THE REAL LION-MEN

Many killings had taken place in the district of late and when game hunters couldn't find the lions they turned to other explanations. A police detective had investigated thirty killings and concluded they were murders, and a woman had survived an attack made a statement that she was attacked by a man wearing a lion skin. It also seemed that even though the attackers were trying to make the attack look like that of a lion there were often human footprints along with pugmarks in the attack areas. To add confusion to the issue, there had been some actual lions shot in the area that upon examination seem to have had their teeth filed down, suggesting someone had tried to tame, perhaps from when they were cubs.

 There were various rumours going around about witchdoctors who apparently kidnapped people and forced them to be lion-men, hiring them out as assassins. There are also stories of witchdoctors wanting children, to train them as lion-men from young age. It is hard to know how much of these stories are accurate or rumours and urban legends spread by foreigners who returned from the area, but the police and the district did get a confession from a man named Monde who was kidnapped and forced to be lion man. He was brought to a house owned by someone named Mama Kitoto: A notorious witch.

 He was dressed in various animal skins including real lion paws with claws put on his hands and feet and taken by underground tunnels to another house where there were four lion men; Two women and two men, but they were all kept in separate rooms and fed only on meat and beer. He would sometimes hear Mama Kitoto to visit and ask the other lion men how many people they had killed; Apparently, they were sent out to kill a lot, they were also drugged a lot and Mande said he was unable to think and felt dizzy constantly. One day Mama Kitoto came to him and told him it was his time to kill. He was given multiple knives and led by a man to an area where women and children were working. The man told him to kill a child but before Mande could, one of the women saw him and struck him with a pestle on the back of the head. Mande felt to ground and the man who had accompanied him dragged him by his leg back to the witch house. Luckily for Mande this injured his knee, and he was thought to have no use for a lion man and was able to leave.

George thought there was a difference between the killings of two different villages; He had seen with his own eyes that real lions were at work in one of the villages. Though he thought the real lions were probably mixed up in the other village too. He got on the Great North Road and went straight back to the village where he had killed many lions. On the way he met up with the chief, who had some good news. One of George's scouts had killed another man-eater, and the rate of killings had gone down. So much so that they estimated there were only two or three man-eaters remaining. Another interesting thing of the notes was that the lions didn't seem to be travelling around so much anymore but sticking to a smaller area. An area of about fifteen square miles around the village. He gathered all his game scouts to the area; He divided them into multiple teams of two and kept with him. They searched the area for multiple days and on the eight day he found fresh tracks. Two lions.

After multiple hours they found the pair under a thorn tree lying together. The male heard the hunters approaching and got up and took a few steps forward. George recognized him as the big male from before and for a few moments, they stared at each other. He shot the male and the others shot the female. They went over to examine the bodies. Looking at the male George thought, if it weren't for the record of what this lion had done, he might have felt sorry for him and as he stared at the dead lion, he wondered what had motivated the animal to turn to eating people. George felt very confident this was the last man-eater and was happy that he could report to Smith that the man-eaters were taken care of.

Especially since Smith was about to leave, he turned to the highlands to his normal duties when a few months later just before smith left, he sent a telegraph to George. "You are wrong George. Regret. Woman eaten yesterday in the village". George was furious but he couldn't drop all his duties and leave right away so he sent a message to his game scout in the area to avenge the woman's death. He returned to the village in July and discovered the scouts had done as instructed and hunted down two female lions that they were sure were man-eaters.

The local villages already seemed in better shape with people out and returning to life. This time George and scouts were positive they had gotten all the man-eaters, they had killed fifteen lions that were quote "definite man-eaters" five lions that could have been man-eaters, but they were not too sure and two lions that had been injured so badly they were pretty sure would be dead by now, giving a total of twenty-two lions killed.

George drove to see the chief and deliver the good news, but the chief didn't seem quite as overjoyed as George thought he would, and it seemed like there was something he wanted to tell him. He told him "We will never forget what you have done for us about these lions but, people will never believe the ones you shot with the lions that were killing them". When George inquired as to why the chief told him what had happened. With Smith leaving, people had pressured the new officials and paramount chief to reinstate their old ruler to his old position and they had. George discovered that it had been alleged the newly reinstated claimed he has called off his lions now and no one else will be killed now because he has his rightful place. George didn't say anything, he lit his pipe and smoked it for a while, then he got back into his car and drove back to his wife and kids.

There were no more killings in that village. The question remains, though, why did this happen? Why did the pride of lions turn to man-eating, well there is a prevailing theory. The anti-viral fence that stretched for miles along the border may have been a contributing factor. Killing anything within 5 miles of offence could have wiped out a food source for the lions, now the fence started in the early 1940 and the man-eating seemed to have started in 1932, but it does seem like the colonial government had been fighting the virus for years killing off many zebras, wildebeest and antelope as they could.

It makes sense though but why they went for humans rather than Livestock? Perhaps it was easier to drag a human rather than a cow, or perhaps they had developed a taste for people early on that set them on the killing spree.