Leopard Society

Leopard Society, leopard men, and human leopards were names used for actual or suspected secret societies that operated in West and Central Africa from the late 19th to the mid-20th century. Such societies existed in several African regions and were generally independent of each other. The possibly earliest reference to one of them in Western literature can be found in George Banbury's Sierra Leone, or the White Man's Grave (1888). In Western culture, depictions of such societies have been used to portray Africans as barbaric and uncivilized.

Accounts

Leopard men were an actual phenomenon, but one that was badly understood by colonial administrators and other outsiders, especially European ones. Historical accounts of their acts often misunderstood their motives and modes of operation, mixing "spectacular hearsay and rumour" with possibly accurate information. Moreover, outside accounts often failed to distinguish between different societies of "human leopards", instead blending all their activities together.

West Africa

Liberia

During field research in the 1960s among the Mano people in north-central Liberia, 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 dependants were allowed to join, as the trade organization and the transport and protection of trade goods were labour-intensive.