Human Leopards

by Kenneth James Beatty

WEAVING COUNTRY CLOTH.

Two witnesses who confessed to being members of the Human Leopard Society were called and gave an interesting description of their initiation into the Society. They had joined the Society at different times, and belonged to different branches of it. One belonged to the branch in the Imperri Chiefdom, and the other to a branch in the Gallinas Chiefdom, several days’ march distant, but their description tallied in almost every detail regarding the initiation ceremony and the objects of the sacrifice. A mark is made on a candidate for initiation, usually on the buttocks, so that it will be concealed by the loin cloth, the usual and only article of dress worn by the ordinary native in those parts. The mark is made by piercing the flesh with an iron needle, raising it, and shaving off a thin slice of flesh. The wound is then treated with a medicine known as Nikori, which apparently has antiseptic qualities, and which is made by grinding the bark of the wild ground nut. The blood taken from the wound is put on the “Borfima,” and the novice by this means becomes what is spoken of as “joined or married to the medicine,” and a full member of the Society. Meetings are only held when the leaders of the Society consider that the Borfima belonging to their particular branch requires what is spoken of as “feeding” or “blooding,” and this can only be done by the killing of some person. Apparently one of the rules of the Society is that a victim must be provided by a member of the Society; usually, the person called upon to provide the victim is a member who has received some material advancement, such as becoming a Mahawa (a paramount chief) or a Mahawuru (sub-chief), as it is considered necessary on such occasions to propitiate the Borfima, which is looked upon as all-powerful for good or evil. When it is arranged who is to provide the victim, a date is fixed, usually four to six days later, a rendezvous is decided upon, and the persons who are to do the killing are selected. The second meeting is generally fixed for just after dusk, usually in the Poro bush, and the victim is either enticed to a place in the vicinity of the meeting-place, or certain members are appointed to do the killing in the town or village, and convey the body to the Poro bush, where the Borfima is first “blooded” and then the body is divided up among the members, and, according to the evidence of the ex-members of the Society, the flesh is either eaten raw on the spot or taken away and cooked. To use the words of one of these witnesses, “some like it raw, some roast, and some prefer it boiled with rice.” The witnesses also described how the members of the Society made themselves known to each other by a movement of the second finger across the palm of another person in shaking hands, and also by a peculiar rolling of the eyes. Both signs were demonstrated to the Court. The witnesses examined certain marks in the buttocks of the three prisoners, and alleged that they were the marks made at initiation into membership of the Human Leopard Society.

The following, somewhat interesting, point of native custom was touched on in the evidence: When a boy who is in the Poro bush dies, the body is buried there, and his death is not announced to the female relatives until after the Poro has “been pulled” (finished). It is the duty of the Lakai (the head-messenger of the Chiefdom and a high officer in the Poro) and of him only to announce the death. When the Poro is about to be “pulled,” all the women who have sons in the Poro bush are made to stand in a circle at the entrance to the town. The Lakai is escorted by his retainers into the midst of them. He carries an earthen pot, and if a death has occurred among the Poro boys he dashes the pot to the ground and breaks it at the feet of the mother of the boy, and in this way announces to her the death of her son. The women wail for some hours, after which a funeral dance is given by the parents or the nearest relatives of the deceased; and this dance may be kept up for several days and nights, according to the wealth of the family of the deceased, who provide the food and drink for the occasion.

None of these ceremonies were performed in connection with the death of the boy Kalfalla; but the omission of these rites was not a matter to which much weight could be attached, owing to the difficulty of obtaining reliable information on matters connected with the Poro, and the custom is only mentioned incidentally.

The defence of the accused was that a bush leopard had killed the boy. They admitted that they had concealed this fact and had given out that it was a snake-bite which had caused the death of the deceased, but they said that their reason for doing so was in order to save the father of the deceased, the first accused in the case, from certain penalties which he would have incurred had it come to the ears of the Poro Headman that he had allowed a “bushboy” who was still in the Poro to sleep in an open place outside the Poro bush. The position, shape, and character of the wounds were emphasized to show that it must have been a bush leopard which had caused them, and it was pointed out that it was an offence against the law of the country for any one to sleep in an open place exposed to danger, such as the barri where the boys had been permitted to sleep. The accused alleged that these “bushboys” should not have been allowed to sleep out of the Poro bush, and that it was an aggravation of the offence that they had been allowed to sleep in an open place like a barri; that the first accused, as head of the family, was the person on whom the blame would have fallen; and that he, for these reasons, persuaded the others to give out that it was a snake-bite which had caused death. If this was accepted, they urged, they would not be called on to show the spot where the boy was injured, and they added that the burial was hurried so that people should know as little about it as possible. Had the burial been delayed, the women might have got to know, and that would have been a further offence against Poro law. It was also submitted that it was contrary to nature that the first accused would have murdered his own son in such a cold-blooded manner.

The prisoners were ably defended, but the arguments put forward for the defence did not create doubt as to the main facts deposed to by the witnesses for the Crown.

From the evidence of the witnesses one thing emerged conclusively—viz. that it was no bush leopard which killed the boy, but that it was some person or persons simulating a leopard who murdered him; and the evidence of the other boys that they had heard the pattering of many feet outside the barri when they raised the alarm pointed to the fact that there were a number of persons concerned in the murder.

The Court could come to no other conclusion than that the murder was committed in connection with the Human Leopard Society, and that the first and second accused were the actual murderers of the boy Kalfalla. These two men were found guilty of murder and sentenced to death, and were publicly executed at Mattru in the presence of the acting paramount chief and a large number of his people on the 25th January, 1913.

BUNDU GIRLS AND DEVIL.