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HUMAN LEOPARDS


[Illustration: SACKVILLE STREET, FREETOWN.]


HUMAN LEOPARDS

An Account of the Trials of Human Leopards Before the Special
Commission Court; With a Note on Sierra Leone, Past and Present

by

K. J. BEATTY

Of the Middle Temple, Barrister-at-Law for Some Years Resident in
Sierra Leone

With a Preface by Sir William Brandford Griffith

33 Illustrations






London
Hugh Rees, Ltd.
5 Regent Street, Pall Mall, S.W.
1915

Printed by
Hazell, Watson and Viney, Ld.,
London and Aylesbury.




                                PREFACE


Captain Beatty, just before leaving for the Dardanelles, asked me to
write a preface. I think that the best preface will be to answer, as far
as I am able, several questions which were frequently put to me on my
return to civilization after the conclusion of the Special Commission
Court. These questions were, “What was the object of the Human Leopard
Society? Were its members cannibals for the purpose of satisfying an
appetite for human flesh, or was it some religious rite? Would the
sentences inflicted by the Special Commission Court have the effect of
stamping out the horrible practice?”

The first question can be answered with some confidence. The trend of
the whole evidence showed that the prime object of the Human Leopard
Society was to secure human fat wherewith to anoint the Borfima. The
witnesses told us how the occasion of a murder is used to “blood” the
Borfima, but the potency of this terrible fetish depends upon its being
frequently supplied with human fat. Hence these murders.

The question as to cannibalism it is not possible to answer with any
degree of certainty. The Commission sat for over five months, had before
it hundreds of witnesses, and the notes of evidence ran into thousands
of pages; but the Court was a judicial tribunal, and it was anxious to
bring its labours to an end as speedily as possible, so that no question
was asked or allowed by the Court which was not relevant to the issue.
Again and again answers given by witnesses opened up avenues which it
would have been most interesting to investigate, but, unless the
investigation was relevant to the case in hand or would have served to
elucidate some other part of the evidence which was doubtful, the Court
could not allow it to be pursued. Nor would it have been seemly for the
members of the Court to make private investigation into a matter before
them judicially. Consequently we could not probe down and ascertain the
reason of things, but had to be content with the bare facts which came
out by way of evidence.

Moreover, although it was possible to have a fair idea as to whether a
witness was generally speaking the truth or not, it was extremely
difficult to lay one’s finger on any detail and be satisfied as to its
reasonable correctness. Furthermore, whenever a witness approached
cannibalism he palpably made reservations or additions, whilst