The Leopard-Men society was a bizarre "cult" in Sierra Leone during the Colonial period. The Modus Operandi of the Leopard men was to attack a victim in leopard skins and knifes resembling claws. Once the victim was killed, the body would be mutilated to make it look like an animal attack. Accounts suggest that the Leopard-Men in ceremonies would eat the flesh of the victims. The group got some attention from Europeans, when Edgar Burroughs published a short story called "Tarzan and the Leopard-Men" about them. Typical for authors of the time period (loosely around 1850s-1960s), Burroughs sensationalized some aspects of the group (like having the pulp style white damsel in distress). However Burroughs' depiction of the Leopard-Men was extraordinarily accurate. He correctly depicted them as wielding knife like claws and dressing like leopards. However he fancifully depicted the group as a cult centered on of course an abducted white girl as a priestess. The real Leopard-Men were in fact just a virtual mafia group used by tribal chiefs to perform sacrifices to intimidate the locals into submission. European authorities eventually suppressed the Leopard-Men in the 1940s. Similar groups to the Leopard-Men are Hyena-Men, Lion-Men, Crocodile-Men, and even Chimpanzee-Men
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