Tokoloshi – pronounced
tock-oh-loshy. Also spelled
Tokolosh,
Tokoloshe,
Tokaloshi,
Thokolosi,
Tikaloshe.
I first heared it as Tokolosh, pronounced
tock-oh-losh
In many parts of the Western cape, particularly the rural parts, the locals will place a brick under each leg of their bed. This is to prevent the Tokoloshi getting to them when they sleep.
Tokoloshis are known and feared by the Bantu peoples of South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe. The myth is a survival from before Christianity.
In some stories the Tokoloshi is a trickster, capricious and cunning. In others he is just a malevolent, a thing under the bed, an ankle-high gremlin with malicious intent upon your sleeping form, sometimes even a fey incubus with a more than ankle-high member, sexual assault in mind and HIV to spread.
It is said that he was originally a water sprite. Sometimes he is a bloodsucker like El Chupacabra. Sometimes a zombie. Often he is invisible, or looks like a humanoid hare.
Sometimes a Tokoloshi is the henchman of a demon or witch, or as a sprit that can be summoned and used as a fetch or familiar spirit. Often he can make himself invisible.
Sometimes he is an invisible playmate that only children can see, friend to the child but hostile to adults.
The mythical Tokoloshi, a half-man/half-hare creature that, according to legend, is normally invisible to humans.
He has been particularly active in Zimbabwe of late, as part of the upsurge in superstitions and hysteria (yes, even witch-burnings) during the economic hardships.
Masemola was suspected of having baboons and a tokoloshi in her
house.
She was called to the meeting, during which she "agreed again that
she was a witch and she had a tokoloshi and baboons in her house."
Sources: a bunch of sites that google turned up.