for the Buru, which was published in 1951. Izzard was not completely crestfallen at the lack of a sighting because he naturally assumed that being winter at the time, the Buru was probably hibernating in a cave.
Izzard went on to have several more adventures in India, and publish more of his writing. Meanwhile the Buru legend remains a mystery, relegated now to the same category of cryptic creatures such as the Loch Ness monster and Bigfoot.
Works Cited
Furcifer Bhairav and Rakesh Khanna. Ghosts, Monsters and Demons of India. Chennai: Blaft Publications. 2020. Print.
Kumar, Anu. “What brought the original James Bond to Upper Assam after World War II” Scroll. July 12th, 2015. Web. < https://scroll.in/article/717269/what-brought-the-original-james-bond-to-upper-assam-after-world-war-ii > as seen on May 24th, 2022.