Cults of werewolf sorcerers have existed in Africa since ancient times - boa people, crocodile people and the like. But the most terrible and cruel were and remain the aniotos - people-leopards.
From the middle of the 19th century, when European civilization began to massively penetrate into Central Africa, the natives began to live, as it were, in two worlds - modern and ancient, inhabited by spirits that tirelessly watch every person and are ready to punish him.
This is the main essence of the great African religion, professed by millions, regardless of whether they are listed as Catholics, Muslims or pagan Mianimists.
Brotherhood on blood
… Unmarried young hunters literally went crazy with the beautiful Mariam, but she had already made a choice, preferring her cousin, 16-year-old Sissoko. But he still had no right to marry - he was not yet a member of the Leopard Society and could not be considered an adult man. The girl herself signed the death warrant when she told the boy in love that she would marry only a real ruthless "leopard".
Nothing to do, Sissoko went to the leader of the "Society of Leopards" - old Kaduk. And he asked for "borfima", a magic amulet that makes a person invincible and omnipotent. Kaduku replied that it needed a human liver to cook it, and Sissoko agreed to kill the man.
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He did not know that he needed the liver of a young girl, his close relative, and there was only one such girl, his beloved Mariam. And Kaduku, meanwhile, announced the girl's mother about the upcoming sacrifice.
At night Sissoko was dragged out of the hut by masked men dressed in leopard skins and taken into the forest. There a stew was cooked on the fire, and Sissoko ate it - it was a stew of human flesh. He was forced to swear an oath of allegiance to society and was handed a knife with two blades, saying that now he is a leopard man, and tomorrow night he must get a liver for "Borfima."
The next night, Mariam's mother sent her daughter into the jungle for the leaves of the healing karoko, saying that she was very ill. In the jungle, the girl was ambushed.
Realizing who was the victim, Sissoko nearly killed the old Kaduku, but the leopard men tied him up and gagged him with a bunch of grass. And Kaduka at this time cut the girl's throat, and then his assistant pulled out the hot liver from the girl's cut belly.
The next day, the girl's body was cut into small pieces, and every villager, including her mother, ate a piece. Kaduku took his head, hands and feet. Cutting off a flap from the severed head, Kaduku wrapped a piece of fat from a kidney and a piece of liver in it - this was the magical "borfima", which, like an amulet, Sissoko now had to wear all his life on his chest …
This is how one of the witnesses described the rite of passage into Anioto.
Predator tracks
The first official mention of leopard people dates back to 1854. In the city of Port Loko, in northwestern Sierra Leone, tribesmen burned alive a man who allegedly turned into a leopard. In 1892, the Leopard Society was outlawed.
And only in 1912, when the number of brutal murders committed by "leopards" began to read off scale, a special court was created, which was headed by Judge Sir William Brandford Griffith. More than 400 people were arrested, including the leaders. The prisoners were guarded by West African border troops - to avoid an attack by the "leopards".
All the accused insisted that it was not they who killed, but the leopards from the jungle. Some witnesses testified, and from their stories the judge's blood ran cold. It turned out, in particular, that the "borfim" had to be periodically lubricated with human fat and blood so that it did not lose its magical properties, which means that its owner was forced to kill people every time. The corpses were eaten by members of the community.
The trial and sentences followed, five "leopards" were hanged, the rest went to prison for various periods. But the Governor of Sierra Leone has expressed doubts that this will all end. And how he looked into the water. The activity of the sect here weakened, but spread to neighboring countries - Congo, Liberia, Nigeria, Guinea, Cameroon, Ghana and others.
In 1935, they started talking about "leopards" again after more than 200 corpses were found in the Belgian Congo during the year, torn to pieces either by animals or by leopard people. The fact is that anio always left large "cat footprints" near corpses, imitating them with special devices. The corpses were torn apart with special knuckle dusters imitating the claws of a leopard.
In 1946, thunder struck in Nigeria. More than 80 mutilated human corpses have been found in Calabar County - open veins, cut throats, ripped out hearts and lungs. And next to each corpse are the prints of the leopard's paws. A curfew was imposed in the country, and a high reward was assigned for helping to capture criminals.
And yet the killings continued right under the noses of the patrols! In particular, one policeman was torn to pieces - these were far from ritual murders. The worst thing is that there were many children among those killed. It all ended with large-scale arrests and 18 executed by hanging by a court sentence.
In the early 1980s, Italian journalists Alberto Ongaro and Gian Franco Moroldo managed to interview leopard people who spoke about the activities of the society: “There are two Africa, ancient and newly born. The city lives by its own laws, and rural, forest Africa - by its own. Two ways of life, two worlds, and the old world does not intend to yield to the new …"
"Leopards" called themselves the guards of order, established since ancient times. And your society is part of a system that guarantees harmony and justice. And they diligently dissociated themselves from imitators who killed in order to catch up with fear or simply for the sake of the murder itself. The Anioto Society is an ancient punishing authority that punishes misdeeds and crimes. And all the tricks with turning into leopards are hypnosis and special training of wild leopards.
Call of the jungle
The last high-profile case of "leopards" took place in 1994 in Liberia, when unknown persons secretly brought eight torn bodies of children and women to the office of the International Red Cross of the city of Ekepa and, before quickly disappearing, warned of revenge on all who dared to touch the corpses.
The local hospital staff fled in horror. There was only one nurse and a Puerto Rican surgeon left. The surgeon examined the bodies and found that one woman and one child were still alive, but they could not tell anything - the fear of anioto was stronger.
After examining the corpses, the doctor drew attention to the clear marks of human teeth - individual organs and muscles were literally gnawed out.
Local policemen refused to come to the hospital, only the white officer was not afraid. And immediately put forward a version: the killers are leopard people! I remembered the 1946 process in Nigeria, where a local sorcerer was behind all the murders, and all the magic came down to disguising banal robberies and subjugating the population.
Alas, the next day the surgeon and the nurse were found dead, near the corpses they found the footprints of a leopard. And the surviving woman, a victim of the leopard people, mysteriously disappeared.
Despite the fact that the investigation was led by the Interpol investigation team, the real killers remained unknown. The authorities needed a different version to calm the citizens, and they came up with it: a gang of criminals from deserters worked, disguised as anioto.
Since the beginning of the 20th century, the "Society of Leopards" increasingly turned into a sect of bloodthirsty murderers and cannibals that terrify the countries of West Africa. By the way, separate societies operated in different countries, which differed significantly from each other even in the methods of murder and subsequent manipulation of the bodies of victims.
Often ordinary bandits worked under the "leopards", knowing that the local police would not even look for them - they would be afraid. This plays into the hands of the authorities, allowing them to keep the population at bay. It is no secret that many officials, both in the past and now, are members of this society. In Cameroon, it is quite legal - the cult of the leopard is traditional for Africa as a whole.
In the 1960s, Liberian President William Wakanarat Tubman served as Supreme Leader of the Porro Leopard People's Ritual Society. True, secret and official societies exist in parallel, and representatives of the latter pay more tribute to ancient cultural traditions. While Aniotos from secret societies administer their bloody judgment from century to century.
Anton STAROSELTSEV