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 at all the more interesting junctures we had to keep severely in mind that we were not holding a scientific inquiry but were a judicial tribunal having as the sole issue before us whether the deceased was murdered by the prisoners in the dock in connection with an unlawful society. Consequently, notwithstanding the time spent over the different trials, and despite the fact that whenever the subject of cannibalism came up the Court was keenly on the alert to fathom its objects, it is not possible to state definitely why the members of the Human Leopard Society ate their victims. There was, however, one outstanding fact: all the principal offenders were men of mature age, past their prime; they were the ones who, so to speak, managed the concern, who arranged for victims, and who received the most coveted portions of the slaughtered bodies; and I formed the opinion that when they devoured the human flesh the idea uppermost in their minds was that they were increasing their virile powers.

There is no sentence in the notes of evidence which I can quote in support of this theory, but after an extended experience of the point of view of the West African mind, and with some acquaintance with the subject on the spot, I venture the opinion that the Human Leopards eat the flesh of their victims, not to satisfy any craving for human flesh nor in connection with any religious rite, but in the belief that their victims’ flesh will increase their virility.

Whether that was the original idea when the first person fell a victim to the Human Leopards may be questioned. Cannibalism is probably only a bye-product in these murders. Originally it may have been to bind the murderers together and so preserve inviolable secrecy that each member of the Society partook of a portion of the flesh; or it may have been to continue the leopard-acting, i.e. by devouring the prey; or it may have been with a combination of these ideas that cannibalism originated. Gradually, however, the notion arose that human flesh had specific virtues; as the Borfima’s energy was replenished with human fat so would the cannibal be reinvigorated with other parts of the human body; and possibly during the last few decades the value placed upon human flesh was equal to or even exceeded that set upon human fat. Such an explanation would help to account for the expansion and increased activity of the Society during the past twenty years.

Then comes the question whether the punishments inflicted by the Special Commission Court will have the effect of stamping out the Society. In considering this question the environment of the people must be taken into account. I have been in many forests, but in none which seemed to me to be so uncanny as the Sierra Leone bush. In Mende-land the bush is not high, as a rule it is little more than scrub, nor is the vegetation exceptionally rank, but there is something about the Sierra Leone bush, and about the bush villages as well, which makes one’s flesh creep. It may be the low hills with enclosed swampy valleys, or the associations of the slave trade, or the knowledge that the country is alive with Human Leopards; but to my mind the chief factor in the uncanniness is the presence of numerous half-human chimpanzees with their maniacal shrieks and cries. The bush seemed to me pervaded with something supernatural, a spirit which was striving to bridge the animal and the human. Some of the weird spirit of their surroundings has, I think, entered into the people, and accounts for their weird customs. The people are by no means a low, savage race. I found many of them highly intelligent, shrewd, with more than the average sense of humour, and with the most marvellous faculty for keeping hidden what they did not wish to be known—the result probably of secret societies for countless generations. But beyond such reasoning powers as are required for their daily necessities their whole mental energies are absorbed in fetish, witchcraft, “medicine” such as Borfima and the like. What they need is a substitute for their bottomless wells of secret societies, for their playing at being leopards or alligators and acting the part with such realism that they not only kill their quarry but even devour it. In my opinion the only way to extirpate these objectionable societies is the introduction of the four R’s—the fourth, Religion, being specially needed to supply the place of the native crude beliefs. No doubt the energetic action of the Government, and in a lesser degree the labours of the Special Commission Court, will have a good effect; but, I fear, only a temporary effect. The remedy must go deeper than mere punishment: the Human Leopard Society must be superseded by Education and Religion.