Nyokaa or The Great Nyokaa is a character from the AbracadaBar.
History[]
Nyokaa is the stage-name of a presumably East-African (or possibly East African-American) magician from the early 20th century. Nyokaa's name was Swahili for, "Snake" as he used serpents as a motif in his performances. His performances were best known for his fortune-telling skills and likely also him being a hypnotist.
At some point in time, Nyokaa became a regular performer of the boardwalk along Crescent Lake in the U.S.A.. He was a patron of the AbracadaBar where he regularly competed with other magicians in the Crescent Lake area. On September 13, 1940, rival-magician Lasdow the Lucky seemingly caused all the magicians to disappear from the AbracadaBar while in actuality they hid to a secret lounge behind the bar.
Appearances and allusions[]
AbracadaBar[]
There is a poster advertising Nyokaa's performances up in the AbracadaBar. It will occasionally change to show the magician having disappeared.[2]
Trivia[]
- Nyokaa's name and colour-motif might partly be a tribute to the character of Kaa from The Jungle Book who was a snake who could use his eyes to hypnotize others. The swirl and colour-scheme of Nyokaa's poster is reminiscent of Kaa's and his name while meaning, "Snake" in Swahili, does also contain Kaa's name.
- The myth that snakes have hypnotic eyes is also echoed with Jafar in Aladdin and Sir Hiss in Robin Hood. In real-life, snake eyes have no hypnotic abilities and it is instead a myth created by the prey of snakes sometimes being still from fear when approached by a predatory snake.