While I was living at Benita, about 1869, the losses by leopards became so great that, in desperation, some of the braver young men, under my encouragement, determined that the depredator should be caught. (Nothing was just then said about what should be done with it when caught.) A trap was built in one of the villages, and baited with a live goat. Soon a leopard was entrapped. What to do with it was then the question. Some favored leaving it alone till they could ask permission of Ukuku to kill it, even if they had to pay heavily for the permission. Others, who had heard me laugh at their superstition, proposed that I should be asked to shoot it. They came at night; I willingly and promptly went with my Winchester repeating rifle, which could easily be thrust into the chinks between the logs of which the trap was built. When the animal was shot, came the question, Who should remove it? None would touch it. Among my employees were two young men of another tribe with whom that superstition did not exist. With their aid I lifted the carcass upon a wheelbarrow, and took it to a place where I could comfortably skin it. Some objected to my retaining the skin. They wanted the whole animal put out of sight. But the majority agreed that the skin should be my compensation for my rifle's service. Then a deputation carefully followed me out on the prairie, to see that the spot where the skinning was to be done was not near any of their frequented paths. After the flaying was complete, what was best to do with the carcass? The majority objected to its being buried, fearing to tread over its grave. So I sent the two young men in a canoe, to sink the carcass out in the river's mouth toward the sea. Even then there were those who for two weeks afterward would eat no fish caught in the river.
With this fear of the leopard was united a superstition similar to that of the "wehr-wolf" of Germany, _viz._, a belief in the power of human metamorphosis into a leopard. The natives had learned, from foreigners who were ignorant of the fact that there are no tigers in Africa, to call this leopard fiend a "man-tiger." They got their fears still more mixed by a belief in a third superstition, _viz._, that sometimes the dead returned to life and committed depredations. This belief was not simply that disembodied spirits (mekuku) returned, but that the entire person, soul and body (ilina na nyolo), rose temporarily from the grave, with a few changes (among the rest, that the feet were webbed). Such a being, as mentioned in a previous chapter, was called "Uvengwa." At one time, while I was at Benito, intense excitement prevailed in the community: doors and shutters were violently rattled at night; marks of leopard's claws scratched doorposts; their tracks lay on every path; women and children in lonely places saw their flitting forms, in the dark were knocked down by their spring, or heard their growl in the thickets. It was difficult to decide, in hearing these reports, whether it was a real leopard, a leopard fiend, or only an uvengwa. To native fear, they were practically the same. I felt certain that the uvengwa was a thief disguised in a leopard skin. Under such disguise murders were sometimes committed. By bending my thumb and fingers into a semi-closed fist, I could make an impression in the sand that exactly resembled a leopard's track; and this confirmed my conclusions as to the real cause of the phenomenon.