Appeasing the Dead

I’m more…than just…a little curious…
how you’re planning…to go about…
Making your amends…
to the dead. To the dead — A Perfect Circle, The Noose.

Death is an end. It is not quite the end, though. A person dies, yet many of the impressions and feelings they left in the minds of the living continue on.

On one level, the death of a loved one, or a hated adversary, represents the end of a relationship. For the living, however, it is not simply the cessation of an association but a change in its status, with some attendant consequences and obligations that follow.

After an Andaman Islander man has killed a fellow member of his community, there are several precautionary measures considered necessary for him to undertake.

The killer goes to live in the jungle, by himself, for some weeks or months. During this time, he may not handle a bow or arrows. He may not feed himself or touch any food with his hands, though he may be fed by his wife or a friend, who are free to stay or visit with him. His neck and upper lip must stay covered with red paint, and he must wear plumes of shredded wood in his belt and necklace.

After a few weeks, the killer undergoes a kind of purification ceremony. His hands are rubbed with white clay, and then red paint. After this, he washes his hands, and may handle a bow and arrows and feed himself once more.

If any of these precautions are not followed, it is thought, the spirit of the murdered man will have his vengeance.

For the Nuxalk of British Columbia, it is understood that, “The ghost of a murdered person usually tries to avenge himself on his killer,” whose only recourse for protection involves obtaining some small portion of the body or clothing of his victim, such as a tuft of hair or a bit of cloth, or most simply some dirt from above his grave. Once the necessary item is acquired, should the ghost of the victim ever trouble his killer with some kind of sickness, the killer burns the trophy, letting the smoke waft over his body, to destroy the powers of the deceased.

The Onges of the Andaman Islands had a (mistaken) reputation for cannibalism among European outsiders during the 19th century, because while they did not eat those they killed in war, they would cut off their limbs after death and throw them into a great fire, to banish their hostile spirits.

Among the Arunta of Central Australia, after an avenging party has successfully concluded their expedition, they paint themselves with charcoal and wear green twigs on their heads and in their noses, to disguise themselves from the ghosts of those they killed.

This fear of vengeance sought by men who have been killed is a mysterious but not altogether unpredictable sort of negative reciprocity: the conventions and logic of human social interaction can persist even after the death of a participant. Revenge for the death of a loved one is one of the most common motives for killing cross-culturally, so the notion that the ghost of a murdered man would be interested in pursuing his own vengeance is, in some sense, not too surprising.

Stranger though, are the many cases where it not simply enemies but deceased friends and family members who are thought to represent a harmful influence on the living after their death.

Among the G/wi of the Central Kalahari Desert, anthropologist George Silberbauer writes that, “The spirit of the deceased is believed to be malign and resents being deprived of the company of his family and band and will revenge himself on anybody whom he can catch. He will also try to catch somebody from his family or band to keep him company.”

The Kaingang of Brazil consider a widowed person to be inherently dangerous, “for the ghost of the departed clings to its last earthly vestiges in the hair of the surviving spouse…and under the nails…It follows its spouse about wherever it goes, for it is loath to give up its earthly attachments.” Confined in the middle space between the land of the living and the abode of the dead, the ghost is reluctant to give up the relationships and pleasures it enjoyed in life, and trails their surviving spouse wherever they go.

Mourning Custom, Central Australia. "The two widows of a man who has recently died are here shown. They have cut off their hair and daubed themselves with clay, and have built for themselves a shelter of boughs away from the main camp. In the photograph is shown a digging-stick, with the pointed end of which the women cut open their scalps as a sign of their sorrow. These women are forbidden to speak again until the conclusion of the mourning ceremonies, which do not take place till many months after the death." From ‘Customs of the World’ (1922).

The widowed person must live out of camp for some weeks or months, “until the attachment of the ghost is enfeebled.” A widowed husband must obstain from eating the foods he hunted for his wife while she lived, while a widowed wife similarly must not consume foods she cooked for her deceased husband. After this fasting period, the spouse returns to camp with their hair and nails cut, and “is thus freed from the dirt that was so close a link to the ghost.” The return to camp was traditionally an occasion for elaborate ceremony. The spouse’s head would be covered with feathers as a disguise to fool the ghost, while community members engaged in frantic singing and rattling to frighten the ghost away.

Among the Tiwi of Northern Australia, hours are spent on elaborate painted disguises to fool the ghosts, so their graves can be safely approached and proper funerary rites be carried out, to placate their spirits.

From ‘Tiwi Wives’ (1971) by Jane C. Goodale.

Mourning rituals are often explicitly thought to appease the emotions of the deceased. Among the Mescalero Apache of New Mexico,

it is assumed…that the dead are outraged when their possessions are not destroyed, when mourning for them is lax, or when they are referred to disrespectfully. It is also agreed that they tend to linger about the grave (especially for the first four days after death) and strive to return to familiar sights and sounds and companions.

Mike Mountain Horse, a Blood Indian of Canada, described his people’s traditional beliefs about ghosts, and their practices for sending them away, writing that,

If an Indian imagines he hears his name called, he will answer, “Go by yourself.” If is a common belief that a ghost is responsible and should be told to go by himself. But a ghost is not without fear, according to my people. I have been advised by friends on several occasions, while out walking at night time, to take a pliable switch and whip around with it an intervals, at the same time making a loud hooting noise. This is done to scare away any ghosts that may be in close range.

Ghosts, while dangerous in their own right, remain possessed by many of the same concerns and pitfalls faced by the living. They tend to be jealous, lonely figures, resentful of the loss of life’s pleasures, and desperate to return to their friends and family—at least, in the first few weeks or months after death.

Through the following of ritual conventions, the keeping of taboos, and the use of disguise, the dead may be tricked, mollified, and sent on their proper path.

The Fishbowl Trick

The Pledge

In Christopher Priest’s 1995 novel The Prestige—memorably dramatized in Christopher Nolan’s 2007 film of the same name—we are told of a magician from Shanghai named Chi Linqua, working in London under the stage name ‘Ching Ling Foo’, and famous for a very particular illusion involving a fishbowl. In Nolan’s film, the character is known instead as ‘Chung Ling Soo’, for reasons that may become clearer later.

In the novel, young magician Alfred Borden describes going to see Ching perform at Adelphi Theatre in Leicester Square, sometime in the late 19th century. After watching the show, Borden goes to see Ching backstage. Ching would not discuss his magic, but Borden’s eye was caught by Ching’s most famous prop: a large glass fishbowl, well-filled with water, and containing at least a dozen ornamental fish, all of them alive. The spectacular climax of the show involved Ching making this fishbowl appear as if from thin air.

Ching invites him to examine the bowl, and Borden tells us, “I tried lifting it, because I knew the secret of its manifestation, and marvelled at its weight. He was obviously unsure whether I knew his secret or not, and was unwilling to say anything that might expose it, even to a fellow professional. I did not know how to reveal that I did know the secret, and so I too kept my silence.”

Borden lets us know that many years have now passed, and Ching is long dead, so he may reveal to us the magician’s great secret.

In itself, it is quite mundane, even obvious: “His famous goldfish bowl was with him on stage throughout his act, ready for its sudden and mysterious appearance. Its presence was deftly concealed from the audience. He carried it beneath the flowing mandarin gown he affected, clutching it between his knees, kept ready for the sensational and apparently miraculous production at the end.”

Borden then presents us with a contradiction: “No one in the audience could ever guess at how the trick was done, even though a moment’s logical thought would have solved the mystery.”

Why should this be so? Well, “It was obvious to everyone that Ching Ling Foo was physically frail, shuffling painfully through his routine. When he took his bow at the end, he leaned for support on his assistant, and was led hobbling from the stage.”

The secret is now clear: the trick was not really about the hoisting and final presentation of the bowl to the audience. While this act required skilled maneuvering, Ching was in reality a physically fit man of great strength, making this a fairly trivial task. Concealing the fishbowl between his robes, however, required him to shuffle as he walked. This drew attention to the way he moved, threatening to reveal his secret. Thus, for Ching’s entire life, day or night, at home or out in the street, he walked with a shuffle, under the guise of a frail old men, in devotion to the performance.

The Turn

Rachel Dolezal taught Africana studies at Eastern Washington University, and was head of the NAACP chapter in Spokane, Washington. Jessica Krug was a tenured professor of African history at George Washington University. Carrie Bourassa was the scientific director of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research’s Institute of Indigenous Peoples’ Health. Andrea Smith is a professor Ethnic Studies who founded INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence and the Chicago chapter of Women of All Red Nations.

One thing each of these highly accomplished women have in common is that they all appear to have deceived other people about their ethnic identity, having pretended to be African American or Native American.

This is nothing new, of course. Archibald Stansfeld Belaney, born in in Sussex, England in 1888, moved to Canada in 1906 and would go on to have a successful career as a ‘Native American’ conservationist and writer known as Grey Owl.

Sylvester Clark Long, known as Chief Buffalo Child Long Lance, was an African American journalist and actor who pretended to be the son of a Blackfoot chief and wrote a fraudulent autobiography, published in 1928.

‘Grey Owl’ had the fortune of dying of pneumonia in 1938, before his secret was publicized. Rumors about ‘Chief Buffalo Child Long Lance’ being a fraud however apparently began circulate with his growing fame, and he killed himself in 1932.

Before them all there was William Ellsworth Robinson, an American magician who started going by the stage name Chung Ling Soo in 1900, copying some of his persona and act from an actual Beijing-born Chinese magician, not coincidentally named Ching Ling Foo. ‘Chung Ling Soo’ would ultimately die on stage during a failed bullet catch performance in 1918. If you have read or watched The Prestige some of the elements here may be familiar to you.

Poster of ‘Chung Ling Soo’ aka William Ellsworth Robinson’s “Condemned to Death by the Boxers” trick. Robinson would ultimately die while performing this trick in 1918, due in part to a failure to maintain and keep clean the trick gun.

What is it that makes these individuals special? That they pretended to be something they were not? I don’t think so. People are selectively representing themselves in self-interested ways all the time, in every society, in many different contexts—in a species as interdependent and socially individuated as ours, where reputation is paramount, people will often promote themselves in ways thought to lend to more favorable impressions from others. As Erving Goffman put it in The Presentation of Self In Everyday Life,

When an individual enters the presence of others, they commonly seek to acquire information about him or to bring into play information about him already possessed. They will be interested in his general socio-economic status, his conception of self, his attitude toward them, his competence, his trustworthiness, etc.

Social interactions often have a dynamic to them that—while distinct in key ways, such as through reciprocity and turn-taking—exhibit similarities to that of a stage performer carrying out his tricks before an audience. A person builds about their identity through a lifetime of external and internal influences and experience, which result in a persona cultivated in part with an audience—family, friends, partners—in mind. We have our name and reputation, we put on our costumes, we perform particular tasks and roles and take on particular identities in relation to the audience in front of us, such those with whom we are interacting with or seeking to impress.

The Prestige

Looking back on the previous paragraph, I see this post getting a bit trite. ‘And, so you see kids, much like the magician, we too are performers, wearing costumes and seeking to impress an audience!’ Yeah sure, okay, but that isn’t entirely right, is it? Because there is something distinct, something different, about the magician, the Rachel Dolezal’s and Chung Ling Soo’s of the world.

It is not that they constructed their identity, or that they misrepresented themselves, it is the orientation and single-minded focus and extent of the construction that makes them different, and perhaps contemptible to many people. These weren’t examples of people unthinkingly repeating dubious family lore about a native ancestor, or exaggerating the number of books they read to their followers on social media, or other little bits and pieces of selective representation and disclosure that people tend to do everywhere.

It wasn’t enough for Carrie Bourassa, whose ancestors come from Eastern Europe, to present herself as a Native American woman and devote much of her scholarship to focusing on Indigenous women’s health: she gave a TEDx talk in traditional Native regalia identifying herself as ‘Morning Star Bear’. Africana studies professor and NAACP chapter president Rachel Dolezal used excessive amounts of self-tanner and bronzer and wore a weave to complete her costume.

‘Morning Star Bear’ aka Dr. Carrie Bourassa on stage performing during her 2019 TEDx talk.

The performer does not merely selectively represent themselves: the self itself is the illusion. This is what makes them different, their identities are crafted entirely and pretty much exclusively around a fiction. This has much in common with some other cross-cultural domains I have written about previously, such as sorcery, charlatanism, and men’s cults [Ed: I highly recommend you check out these links, because I think they really help flesh some of this out in a broader cross-cultural perspective].

In her post where she admits to having pretended to be African-American, African history professor Jessica Krug writes,

I have not lived a double life. There is no parallel form of my adulthood connected to white people or a white community or an alternative white identity. I have lived this lie, fully, completely, with no exit plan or strategy. I have built only this life, a life within which I have operated with a radical sense of ethics, of right and wrong, and with rage, rooted in Black power, an ideology which every person should support, but to which I have no possible claim as my own.

I have lived this lie, fully.

She says this as though it makes her performance less lamentable, but ironically this level of devotion and committal to the act is where much of the problem lies. There can be no exoneration through some kind of personal misapprehension or confusion, or benign exaggeration, or regrettable but not altogether atypical self-deception on her part—she knew precisely what she was doing, took measures to conceal the act and perpetuate the performance—her devotion to the role is what convicts her.

I have lived this lie, fully. That is the trick. To lie selectively, contextually, once-in-awhile?—everyone does that. But to live a lie, fully?—this is the work of the charlatan.

Leopard Society and the Man-Leopard Murders

A leopard always dances on the grave of its victim— Okon Bassey, 1945

On February 22nd, 1945, a man named Dan Udoffia was attacked and killed by a leopard in the Ikot Okoro Area of Southeastern Nigeria. At least, that is what the one apparent eyewitness to the attack, Akpan Etuk Udo, would later claim in his statement to police. No one reported the anything suspicious about Udoffia’s death directly to colonial authorities, and it was only after an article appeared in a weekly newspaper over two weeks later (see excerpt below) that an investigation would be prompted.

‘MURDER AT IKOT OKORO – LEOPARD ALLEGED’

‘Leopards, or human leopards as some suspect, have been waging a relentless war on the people of this division, particularly those living in Ikot Okoro Area. Again and again the people have appealed to Government for help. They have wailed for a long time, but no help has been forthcoming. Day after day reports are made of loss of several lives due to the ravages of these ferocious animals. Nobody knows what Government thinks of this state of affairs. Recently the house boy to Court Messenger Okon Bassey was attacked and killed while on his way to tap palm wine near a riverside. The people are like sheep without a shepherd.’

-Nigerian Eastern Mail, 10 March 1945 (Pratten 2007).

The new colonial District Officer to the region, Frederick Kay, apparently read this article and launched a preliminary enquiry into the attack. Udoffia’s body was exhumed, and a post-mortem examination was conducted indicating that Udoffia was killed by two puncture wounds made by a sharp instrument, inflicted by a person, and not from a leopard at all.

With this evidence in hand, Key began conducting interviews and taking statements from witnesses, including the supposed eyewitness to the attack, Akpan Etuk Udo. Anthropologist David Pratten writes that,

In his statement Akpan Etuk Udo said that after tapping palm wine he had been walking home with Dan Udoffia on the evening of 22 February when he heard the sound of a commotion behind him. As he swung round he saw, just seven paces away, a leopard pinning Udoffia to the ground. He shouted and ran at the leopard, which disappeared into the bush. Though Udoffia was wounded he got to his feet and the two men ran home to the court compound in Ikot Okoro. The next day Udoffia’s master and neighbour, Okon Bassey, took charge of the patient and moved him to his own house. Along with Akpan Etuk Udo and Frank Umoren, the court clerk, Okon Bassey marched several miles to fetch Nchericho, a ‘native doctor’, to attend to him, but before dawn on the following morning, 24 February, Dan Udoffia succumbed to his injuries (Pratten 2007).

Case closed it would seem. Except suspicion would soon fall on Udoffia’s employer, Okon Bassy, for his distrustful actions on February 23rd. Pratten adds that, “When Udoffia was moved to Bassey’s house that day several people were known to have visited the victim, including the local headmaster, other schoolteachers and the court clerk,” yet Bassey refused to allow the local doctor to see him, and when Udoffia died Bassey failed to report it to local authorities, and buried him himself.

After ten days’ investigation, Bassey was arrested and charged with manslaughter. Initially, he was not accused of taking part in the attack itself. Local rumors however held that Bassey was in league with two accomplices, who were all part of the same secret man-leopard society.

A week later, Bassey was allowed to return to his station, and the police uncovered a possible motive for what was increasingly looking like a murder. Bassey, his second wife (of five), and Dan Udoffia’s widow were heard by plainclothes police officers quarrelling over Bassey’s insistence on having sex with Udoffia’s widow. Police also took statements from Bassey’s other wives, and while District Officer Kay remained skeptical of any man-leopard society involvement, he was convinced Bassey killed Udoffia to carry on an affair with his wife (there was also apparently a past land dispute involved). Here is how Pratten sums up the results of the case:

Okon Bassey was subsequently charged with murder and the case was heard before a packed Supreme Court, with Mr Justice Manson presiding, on 27 November 1945. Prosecuting for the Crown, Barrister L. N. Mbanefo stated that Bassey had ambushed Udoffia on account of past disputes between them, and disguising himself as a man-leopard seriously wounded his neighbour with a sharp instrument and left him for dead. After the attack Bassey was further accused of refusing Udoffia medical treatment, of concealing him in his house, and of secretly and indecently burying him. Bassey’s defence counsel, Barrister J. M. Coco-Bassey, offered little to refute the charge. His case hinged on calling Bassey’s wives as witnesses to establish his alibi, but their evidence on oath was dismissed under cross-examination as it was contradicted by statements the police had taken from them previously in Ikot Okoro. These statements claimed that Bassey had not been in the compound with his wives at the time of the attack as he had claimed. Bassey’s senior wife, Edima, had stated that Bassey had threatened to kill Udoffia just hours before the murder and that he had taken her to Udoffia’s grave the day after he was buried where he showed her faked leopard pad marks and where he had said that ‘a leopard always dances on the grave of its victim’. With his alibi broken the defence case collapsed and Okon Bassey was convicted on the evidence of his own wives. On 29 November 1945 he was sentenced to death by hanging.

Now, while this may seem like a natural place to conclude a strange and unfortunate tale, this is in fact our starting point, because while Okon Bassey was the first to be convicted of ‘man-leopard’ murder in the Old Calabar region of southeastern Nigeria, he would not be the last, and in total at least 102 people were convicted of man-leopard murder in the region, with 77 of them being executed being hanging, from 1945-1948.

The deep origins of man-leopard assassinations are opaque, however we may find some hints in the history of traditional secret societies in West Africa. The Ngbe (“leopard” in Ejagham) society began spreading in the Cross River Region by 1600 at the latest, with its original functions thought to be rooted in male political alliances and warfare. Ultimately diverse practices and functions grew out of this secret society as it spread across significant parts of Nigeria and Cameroon. Anthropologists Simon Ottenberg and Linda Knudsen write,

These societies helped to centralize trade and political power within each settlement. The members of its senior grade were invariably wealthy traders, politicians, and heads of the community; even some European traders joined (Nair 1972: 18)…In the Efik area and beyond, Ekpe [“leopard” in Efik] was employed to assist in the collection of debts, particularly those involving trade (Northrup 1978: 107), and to frighten, beat, and control slaves. The organization settled disputes, having the authority to fine, and ultimately to decide life or death. The society was important not only in maintaining social stratification but also in keeping peace between communities (Jones 1956:142)

"Southern Etun Ngbe Performance, Nkanda Grade. Middle Cross River.” from Ottenberg & Knudsen (1985).

Yet with British colonial authorities becoming dominant in West Africa in the 19th century, these and other secret societies, while still potent forces, saw a decline in their prominence and power, as traditional warfare was disrupted by colonial police and local political institutions were uprooted by colonial government.

It is important to note that the man-leopard murders are not directly connected to the Ngbe/Ekpe societies referred to above (particularly as they have a wider geographic distribution than those particular societies do). What this does show, however, particularly in the broader historical West African context, is some relevant dynamics in terms of traditional practices of leopard mimicry and ritual violence and secrecy, which may be helpful for understanding what follows.

While much remains mysterious, it is clear that by the late 19th century the problem of ‘man-leopard’ murders was on the radar of British colonial authorities in parts of the region, and concerns about a ‘Human Leopard Society’ in Sierra Leone were growing. Updates in the Journal of the Society of Comparative Legislation from 1896-1906 describe ordinances in British Sierra Leone attempting to crack down on the Human Leopard Society, and other related ‘murder societies’ over the years:

‘Legislation of the Empire, 1895’:

No. 15, which bears the somewhat familiar and ordinary title of "An Ordinance to Facilitate the Detection and Punishment of Crime," opens with this weird preamble: "Whereas there exists in the Imperi country a society known by the name of the Human Leopard Society, formed for the purpose of committing murder, and whereas many murders have been committed by men dressed so as to represent leopards, and armed with a three-pronged knife, commonly known as a leopard-knife, or other weapon." Therefore leopard-skins and leopard-knives and a native medicine called "borfima," are duly scheduled, and it is provided that any person wearing or possessing such things, and not being able to show a lawful purpose, shall be guilty of felony, and liable to fourteen years imprisonment. The Ordinance throws no light on the mischievous character of “borfima”.

‘Review of Legislation, 1901’:

Murder Societies. - The law passed in 1896 for the suppression of the "Human Leopard Society" was noticed in our review of the legislation of that year. The preamble of Ordinance No. 29 of 1901 now recites that a Human Leopard Society and an Alligator Society formed for the purpose of committing murders exist principally in the Ronietta district of the Protectorate, and that many murders have been recently committed there. The "plant" used by these societies is described in the schedule thus: (a) leopard skins "shaped or made so as to make a man wearing the same resemble a leopard"; (b) alligator skins shaped or made so as to make a man wearing the same resemble an alligator; (c) a knife with two or more prongs, commonly known as a "leopard knife" or an "alligator knife"; and (d) the native medicine commonly known as "Borfima" or any medicine of a like nature. The law of 1896 made the possession of these articles a criminal offence. Now the powers of search for them are strengthened; and suspicion that these murders are committed with the cognisance of the chiefs is shown in the clauses directed against chiefs. Any chief who encourages or abets the celebration in any village of any "customs" of the proscribed societies, or fails to report the same to the police, is liable to a fine of '500 or imprisonment for a year. A still stronger measure is a power conferred on the Governor in Council to order the arrest and detention of " any such chief or sub-chief as may be deemed expedient for the maintenance of peace and order and the suppression of the Human Leopard Society and Alligator Society." Any such chief may also be deported by the Governor. The Ordinance was to be on trial until the end of 1902.

‘Review of Legislation, 1905’:

Murder Societies. - We noted last year the continuation of the Ordinance for the suppression of the "Human Leopard Society." It is again continued to the end of 1906. In 1904 there were five cases of these murders in one district of the Protectorate, forty-seven persons being tried and twenty-eight convicted of murder.

Kenneth James Beatty wrote a book, Human Leopards: An account of the trials of human leopards before the special comission court; with a note on Sierra Leone, past and present (1915), discussing the colonial authorities’ investigations into the ‘Human Leopard Society’, as well as the society’s continued activities at the time of his writing;

A small girl aged about seven years was killed at Nerekora toward the end of December, 1912; two days later another small girl about twelve years of age was killed at Bafai; and early the following month another girl aged about twelve to thirteen years was killed at Nerekora. All these deaths were at first attributed to attacks by bush leopards, but the evidence given by various witnesses was to the effect that these three girls were murdered by members of the Human Leopard Society.

In 1916 sociologist H. Osman Newland described witnessing what seems to have been an abduction by a Human Alligator Society member in Sierra Leone, writing that,

In a creek far up the Rokelle river I saw in broad daylight a runaway black who was being tracked as a thief seized by what appeared to be an alligator. But instead of being sucked down into the water he was literally "carried" along the reeds into the bush. The boys who were following him up instantly gave up the chase and stopped me, saying the river god had taken him. I had seen enough alligators, however, to know all their movements, and I guessed the truth, though I allowed them to think I believed them, as I had no desire to become a " dangerous " person in a secluded part of the world where Nature rules.

Beatty also described the formation of a Human Baboon Society early in the 20th century in Sierra Leone,

During the month of May, 1913, a small girl was killed near the village of Bokamp, and, according to statements made by persons who turned informers, she was murdered by members of the Human Baboon Society. Their statements were to the following effect: That this Society was formed about six years ago, and consists of twenty-one members made up of eleven men and ten women; that seven victims, all young children, had been provided at various times for the Society; that at their meetings one of the members of the Society dresses himself in a Baboon skin and attacks the victim with his teeth; that the spirit of all members of the Society becomes centred in the person who is for the time being wearing the Baboon skin, which, when not in use, is kept in a small forest, where it is guarded by an evil spirit, and that the “Baboon” bites pieces out of the victim which the other members of the Society devour.

The only explanation that the informers could or would give as to the objects of the Society was that the founder of it had quarrelled with his tribal ruler, who he alleged liberated one of the founders’ slaves and placed him in authority over him; that he, the owner of the slave, became so incensed that he turned himself into a “witch” and induced others to join him in doing “evil things.”

Beatty notes that more ordinances continued to be passed to crack down on the Human Leopard and other animal ‘murder societies’, in 1909 and 1912, with “A dress made of baboon skins commonly used by members of an unlawful society,” among the banned items.

Another relevant source on this topic seems to be the book African Jungle Doctor (1952) by Werner Junge, with information on man-leopard murders in Liberia. I haven’t been able to get a copy yet, and will update this post when I do, but here is how economic historian Fred van der Kraaij describes it,

In 'African Jungle Doctor', a German doctor describes his ten years in Liberia. Dr. Werner Junge went to Liberia in 1930 to establish a mission at Bolahun, in the heart of the jungle, and he spent two years in running the hospital there. He was then transferred to the coast, and carried on the same kind of work at Cape Mount until 1940. Dr Junge was confronted many times with activities of both the Crocodile Society and the Leopard Society. He extensively describes six cases of ritual murders or murder attempts which he had to deal with as a medical doctor. One of his experiences reads as follows:

"There, on a mat in a house, I found the horribly mutilated body of a fifteen-year-old girl. The neck was torn to ribbons by the teeth and claws of the animal, the intestines were torn out, the pelvis shattered, and one thigh was missing. A part of the thigh, gnawed to the bone, and a piece of the shin-bone lay near the body. It seemed at first glance that only a beast of prey could have treated the girl's body in this way, but closer investigation brought certain particularities to light which did not fit in with the picture. I observed, for example, that the skin at the edge of the undamaged part of the chest was torn by strangely regular gashes about an inch long. Also the liver had been removed from the body with a clean cut no beast could make. I was struck, too, by a piece of intestine the ends of which appeared to have been smoothly cut off, and, lastly, there was the fracture of the thigh - a classic example of fracture by bending." (Junge, 1952: p. 176).

So, what of Okon Bassey and the case referred to at the beginning of this post? One possibility is there was a real leopard attack which he opportunistically took advantage of, bringing Udoffia home, allowing him to die and then burying him himself. This scenario would require the forensic examination to be mistaken, and Bassey’s wife to be lying about the leopard print confession (or perhaps Bassey, for some strange reason, decided to commit to such an act and impersonate a man-leopard after the fact). It also would mean Bassey was especially (un)fortunate that a personal rival in Udoffia happened be the target of the leopard attack.

One challenge that arises is that a District Officer, J. A. G. McCall, continued to maintain decades after the fact that probably all of the ‘man-leopard’ murders in Nigeria from 1945-1948 really were done by actual leopards, and not men at all! The figure below sums up his argument. Possibly he is correct about some or maybe many cases but there is a broader regional pattern going on here, with firsthand accounts and observations going back a century or two across multiple countries, that cannot be explained by the particular deficiencies of colonial investigations in one region of Nigeria over the course of a few years.

Summary of former district offer J.A.G. McCall’s argument, from The Man-Leopard Murders: History and Society in Colonial Nigeria (2007) by David Pratten.

At any rate, my speculative view is that Bassey did commit the killing, but that he was not actually a member of any ‘Human Leopard Society’, though he was familiar enough with the method or the stories to attempt to mimic it. It seems he bungled the attempt to a significant degree, failing to kill Udoffia in his initial attack, exposing himself to significant added risk by bringing him back to his home and burying him himself, and then apparently confessing to his wife about fabricating leopard prints. One would think someone better trained or more experienced in the method would likely have had an easier time getting away with it, hence the common pattern (including even in Bassey’s case) of witnesses identifying attackers as leopards. Although, in the Bassey case, it is strange that multiple seemingly respectable people apparently visited Udoffia while he was dying in Bassey’s house (with the exception of the doctor who was refused entry) and don’t seem to have said anything...

I think what happened overall is as the methods of ‘Human Leopard Societies’ were more publicized and spread it led to copycats beyond those who were initiated into more established groups, and the tactics were sometimes used by independent individuals looking to dispose of enemies, or entrepreneurs looking to create their own societies. This is how you get multiple disconnected ‘Human Leopard Societies’ in different West African countries, and the emergence of ‘Human Alligator Societies’, ‘Human Baboon Societies’, etc. On the other side, it also may have led to scapegoating accusations of rivals being members of the widely known and feared ‘The Human Leopard Society’, alleged to have committed killings that may have really been done by actual leopards in some cases.

One commonly reported motive for ‘Human Leopard Society’ killings, at least in Sierra Leone and possibly Liberia, is to extract human body parts to be used in a supernatural ‘medicine’ bag known as Borfima (previously referred to in the colonial ordinances quoted above). William Brandford Griffith, a British colonial administrator in the Gold Coast during the 19th century, describes what the Sierra Leone investigations found in the early 1900’s, writing that, “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.”

Kenneth James Beatty provides a witnesses’ description of being initiated into a Human Leopard Society in Sierra Leone, emphasizing the importance of the Borfima,

One of the witnesses was a boy aged eighteen years. His story was that one evening in the previous year, as he was returning home from a visit to a neighbouring village, night overtook him, and by mistake he took a path leading to the Poro bush at Powolu, where he fell into a number of people. He spoke to them, but no one answered. He then got afraid and commenced to run away, when he was seized by some one who was assisted by several others to make him a fast prisoner. He was then dragged inside the Poro bush and a discussion took place, which he was able to hear, as to whether they should kill him or not. The majority of the members were for immediately killing him in accordance with the rules of the Society, but it was pointed out that another victim had already been secured, and further that as their prisoner was the son of a man of some importance his absence might give rise to some awkward inquiries. It was therefore agreed to give him the alternative of becoming a member of the Society or of being immediately killed. The witness stated that he agreed to join the Society. Borfima was then brought, and the "big man" of the Society explained to him that the Borfima was the "mother" of the Society and should be treated with the greatest veneration ; that they were its children and therefore brothers to each other, and in order to join him to their brotherhood some of his blood had to be given to the Borfima to drink ; that when the blood was taken from him he should bear the pain inflicted bravely and should not utter a sound, as otherwise it would displease their " medicine " and might result in his being punished in some unexpected way. The "Master" then marked him on the left buttock by cutting a slice of flesh away and rubbing the blood that exuded from the wound on to the Borfima. He was then made to swear an oath on the Borfima not to reveal the secrets of the Society, and was forced to be present and witness the killing of a girl who had been brought to the Poro bush, and was made to eat some of the flesh of this victim.

Although there was no direct evidence apart from that of accomplices, it was clear from the testimony of independent witnesses that all these persons were so connected with the Society as to make it desirable to have them removed from the Grallinas District, where it was stated they exercised great influence over the people. All these men, with the exception of eight sub-Chiefs who absconded to Liberia, have since been deported to the Karina and Koinadugu Districts of the Protectorate

I will end with the thoughts of the first district commissioner of Sierra Leone, T.J. Alldridge, who described a ‘Human Leopard Society’ in Sierra Leone in 1901, and his optimism about their decline, thusly,

Before the native rising in 1898, when an abortive attempt was made to put an end to British and all other civilising influences, a part of the Sherbro known as the Imperri country had long been notorious for possessing a medicine peculiar to the place, called Borfimor (a contraction of Boreh fina medicine bag). This Borfimor was a solid preparation, apparently harmless in itself until anointed with human fat, when it became an all-powerful fetish. Of course to obtain human fat people must be killed, and to procure victims the notorious Human Leopard Society was formed. The Imperri was the great centre of this institution. It does not appear to have been of any very great age, possibly not more than forty years or so old. I remember to have been told, some twenty years ago, that it was then merely a family arrangement, the members working only among their own relatives; and that at the committee meetings of the society a relative of some member was selected, told off to be the next victim, and subsequently waylaid and killed by a man in the guise of a leopard, who rushed upon the unsuspecting victim from behind, and planting a three-pronged knife of special make in the neck, separated the vertebra, generally causing instantaneous death. The body was then opened, and some of the internal parts were removed for the purpose of obtaining the fat, which was considered necessary to preserve the magical powers of the Borfimor. The Borfimor was a highly prized fetish, believed to be a panacea against all evil and capable also of procuring all good.

The society after a time becoming too extensive to remain a mere family concern, it appears to have been changed into a public institution ; that is any victim could be taken from the general community, and we know as a fact that the lives of many innocent persons were sacrificed in this manner.

The modus operandi for gaining adherents seemed to be this. When a visitor appeared in any village he was invited to partake of food, in which was mixed a small quantity of human flesh. The guest all unsuspectingly partook of the repast, and was afterwards told that human flesh formed one of the ingredients of the meal, and that it was then necessary that he should join the society, which was invariably done. The initiation fee was the providing of a victim; but it did not necessarily follow that the new member should himself slaughter the victim, he need only furnish him; there were persons who, upon payment, would carry out the murder.

Shortly before the rising it was found that the number of victims to the Leopard Society was rapidly increasing, and, as the greatest secrecy was observed, it was next to impossible to bring the criminals to justice; even the relatives of the victims being too terrified to divulge the smallest thing. For instance, when a witness was examined, the same answer was always given in reply to the question:

"What did you see ?"

“Nothing. I only felt a great wind rush by."

My own opinion was that they never did see anything, because the victim was always in a secluded spot near a thick bush. The leopard never went any distance, he was always in such a position, near an opening in the bush, that he could retreat instantly.

…

Happily the persistent and effective measures adopted by the Government have been so successful that I quite believe the Human Leopard Society is now simply a matter of history.

Tickle-fight Diplomacy, and Other Methods of Greeting and Conflict Management

There is an ambivalence to physical contact. The comforts that come from contact between friends, or between family, or between lovers, is contrasted most severely with the threat or enactment of violence from an adversary. Encounters with strangers or frenemies may thus pose a dilemma, between the potential benefits and costs of a fruitful alliance or a damaging attack. In such circumstances, greeting rituals and other methods of conflict management among males may be particularly likely to emerge and persist as conventions, which can convey non-hostility and aid coalition formation, but may also be vulnerable to deceitful manipulation.

Anthropologist Pierre Clastres describes a particular manner of navigating the possibility of violent conflict between men among the Guayaki-Ache hunter-gatherers of Paraguay. Clastres begins by noting their perception of the ambiguity of touch in connection with food practices, writing,

I was very aware of how extremely repugnant the Indians found the idea of touching one another; it was clear when food was given out: instead of passing the food directly from hand to hand, whoever is giving the food puts the fistful of grubs or piece of meat on the ground, and the person he is giving this gift to picks it up. This reserve is certainly a kind of good etiquette. But there is something else in it: the conviction that physical contact is a form of aggression.

The problems of touch, and of the possibility of aggression, then, are managed among Guayaki-Ache men with a form of greeting ritual involving tickling. Clastres offers an extended description of the process,

Now if you want to deny what seems to be an aggressive appearance, what better way is there than to accept what would ordinarily be interpreted as an act of hostility — bodily contact? If the men welcome this now, it means they really are not enemies. So they enter into a ceremonial game, the necessary prelude to all phases of the ritual, the kyvai: the tickling. Two by two, putting their arms around each other, the warriors run their fingers into the armpits and down the ribs of their partners. It is a sort of competition to see who will be the last to laugh. They try to hold back as long as possible and endure this tickling, which is a form of torture they are not used to. By allowing men to touch each other, the true function of the kyvai becomes clear: to establish or strengthen friendship between two men. Fairly often in the camps, an Atchei Gatu would approach a Stranger and ask him to sit down beside him. The two men would put their heads together and begin the kyvai, murmuring in wheedling voices like lovers: “You see, cheygi, we are doing the kyvai. We are doing it so that we will laugh, so that we will be happy. I am tickling you, and you will not be able to resist. You will burst out laughing and free yourself. We are friends.” The man being subjected to this hunches up, squeezes his arms against his sides (he would have trouble trying to tickle the other man), holds his breath, and contorts his face with great effort, but he does not fight it for very long. All of a sudden he explodes, he is shaken by a spasm and breaks out in hysterical laughter. This is too much, and he gets up and tries to escape; the other man tries to stop him, and this goes on for a few minutes. At last the cheygi, hiccuping, sick with laughter, and nearly suffocating, manages to ask for mercy in a shrill voice: “Enough! A lot of tickling! It makes my stomach hurt!” They are friends. When I had a favor to ask, it was better not to risk the embarrassment of being refused. I would therefore address myself to a cheygi, and in order to establish a friendship I would imitate the Indians and give myself up to the pleasures of the kyvai. The happiness would be shared by everyone. The partner I chose, whom in other circumstances I would certainly never have challenged, would collapse after several minutes of tickling, a Hercules flailing about on the ground and whimpering like a newborn child.

As conveyed above, the tickle-fights appear to function, “to establish or strengthen friendship between two men,” operating as a non-threatening way of maintaining physical contact between men and ideally reducing the possibility of conflict.

Sometimes such practices take on an even more intimate character. Anthropologist Ann McLean describes anthropologist Reo Fortune’s fieldwork experiences learning about the greeting rituals of the Kamano of New Guinea, writing that,

Fortune was somewhat nonplused by some of the customs and behaviors confronting him. One such concerned the niceties of greeting. The precontact courtesy between persons in certain familiar relationships was by reference to and handling of the genitals. Essentially a prudish person, he records with obvious relief that he was only once put to this test. in presenting an account of the greeting, he hedges with various formulations to convey the meaning of the utterance accompanying the gesture—"thy virility greeting"—"thy male member greeting"—before finally settling for "thy penis greeting," and a clinical account of its usage and abusage.

In such a context, it is not unreasonable to think the handling of intimate and vulnerable parts of the body in this fashion may function to convey trust and reduce possible hostility. In fact, genital fondling appears to be a relatively common component of male rituals in some baboon species as well, and such behaviors seem to exhibit other important similarities to human rituals. Dal Pesco & Fischer (2018) write that,

Greetings in Guinea baboons appear to signal commitment among party members, test relationships among spatially tolerant partners, and accentuate relationship strength among highly affiliated males. Although ritualized baboon greetings lack the symbolic component of human rituals, they appear to serve similar functions, specifically to strengthen in-group affiliation and promote cooperation.

At the same time, while these practices can have prosocial functions, individuals and groups can learn to take advantage of them in a more self-interested fashion. Among Kaingang hunter-gatherers of Brazil, men follow similar social institutions to establish or reinforce coalitions, with physical caresses, offerings of food, and finally beer, being provided to put potential allies or adversaries at ease. Yet once established as convention, such social norms can be vulnerable to deceit by cheaters. Thus, treacherous feasts were so common among the Kaingang at the time of ethnographic description that the phrase "Let us make beer for him," had developed a sinister connotation. Descriptions of the abuse of peacekeeping practices to ambush adversaries are not uncommon cross-culturally. Anthropologist Reed Wadley writes that,

In several societies, treacherous ambushes have occurred in the context of formal peacemaking and ritual feasts. On some occasions, peacemaking becomes the express pretext for ambush: in 1852, Tlingit from Sitka ambushed a group of enemies who had been lured there for a meeting to end a feud. "While in the heat of the dance, and handicapped with their dancing costumes on, they were fallen upon and all put to death with knife and club”

Methods of navigating inter-individual conflict through regulated ritual violence are also commonly found cross-culturally. Reo Fortune described ritual conflict resolution among the Kamano of New Guinea, noting a typical pattern where "the contestants reached for strakes of wood and attempted to batter each other's head and shoulders. When an argument reached this stage it was normal for the man who drew the first blood on his opponent to claim a victory at law, and it was normal for his opponent to concede the lady, the land, or whatever it might be to his fellow."

Fight with Cudgels, Francisco Goya, c. 1820.

Similarly, anthropologist Charles Hart gives describes the ‘trial’ process among Tiwi hunter-gatherers of North Australia below, involving a kind of spear-throwing duel between—inevitably, in this gerontocratic polygynous society—a young man being attacked by an elderly male accuser. See below for an extended description, with certain particularly salient parts highlighted if you want to skip:

The basic shape of all Tiwi trials was standardized in the form that we have been calling the duel. Everybody present—men, women, children, and dogs—formed a rough circle in an open space, sitting or standing according to their degree of excitement at the moment. At one end stood the accuser, the old man, covered from head to foot in white paint, with his ceremonial spears in one hand and a bundle of the more useful hunting spears in the [Page 81] other. At the opposite end stood the defendant, with little or no paint on him, perhaps holding a hunting spear or two in his hand (a sign of insolence), perhaps holding only throwing sticks (less defiant, since the stick was an inferior weapon more appropriate to young men), or perhaps entirely weaponless (a sign of proper humility and the deference to his seniors that all bachelors ought to show in such situations). The accuser, with many gestures, particularly with much stamping of the feet and chewing of the beard, told the young man in detail precisely what he and all right-minded members of the community thought of him. This angry, loud harangue went into minute detail, not only about the actual offense, but the whole life career of the defendant, and paid particular attention to occasions in the past when the old man even remotely, or some of his relatives, even more remotely, had performed kindnesses toward either the young man or some of his relatives. It is difficult to summarize briefly one of these harangues, but the general formula, subject to much variation by each individual accuser, appeared to be the building up of as much contrast as possible between the criminal or antisocial character of the young man's actions and the fact that he was a member of a network of interpersonal relationships in which mutual aid and reciprocal obligations were essential. The Tiwi orators, of course, did not put the matter in such abstract terms. They listed the long catalogue of people who had done things for the young man since his birth, and for his ancestors and relatives, until the catalogue took in practically the whole tribe—past, present, and future. And what had he done to repay his obligations to all these people? “Why, the miserable, ungrateful wretch spends his time hanging around my camp, etc., etc. And not only my camp, but last year it was widely believed that he was indulging in similar actions around the camp of my esteemed fellow-elder, So and So.” We do not think that we are overintellectualizing the content of these harangues if we say that they involved the old man's reminding the young man of his debt to society, and his attempting to convey the idea that social life needed mutual aid and trust between all its members.

After twenty minutes or so of this sociological abuse and blame pinning, the old man threw aside his ceremonial spears and began to throw his hunting spears at the defendant. This active phase of the duel conformed to a stereotyped pattern which in some respects resembled baseball. The old man stood about ten feet farther away from the young man than the pitcher stands from the plate. The young man had to avoid being hit by the spears. To do this he was permitted to jump from side to side or into the air, or to duck, but he was expected always to land on approximately the same spot as he had been standing on when the first spear was thrown. Thus there was no marked strike zone, but an implied one. If the accused jumped well away from the strike zone, he was jeered by the crowd. If the old man was wild, he was jeered too, but more respectfully. Under such rules a modern baseball hitter, having no bat in his hand to worry about, would almost never be hit by a pitched ball, and the Tiwi young men were similarly never likely to be hit by an old man's spears. The main danger was the spear that pitched in the dirt. Although clearly outside the strike zone and hence an indication that the old man was [Page 82] really wild, such a spear was apt to carom off the ground at an unexpected angle and inflict a severe wound before the spectators (as collective umpires) had time to call it—in which case the duel was over and the accused was punished

Usually this baring of its teeth by society-at-large was enough. The group of elders did not need to throw many spears simultaneously. The accused capitulated by throwing aside his spears or throwing sticks, or if the defiance had been only of the mildest form—namely, an undue prolongation of the dodging—he allowed his accuser to score a direct hit and the duel ended in the normal way. In the rare cases of the accused refusing to give up, even when confronted by a menacing line of several elders, a concerted volley or two from them quickly knocked him out, and in pre-white days, usually killed him. Crime thus paid even less for the accused who chose defiance than it did for the accused who allowed himself to be wounded in a duel by a doddering ancient three times his age. The greater the amount of defiance, the more clear it became that the doddering ancient, acting ostensibly as an outraged husband, was the responsible agent of society dispensing public justice. If he needed help, all responsible elders went to his aid, and the kinsmen of the accused stood aside and let justice take its course.

Thus for the accused, what was key in many respects was allowing the older man to save face while not being significantly harmed yourself, dodging only minimally, following proper procedure, and in some cases perhaps taking an (ideally) mild blow to assuage gerontocratic fury.

“Ochre-drawing of spear-boomerang duel,” of Arunta hunter-gatherers of Australia. From Basedow (1925).

The possibility of violent conflict between men—and the utility of having allies in such contexts—has been something societies throughout human history have had to navigate, with diverse cultural institutions emerging and persisting as a consequence. Such practices may have broad prosocial functions in some cases, but can also be vulnerable to manipulation by self-interested individuals and groups.