The Zulu Cannibal Giants were an American Negro league baseball team (they referred to themselves as a Baseball "Zulu Tribe", based on a concept inspired by the war in Ethiopia), formed in 1934 by Charlie Henry in Louisville, Kentucky.
The Zulu Cannibal Giants gained notoriety for their propensity to turn a baseball game into a comedy performance, much in the same way that the Harlem Globetrotters did with basketball many years later.
The Zulu Cannibal Giants decorated their faces and bodies with African tribal paint, went shirtless, wore only grass skirts, used special custom-made baseball bats crafted to supposedly resemble Ethiopian war clubs, and always played barefoot.
[4] The team "shows the depths people would go to exploit African-Americans," says author Phil Dixon.
[5] A popular player, John "Buck" O'Neil, wrote in his autobiography that, "looking back on it, the idea of playing with the Cannibal Giants was very demeaning".