I believe that these secret societies are always distinct from the
leopard societies.
I have pretty nearly enough evidence to prove
that it is so in some districts, but not in all. So far my evidence
only goes to prove the distinction of the two among the Negroes, not
among the Bantu, and in all cases you will find some men belonging
to both. Some men, in fact, go in for all the societies in their
district, but not all the men; and in all districts, if you look
close, you will find several societies apart from the regular youth-
initiating one.
These other societies are practically murder societies, and their
practices usually include cannibalism, which is not an essential
part of the rites of the great tribal societies, Isyogo or Egbo. In
the Calabar district I was informed by natives that there was a
society of which the last entered member has to provide, for the
entertainment of the other members, the body of a relative of his
own, and sacrificial cannibalism is always breaking out, or perhaps
I should say being discovered, by the white authorities in the Niger
Delta. There was the great outburst of it at Brass, in 1895, and
the one chronicled in the Liverpool Mercury for August 13th, 1895,
as occurring at Sierra Leone. This account is worth quoting. It
describes the hanging by the Authorities of three murderers, and
states the incidents, which took place in the Imperi country behind
Free Town.
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