A NATURAL BRIDGE ON THE ROAD TO GBANGBAMA.

There is little doubt that but for the chance overhearing by the District Commissioner’s clerk that a boy had been killed by a leopard this crime would never have been brought to light. After a time, when all trace of evidence had vanished, it would have been given out that the boy had been killed by a bush leopard. And this story would have been all the more difficult to disprove from the fact that in that neighbourhood leopards abound. Within a few hundred yards of where the Court sat was a leopard trap, whilst during the hearing of this particular case at least two leopards were shot within a mile of the Court barri.

CHAPTER V
THE KABATI CASE

The next case dealt with was the one known as the Kabati Case, from the village where the murder took place. In this and the following cases Lieut.-Colonel H. G. Warren sat in place of Mr. Van der Meulen, who proceeded on leave.

Originally fifty-six persons had been charged and committed for trial on a charge of murder.

The person murdered was a young woman named Mini, and the murder took place in or about the month of May, 1911, at Kabati, a small village in the Northern Sherbro District of the Protectorate.

As in the previous case, sufficient corroborative evidence to support the stories told by accomplices, who were the chief witnesses for prosecution, could not be obtained, and the Crown Prosecutor decided to proceed against only three of the prisoners, entering a nolle prosequi on the capital charge against the remainder. These latter were subsequently prosecuted, and a number of them were found guilty of being members of an unlawful society.

Of the three men proceeded against two were men of importance in the Protectorate; the first accused was a paramount chief or Mahawa, and the second was a sub-chief or Mahawuru, the third accused being a brother of the Mahawuru. The girl Mini was weak in intellect, but to what extent it was not easy on the evidence to say. She was the niece of the second accused, the Mahawuru, and for some time prior to the murder had formed a member of his household. The story told by the witnesses for the Crown was as follows:

Some time toward the end of May, 1911, a meeting of the members of the Human Leopard Society was convened and held one evening at Mosenge, a deserted village on the borders of the Imperri and the Jong Chiefdoms, and was attended by most of the members belonging to that particular branch of the Society. Soon after dark the members began to arrive, and after giving the countersign were admitted to the meeting. A small fire was lighted, round which the members sat. Three Mahawas or paramount chiefs were present, and they with other big men of the Society sat in front with their subjects, in order of precedence, immediately behind them. When all those summoned were assembled, the second accused—the girl Mini’s uncle—was elected Mahein (presiding officer) of the meeting. He first called the names of all the principal men, who answered to their names. The senior member then, in accordance with the custom, said to the second accused, “You”—mentioning his name—“have called a meeting of the members of this Society, which should not meet except when important business is to be done; we therefore look to you now to tell us what that important business is.” The second accused, after walking three times round the circle, proceeded to address the meeting. He said, “The spirits have spoken to me and told me that unless we want something bad to happen to us we should put blood on our Borfimas when four days and four nights have passed. I invite you all to meet again, and at that meeting I myself will supply a person whose blood will satisfy the hunger of the Borfima.”

In answer to inquiry the second accused further informed those present that the person he proposed to give would be his niece Mini, whom he stated had a devil in her. Then after some discussion as to how the murder was to be carried out and after details had been arranged the meeting broke up.