Africa - the land of terror [ENG]

Today Europeans hear stories full of horror from Africa. The stories of bloody religious battles, witch-hunts or ritual murders of albinos, killed in order to gain organs, which allegedly can provide with some superhuman power. Those stories, which appear as incredible nightmares, were focusing attention as far back as a century ago. Among them, one of the most mysterious secrets is the tales about the beasts which are similar to our native, European werevolves. 

In 1937 the Vienna magazine Neue Freie Presse published an article gathering the history of descriptions of attacts of Menschliche Leoparden - leopardman. It was a strange sect of cannibals, who changed into animal beasts, terrorizing the whole West Africa - from Namibia through English colonies Lagos and Gold Coast, Belgian Congo to Black Republic of Liberia (Negrerepublik Liberia). Leopardmen, in their animal form, were believed to crawl to their victim, strangle it and eat right away.

According to the correspondent (the anonymous, who signed as Africanus), the English and Belgian authorities, despite their efforts, could not get rid of this brutal sect. Africanus described the course of a punitive expedition in the region Stanleyville (today it is Kisangani in the Democratic Republic of the Congo). The heads of expedition which was to restore security in the region - the civilian A. Laurent and colonel Batsoord, were accompanied by the judge Wauters, the Catholic priest and 57 local soldiers. In spite of serious troubles (the leopardmen turned out to be challenging opponents), the members of expedition managed to capture alive one of the dangerous criminals and, thus, consider the mission completed. The account of the expedition ends with some remarks on numerous dangers that await white people among wild negroes. 

The mysterious sect of the leopard-warriors, at the time when Africanus published his text, was already a subject of interest of some researchers. Since that time there was published a number of essays dedicated to the beliefs of the peoples of Africa. It was agreed that it was a brotherhood of warriors, having a hierarchical structure and wearing leathers of big cats, armed with clawed knives, indulging in ritual murders and cannibalism in order to increase the vitality. 

The Brotherhood of Leopard became a perfect adversary. No wonder, that this organisation was adopted by the popculture - it appeared in the books on Tarzan (Tarzan and the Leopard Men) and the movie about his adventures (Tarzan and the Leopard Woman); also about the adventures of Tintin (Tintin in Congo).

Tintin in Congo p.56

Bibliography:

1) A. Menschliche Leoparden [in:] Neue Freie Presse, 20 Juni 1937, p. 25;

2) D. C. Simmons, Analysis of Cultural Reflection in Efik Folktales [in:] The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 74, No. 292/1961, pp. 126-141;

3) D. Burrows, The Human Leopard Society of Sierra Leone [in:] Journal of the Royal African Society, Vol. 13, No. 50/1914, pp.143-151;

4) L. Słupecki, , Warszawa 2011, pp. 159-174.

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