The Man-Leopard Murders

This book is an account of murder and politics in Africa, and an historical ethnography of southern Annang communities during the colonial period. Its narrative leads to events between 1945 and 1948 when the Imperial gaze of police, press and politicians was focused on a series of mysterious deaths in south-eastern Nigeria attributed to the 'man-leopard society'. At the time the police investigation was reported as the 'biggest, strangest murder hunt in the world'. Almost two hundred men, women and children were victims yet despite the scale of the investigation those closest to it feared that the man-leopard murders would remain shrouded in mystery. These mysteries are of two distinct but related kinds, the forensic and the historical. The immediate problems of the criminal investigations were whether these were wild-leopard killings or whether they were organised by a cult of killers who could disguise the crime scene to simulate them. Yet, these murders were not only linked to ruses and rituals of the killers but to the broad impact of commercial, Christian and colonial relations on Annang society.As such the broader historical questions addressed in the book concern debate and conflict over the moral order of Annang society.

Book Details

ISBN: 9780748625536
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Publication Date: 15 June 2007
Format: Hardback
Language: English
Pages: 425 p.