Talk:Leopard Society

The society described in the article and Ekpe or Mgbe are completely different societies

While the title of the Article is right, Ekpe and the Leopard society are completely different societies even though Ekpe has also been known as the Leopard society. The Leopard society in the Article is one which committed a number of Attrocities across africa. The men would wear animal skin, would hide in certain places and kill people at a particular area. it was found in Sierra Leone, Ghana, Nigeria, Congo and a few other countries. Their exploits were known in 20th century. Ekpe is far older than the dreaded Leopard society despite both societies bearing the same English name. Osamudiamee (talk) 05:20, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

It seems like there was still a lot of likely confusion in this article, so I've gone and WP:bold-deleted much of the dubious information. StereoFolic (talk) 17:24, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Colonial perspective

I've made an effort to include more African perspectives on the topic, as many argue the Leopard Men were used in the west to push colonial and racist narratives. I'm sure there is more work to be done in this regard. StereoFolic (talk) 16:59, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

I have added more information, including a detailed study by the anthropologist James Riddell on the operations of the societies in one area. I think the article is in sufficiently good shape that the "viewpoints" maintenance template can be removed now. Anyone who has more reliably sourced information is of course always welcome to add it. Gawaon (talk) 11:55, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the additional sources! I still think we need this tag, since still they're mostly from Westerners, and with some of the sources it's difficult to tell how reliable they are. The lack of clarity around whether these are actually a coherently identifiable group that can be described together in this article remains, so I think it's important that maintenance tags warn readers that the picture they're getting may be incomplete. StereoFolic (talk) 13:48, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Okay, let's keep the maintenance tag for the time being. I have noticed that the article actually is indeed still in pretty bad shape. In fact I'm quite sure that it talks about several mostly unrelated organizations (actual or possibly mythical ones). The references I have added all refer to West Africa, specifically Liberia and neighbouring countries, and so far I've generally heard of the LS in this context. But the article says it existed also in Central Africa, specifically the Congo. That's a huge distance and I suppose that one must have been a different society, presuming it existed at all. And Riddell says that even in the fairly small area in Liberia he investigated, there had actually been several more or less secret societies known as LS, but apparently operating independently of each other. And many acts attributed to "human leopards" may have had nothing to do with any such society, or they might have been just rumours. So there's a lot to sort out, in so far as possible – though of course we can only work with the (preferably reliable) sources that are out there.

I'll try to read through the available literature in order to improve the article. If you or others reading here want to join in this endeavour, that's of course very welcome! I see there's a lot of stuff already in the "Further reading" section, though not all of it seems reliable. I plan to work through that and see what else I can find in order to improve this. Gawaon (talk) 17:35, 16 July 2024 (UTC)