Leopard Society, leopard men, and Anyoto were names used for one or more
secret societies
A secret society is an organization about which the activities, events, inner functioning, or membership are concealed. The society may or may not attempt to conceal its existence. The term usually excludes covert groups, such as intelligence a ...
that operated in
West
West is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth.
Etymology
The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some Romance langu ...
and
Central Africa
Central Africa (French language, French: ''Afrique centrale''; Spanish language, Spanish: ''África central''; Portuguese language, Portuguese: ''África Central'') is a subregion of the African continent comprising various countries accordin ...
approximately between 1890 and 1935.
It was believed that members of the society could transform into
leopard
The leopard (''Panthera pardus'') is one of the five extant cat species in the genus ''Panthera''. It has a pale yellowish to dark golden fur with dark spots grouped in rosettes. Its body is slender and muscular reaching a length of with a ...
s through the use of witchcraft. The presumably earliest reference to the society in Western literature can be found in George Banbury's ''Sierra Leone, Or the White Man's Grave'' (1888). In
Western culture
Western culture, also known as Western civilization, European civilization, Occidental culture, Western society, or simply the West, refers to the Cultural heritage, internally diverse culture of the Western world. The term "Western" encompas ...
, depictions of the society have been widely used to portray Africans as barbaric and uncivilized.
Accounts
Members of the society would allegedly dress in
leopard
The leopard (''Panthera pardus'') is one of the five extant cat species in the genus ''Panthera''. It has a pale yellowish to dark golden fur with dark spots grouped in rosettes. Its body is slender and muscular reaching a length of with a ...
skins, waylaying travelers with sharp claw-like weapons in the form of leopards' claws and teeth and engaging in
cannibalism
Cannibalism is the act of consuming another individual of the same species as food. Cannibalism is a common ecological interaction in the animal kingdom and has been recorded in more than 1,500 species. Human cannibalism is also well document ...
, but such claims have been disputed. Scholar Vicky van Bockhaven writes:
Reports that the Anyoto sometimes imitated leopard attacks, and the existence of their costumes, played on the European imagination. Reports often mention the Anyoto killing innocent victims without any apparent reason. The cannibalistic aspect also receives a great deal of attention in the reports, even if it does not generally seem correct.
During field research in the 1960s among the
Mano people in north-central
Liberia
Liberia, officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country on the West African coast. It is bordered by Sierra Leone to Liberia–Sierra Leone border, its northwest, Guinea to Guinea–Liberia border, its north, Ivory Coast to Ivory Coast–Lib ...
, the American anthropologist James Riddell collected detailed statements about the Leopard and
Crocodile Societies that had been active in that area, including from former members of these societies. They had comprised men from different towns and their primary purpose had been to organize trade between these towns, which were otherwise independent political units. Only men who could command the labour of many dependents were allowed to join, as the trade organization and the transport and protection of trade goods were labour-intensive. Those who wanted to join had to sacrifice a member of their "own domestic group in a cannibalistic feast" to prove that they had sufficiently many dependents whose services they could contribute. The supposed waylaying of travellers was only a trick to hide the connection between the victim and the man who had chosen to sacrifice them. The cannibal feasts, on the other hand, were real, according to several old members of the society interviewed by Riddell.
In the 1920s,
Lady Dorothy Mills spoke with several district commissioners who tried to juridically prosecute members of the Leopard Society engaged in cannibal murders. She noted: "The members will offer and help to procure some one of their own family for the sacrifice. A man will offer up his wife or his child or his young brother". To avoid suspicions, the chosen victim was usually kidnapped outside their home, but Mills also spoke with a man who had witnessed how a group of "Leopards" raided a house, carrying away a man and a boy who had been sleeping there, supposedly as victims for their next feast.
In a criminal trial in the 1900s, a member of the Leopard Society confessed that he had been present when a girl donated by another member of the society had been murdered and that he had eaten of her flesh. In this case, the victim was a purchased slave, not a relative of the donor. The child was killed and beheaded by her owner, who then divided the corpse into four parts by cutting it "down the centre and across the middle". The flesh was cooked and eaten by the members of the society; some who had not been able to be present during the ceremony also received their parts and ate them later.
In another trial a few years later, a man stated that another member of the society had volunteered his niece for sacrifice. After the girl had been stabbed to death with a large knife and cut into pieces, all her flesh was roasted over an open fire and eaten by members of the society, including the witness. The most important members could choose their preferred parts, while the others had to be satisfied with the remainders. Everything was eaten, including the edible organs; only the girl's bones and skull, picked clean of all flesh, were left behind when the feast was finished. Due to this testimony and other evidence, the girl's uncle was found guilty of murder and later executed. Other trials showed similar patterns of men volunteering dependents, often relatives, for sacrifice and consumption. While all members of the society seem to have been adult men, the eaten victims were usually "young boys and girls".
Encounters with suspected remnants of the Leopard Society in the post-colonial era have been described by Donald MacIntosh and Beryl Bellman.
In fiction
Fictionalized versions of the Leopard Society feature in the
Tarzan
Tarzan (John Clayton, Viscount Greystoke) is a fictional character, a feral child raised in the African jungle by the Mangani great apes; he later experiences civilization, only to reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adventurer.
Creat ...
novel ''
Tarzan and the Leopard Men'', in
Willard Price's ''
African Adventure'', in
Hergé
Georges Prosper Remi (; 22 May 1907 – 3 March 1983), known by the pen name Hergé ( ; ), from the French pronunciation of his reversed initials ''RG'', was a Belgian comic strip artist. He is best known for creating ''The Adventures of T ...
's ''
Tintin au Congo'' and in
Hugo Pratt's ''Le Etiopiche''.
An alternate, more egalitarian version of the Leopard Society appears in the ''Nsibidi Script'' series by
Nnedi Okorafor.
Robert E. Howard
Robert Ervin Howard (January 22, 1906 – June 11, 1936) was an American writer who wrote pulp magazine, pulp fiction in a diverse range of genres. He created the character Conan the Barbarian and is regarded as the father of the sword and sor ...
mentions them in his horror/detective short story "
Black_Talons".
A different take of the Leopard Men appears in ''
The Legend of Tarzan''. This version of the group are actually leopards that were magically uplifted by
La. A fictional incarnation of the society also appears in the 2016 film ''
The Legend of Tarzan''.
In art
In 1913, the
Royal Museum for Central Africa
The Royal Museum for Central Africa (RMCA) (; ; ), communicating under the name AfricaMuseum since 2018, is an ethnography and natural history museum situated in Tervuren in Flemish Brabant, Belgium, just outside Brussels. It was originally b ...
in
Tervuren, Belgium, acquired a sculpture by
Paul Wissaert commissioned by the Belgium Ministry of Colonies depicting a leopard man preparing to attack a victim.
The scene in the sculpture was appropriated by
Hergé
Georges Prosper Remi (; 22 May 1907 – 3 March 1983), known by the pen name Hergé ( ; ), from the French pronunciation of his reversed initials ''RG'', was a Belgian comic strip artist. He is best known for creating ''The Adventures of T ...
in ''
Tintin au Congo.''
The sculpture is depicted by Congolese artist
Chéri Samba
Chéri Samba or Samba wa Mbimba N’zingo Nuni Masi Ndo Mbasi (born 30 December 1956) is a Congolese painter from the Democratic Republic of Congo. He is one of the best known contemporary African artists, with his works being included in the col ...
in ''Réorganisation'' (2002), commissioned by the Royal Museum, at the center of a
tug-of-war between Africans trying to remove the sculpture from the museum, and whites trying to keep it there.
See also
*
Belgian colonial empire
Belgium controlled several territories and concessions during the colonial era, principally the Belgian Congo (modern DR Congo) from 1908 to 1960, Ruanda-Urundi (modern Rwanda and Burundi) from 1922 to 1962, and Lado Enclave (modern Central E ...
*
Cannibalism in Africa
*
Colonization of the Congo Basin
*
Crocodile Society
*
Poro society
References
Bibliography
* Reprint: New York: AMS Press, 1978. .
*
Further reading
* Axelrod, Alan (1997). ''The International Encyclopedia of Secret Societies and Fraternal Orders''. Checkmark Books.
* Bernheim, Pierre-Antoine, and Guy Stavridès (1992). ''Cannibales!'' Ed. Plon. pp. 264–267 and 399–400 (notes).
* Burrows, D. (1914). "The Human Leopard Society of Sierra Leone". In: ''Journal of the Royal African Society'', Vol. 13, No. 50, pp. 143–151.
* Cyrier, Jeremy (1999). "Anioto: Mise d'une patte sur la puissance. Hommes de léopard du Congo belge, 1911–1936". Talk at the ''4th Annual Midwestern Graduate Student Conference for African Studies'', September 12, 1999 in East Lansing, Michigan.
* Hutton, J.H. (1920). "Leopard-men in the Naga Hills". ''Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute''.
* Joset, Paul-Ernest (1955). ''Les sociétés secrètes des hommes-léopards en Afrique Noire'' Paris: Payot.
* Lindskog, Birger (1954). ''African Leopard Men''. Uppsala: Studia Ethnographica Upsaliensia, VII.
* Mokede, Paul-Roger (1971). ''Société secrète des Anioto, hommes léopards, ches les Babali, Congo-Kinshasa''. Paris: Université de soutenance, École pratique des hautes études.
*
Fiction
*
External links
The Leopard Society in the Nimba Range and at the Kru coast
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101123220812/http://www.liberiapastandpresent.org/RitualKillings1900_1950b.htm , date=2010-11-23
African secret societies
Cannibalism in Africa
Social history of Liberia
Social history of Sierra Leone
Social history of Ivory Coast