Creature record / 2011
August 2011. Across rural Sri Lanka, women reported men slipping into their homes at night. The intruders were covered in grease. Their faces were painted black. Some said they had sharp metal finger nails. Some said they jumped from trees. The old folk figure had a name, the grease yaka, and within weeks it had rural Sri Lanka in its grip. Villagers formed patrols. Crowds besieged police stations and navy camps. Suspects were beaten, and at least five people died, among them a police constable in Puttalam. Police called the grease devil a myth. Many Tamils and Muslims believed the attackers had links to the security forces.
The grease yaka was not new. In Sri Lankan folklore he was, as Reuters put it, "a thief who wore only underwear and covered his body in grease to make himself difficult to grab if chased." Lately he had become "a night-time prowler who frightens and attacks women."