Human Leopards : $b an account of the trials of Human Leopards before the Special Commission Court; with a note on Sierra Leone, past and presentBeatty, Kenneth James
History
Human Leopards : $b an account of the trials of Human Leopards before the Special Commission Court; with a note on Sierra Leone, past and present
Beatty, Kenneth James
Cannibalism; Ethnology -- Sierra Leone; Leopard men; Sierra Leone -- History
The first of these cases was one against an important person who held
high office in the Imperri Chiefdom. The charge against him was that in
or about the month of July, 1912, he had in his possession without
lawful authority or excuse certain articles, to wit a native medicine
commonly known as “Borfima,” and a “kukoi” or whistle, contrary to
Section 2 of Ordinance No. 28 of 1909 (The Human Leopard Society
Ordinance) as amended by Section 7 of Ordinance No. 17 of 1912. There
were two other counts charging him with (i) the custody and (ii) the
control of the “Borfima” and “Kukoi” mentioned above. The accused was a
man of striking personality, and appears to have exercised a great
influence in the Imperri Chiefdom.
The facts of the case were simple. In July, 1912, it was stated by
members of the Society who had turned King’s evidence that he had been
present at several meetings of the Human Leopard Society and had taken a
prominent part in the preliminary arrangements for securing various
victims, and that he had at these meetings produced the “mother” Borfima
of the Imperri Chiefdom. In these circumstances he was arrested and his
houses at Gbangbama and Victoria were watched by Court Messengers.
Early one morning the senior Court Messenger saw one of the accused’s
wives leave the house at Gbangbama with a bundle. He followed her, and
when she saw that there was no escape she threw the bundle down and ran
away. This bundle held, amongst other things, an iron pot containing
“medicine.”
The accused admitted that the “medicine” was his, and made a statement
as to how it had come into his possession. This will be best described
in his own words: “I am a sick man. My sickness arose over a dream. A
snake swallowed me up to my waist. I screamed and then awakened. In the
morning I was unable to move. My legs and body up to the place where the
snake had swallowed me became ‘dead.’ I remained like that for four
years. I heard that there was a Mori Man at a town called Behol, and
sent a messenger for him. I employed this man to make a medicine for me
and I paid him £3 for it. That is the sebbeh (charm) which was in the
pot which the Court Messenger took from my wife. The Mori Man told me
that I would not dream again, and that the lassimo (medicine) would ward
off ill-health and bad dreams so long as I always kept it with me. Ah!
if he were not dead I would not be here” (meaning that had the Mori Man
been living it would not have been in the power of the white man to
interfere with him).
The accused caused some amusement in Court by describing how the senior
Court Messenger brought the sebbeh to Gombo-kabbo (“Fire in the grass,”
the native name for the Assistant District Commissioner), and how he
heard him shout out in a triumphant voice, which he imitated, “I have
brought Daddy Borfima—come and see!”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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