CHAPTER III

THE KALE CASE

The Special Commission Court, consisting of Sir W. B. Griffith, President, Mr. F. A. Van der Meulen, and Mr. K. J. Beatty, commenced its sittings at Gbangbama in the Northern Sherbro District on the 16th December, 1912.

Gbangbama is a town belonging to the Imperri Chiefdom, and is situate in the heart of the Mende country, having, within a radius of ten miles, several towns where murders committed in connection with the Human Leopard Society had recently taken place.

The Court was held in a large barri[12] specially erected for the purpose. The prisoners were confined in a number of huts surrounded by a stockade, and were guarded by a company of the West African Frontier Force. Several members of the Freetown Bar were present for the purpose of defending various persons to be tried by the Court.

The first two days were occupied chiefly with legal questions raised by counsel on the cases before the Court.

The first case dealt with was the one known as the KALE CASE, which occupied the time of the Court for nearly a fortnight, and in which the evidence of a large number of witnesses was taken. Three men[13] were charged with the murder in or about the month of March, 1911, of a boy named Kalfalla, aged about fourteen years. The murder took place at a village named Kale, which is situated on the bank of the Mongheri River opposite the town of Mongheri, both of which places are within the Jong Chiefdom. The accused were all headmen and men of importance in the Chiefdom, and the deceased Kalfalla was the son of one of them, and was at the time of his death in the process of being initiated into the Poro.

The three boys who were put in the Poro bush at the same time as the deceased gave evidence before the Court, and described how they had been captured by the Poro Devils and taken to a Poro bush at the town of Senehun, which was under the control of an important person who was described as the Kumrabai (King-Maker) of the Jong Chiefdom. While they were in the Senehun Poro bush, two of the accused came to the Kumrabai and asked that these boys should be allowed to go to the Kale Poro bush, so that they should be available to assist in farm work. Permission was at first refused, but eventually they were allowed to go, where, in accordance with Poro custom, they worked out of sight of all women. A shimbek (i.e. a grass hut with grass walls) was built in the Kale Poro bush for the boys, and for several nights they slept in this shimbek.

These three boys stated that one evening the three prisoners, one of whom was the father of the deceased, came into the Poro bush and told them that they were to come out of the bush that night and sleep in the barri (a shelter with low walls) at the back of a house belonging to one of the accused, the deceased’s father. They described the position in which they slept, how shortly before daybreak they were awakened by a noise, and how they saw one of the prisoners holding the deceased boy by the legs, whilst another of them, who had a leopard skin over the top of his head and hanging down his back, was bending over the body. The boys raised an alarm, and as the accused ran away they heard sounds which resembled the pit-a-pat of hurrying feet, and the impression created was that it was a large number of persons who were running away from the barri. Soon after this the father of the murdered boy again appeared on the scene; he went immediately to the barri and appeared to show grief on seeing that his son was dead. His accomplices next appeared, followed shortly afterwards by a number of other men, who assisted in carrying the body to the Poro bush. Arrived there the accused, together with some other members of the Society, consulted together or, as the witnesses described it, “hung head.” It was agreed to bury the body at once, and the boys were threatened that if they spoke about the matter something bad would happen to them; that if they were ever asked what had happened to the dead boy they were to say that a snake had bitten him. The eldest boy was also sworn on the Borfima not to reveal what he had seen and heard. This boy described the oath he took, which was to the effect that if he revealed this matter and afterwards went by water he would drown; if he went into the bush a snake would bite him; and if he walked on a road thunder would strike him. He was further sworn on his heart and on his kidneys that both would wither away if he broke his oath.

The boys and several witnesses described the wounds on the deceased, three of which were in the throat, and the other on the chest. From the description given of the wounds there could be no doubt but that they were caused by some sharp instrument, probably a knife, and could not have been caused by a leopard’s claws. The accused, in accordance with native custom, were compelled to report the matter to the “Grand Master” of the Poro, but contrary to native custom they did not report until after the body was buried. At this breach of custom the Kumrabai was annoyed, but he allowed himself to be pacified with a “head of money”—seven country cloths, valued at about thirty shillings.

Two witnesses who confessed to being members of the Human Leopard Society were called and gave an interesting description of their initiation into the Society. They had joined the Society at different times, and belonged to different branches of it. One belonged to the branch in the Imperri Chiefdom, and the other to a branch in the Gallinas Chiefdom, several days’ march distant, but their description tallied in almost every detail regarding the initiation ceremony and the objects of the sacrifice. A mark is made on a candidate for initiation, usually on the buttocks, so that it will be concealed by the loin cloth, the usual and only article of dress worn by the ordinary native in those parts. The mark is made by piercing the flesh with an iron needle, raising it, and shaving off a thin slice of flesh. The wound is then treated with a medicine known as Nikori, which apparently has antiseptic qualities, and which is made by grinding the bark of the wild ground nut. The blood taken from the wound is put on the “Borfima,” and the novice by this means becomes what is spoken of as “joined or married to the medicine,” and a full member of the Society. Meetings are only held when the leaders of the Society consider that the Borfima belonging to their particular branch requires what is spoken of as “feeding” or “blooding,” and this can only be done by the killing of some person. Apparently one of the rules of the Society is that a victim must be provided by a member of the Society; usually, the person called upon to provide the victim is a member who has received some material advancement, such as becoming a Mahawa (a paramount chief) or a Mahawuru (sub-chief), as it is considered necessary on such occasions to propitiate the Borfima, which is looked upon as all-powerful for good or evil. When it is arranged who is to provide the victim, a date is fixed, usually four to six days later, a rendezvous is decided upon, and the persons who are to do the killing are selected. The second meeting is generally fixed for just after dusk, usually in the Poro bush, and the victim is either enticed to a place in the vicinity of the meeting-place, or certain members are appointed to do the killing in the town or village, and convey the body to the Poro bush, where the Borfima is first “blooded” and then the body is divided up among the members, and, according to the evidence of the ex-members of the Society, the flesh is either eaten raw on the spot or taken away and cooked. To use the words of one of these witnesses, “some like it raw, some roast, and some prefer it boiled with rice.” The witnesses also described how the members of the Society made themselves known to each other by a movement of the second finger across the palm of another person in shaking hands, and also by a peculiar rolling of the eyes. Both signs were demonstrated to the Court. The witnesses examined certain marks in the buttocks of the three prisoners, and alleged that they were the marks made at initiation into membership of the Human Leopard Society.

The following, somewhat interesting, point of native custom was touched on in the evidence: When a boy who is in the Poro bush dies, the body is buried there, and his death is not announced to the female relatives until after the Poro has “been pulled” (finished). It is the duty of the Lakai (the head-messenger of the Chiefdom and a high officer in the Poro) and of him only to announce the death. When the Poro is about to be “pulled,” all the women who have sons in the Poro bush are made to stand in a circle at the entrance to the town. The Lakai is escorted by his retainers into the midst of them. He carries an earthen pot, and if a death has occurred among the Poro boys he dashes the pot to the ground and breaks it at the feet of the mother of the boy, and in this way announces to her the death of her son. The women wail for some hours, after which a funeral dance is given by the parents or the nearest relatives of the deceased; and this dance may be kept up for several days and nights, according to the wealth of the family of the deceased, who provide the food and drink for the occasion.

None of these ceremonies were performed in connection with the death of the boy Kalfalla; but the omission of these rites was not a matter to which much weight could be attached, owing to the difficulty of obtaining reliable information on matters connected with the Poro, and the custom is only mentioned incidentally.

The defence of the accused was that a bush leopard had killed the boy. They admitted that they had concealed this fact and had given out that it was a snake-bite which had caused the death of the deceased, but they said that their reason for doing so was in order to save the father of the deceased, the first accused in the case, from certain penalties which he would have incurred had it come to the ears of the Poro Headman that he had allowed a “bushboy” who was still in the Poro to sleep in an open place outside the Poro bush. The position, shape, and character of the wounds were emphasized to show that it must have been a bush leopard which had caused them, and it was pointed out that it was an offence against the law of the country for any one to sleep in an open place exposed to danger, such as the barri where the boys had been permitted to sleep. The accused alleged that these “bushboys” should not have been allowed to sleep out of the Poro bush, and that it was an aggravation of the offence that they had been allowed to sleep in an open place like a barri; that the first accused, as head of the family, was the person on whom the blame would have fallen; and that he, for these reasons, persuaded the others to give out that it was a snake-bite which had caused death. If this was accepted, they urged, they would not be called on to show the spot where the boy was injured, and they added that the burial was hurried so that people should know as little about it as possible. Had the burial been delayed, the women might have got to know, and that would have been a further offence against Poro law. It was also submitted that it was contrary to nature that the first accused would have murdered his own son in such a cold-blooded manner.

The prisoners were ably defended, but the arguments put forward for the defence did not create doubt as to the main facts deposed to by the witnesses for the Crown.

From the evidence of the witnesses one thing emerged conclusively—viz. that it was no bush leopard which killed the boy, but that it was some person or persons simulating a leopard who murdered him; and the evidence of the other boys that they had heard the pattering of many feet outside the barri when they raised the alarm pointed to the fact that there were a number of persons concerned in the murder.

The Court could come to no other conclusion than that the murder was committed in connection with the Human Leopard Society, and that the first and second accused were the actual murderers of the boy Kalfalla. These two men were found guilty of murder and sentenced to death, and were publicly executed at Mattru in the presence of the acting paramount chief and a large number of his people on the 25th January, 1913.

The third accused, who had taken a prominent part in concealing the murder, and who was proved to be leading member of the Human Leopard Society, was found guilty of being an accessory after the fact to murder, and was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Footnote 12:

I.e. a thatched roof on wooden posts with thick mud walls about two feet high.

Footnote 13:

At the request of the Colonial Office the names of the accused persons in all the cases have been withheld.