The Leopard Society is also known as the Leopard Men, Ekpe, and Anyoto Aniota, are the oldest of the Cross River secret societies in West Africa. An all-male fraternal organization that most likely has roots as a warrior cult. It rose to prominence during the time of the slave trade when the Efik people seeking to expand their wealth and territory began to sell membership into this society thus expanding its influence into other tribes and cities.

Members of the Leopard Society would wear leopard skins, carry weapons that resembled leopards teeth and claws and then wait for travelers that wouldn’t be missed.

They would then attack and kill these people. The victims would then be ritually dismembered and the meat would then be passed out to the other members who’d then eat it.

They believed that the ritual cannibalism would strengthen both the members of the society and their individual tribes and make them more successful.

These were exclusive groups of people who were believed to be liable to possession by the spirits of carnivorous animals such as leopards and crocodiles, and who carried out ritual killings while in a state of possession. During the course of the twentieth century, the Liberian government outlawed these societies, but some of them nevertheless continued to function clandestinely ..

Stephen Ellis

Many countries outlawed the Leopard Society in light of their cannibalistic practices. A writer named Brent Swancer gave several accounts of the society’s practices and how the local cultures clashed with them.

He tells how in Gabon a trap was set for a Leopard Man who was shot while consuming his prey. However, even after the public executions of several members, the organization survived. Only to fade from the public eye in the 20th century.

Cults like this are nothing new in Africa which has seen Lion Cults, Crocodile Cults, and even Baboon Cults. All of which thought through certain mystical rites and ritual activities would allow them to physically transform into said animal.

There was a missionary doctor by the name of Werner Junge who worked in Liberia during the 1930’s there he treated a victim of the Leopard Society.

There, on a mat in a house, I found the horribly mutilated body of a fifteen-year-old girl. The neck was torn to ribbons by the teeth and claws of the animal, the intestines were torn out, the pelvis shattered, and one thigh was missing. A part of the thigh, gnawed to the bone, and a piece of the shin-bone lay near the body. It seemed at first glance that only a beast of prey could have treated the girl’s body in this way, but closer investigation brought certain particularities to light which did not fit in with the picture. I observed, for example, that the skin at the edge of the undamaged part of the chest was torn by strangely regular gashes about an inch long. Also the liver had been removed from the body with a clean cut no beast could make. I was struck, too, by a piece of intestine the ends of which appeared to have been smoothly cut off, and, lastly, there was the fracture of the thigh – a classic example of fracture by bending.

Dr. Werner Junge

Once governments began sending military and police personnel out in force they were able to locate many of the Leopard Societies ranks and bring them to trial. They laid traps and even did house to house searches looking for paraphernalia, this led to government officials finding stone altars with Leopard Men effigies deep in the bush that were littered with human remains.

And while many governments proclaim that the Leopard Society is no more there were sporadic killings in the 1980’s that mirrored the ones done in earlier years. So who knows maybe they are still out there waiting for their next victim.