Hostname: page-component-7bb8b95d7b-495rp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-09-10T15:57:25.824Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Understanding Ethnic Realities among the Grebo and Kru Peoples of West Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2012

Frederick D. McEvoy
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

This paper deals with certain implications of our ‘conventional understandings’ of the Kru and Grebo peoples of the Cape Palmas region of coastal West Africa. These ‘traditional’ scholarly understandings of ‘traditional’ political organization, when combined with misfocused questions about the nature of ethnicity, effectively preclude accurate knowledge not only of traditional polities but also of how a people's ethnic identity may be redefined with changing circumstances. Subjecting traditional perspectives as well as ethnographic data to re-examination may clarify the complex role of ethnicity among the Kru and Grebo.

Résumé

RÉALITÉS ETHNIQUES CHEZ LES PEUPLES GREBO ET KRU D'AFRIQUE OCCIDENTALE

Les Kru et les Grebo ne constituent pas des groupes ethniques uniques, comme il est communément admis, mais des catégories ethniques qui sont essentiellement fondées sur la perception externe des ressemblances qui existent entre ces deux peuples. Les Kru et les Grebo ont eu plusieurs identités ethniques dont chacune se distinguait par sa situation. Les observations portant sur les colonies de migrants semblent indiquer que l'‘ethnicité’ Kru et peut-être l'‘ethnicité’ Grebo ont été engendrées par la migration de main-d'œuvre hors des territoires d'origine et qu'en tant qu'ethnicités distinctes, elles jouaient un rôle extrêmement réduit dans ces mêmes territoires. L'ethnicité au niveau tribal ou dako se manifestait dans le pays parallélement à la confrontation entre différentes tribus (dakwe) dans les domaines économiques, politiques ou rituels; elle se manifestait également dans les colonies de migrants, constituent ainsi un second niveau d'ethnicité issu de la rivalité entre groupes de migrants qui provenaient de dakwe distinctes.

L'‘ethnicité’ au niveau du village existe aussi entre ces peuples qui ne sont pas centralisés. Les recherches effectuées parmi les Sabo, dako Grebo du Libéria, indiquent que, bien qu'ils soient nettement définis, les groupes rattachés à un territoire (village et dako) sont fractionnés par des groupes dispersés à descendance patrilinéaire (les tua); de plus, certains individus peuvent avoir des liens d'obligation matrilatéraux vis à vis d'autres villages, d'autres dakwe ou encore vis à vis du tua patrilineaire de la mère. De telles obligations ‘créent’ des réseaux de groupements d'individus qui se développent dans les différents villages et dans les differentes tribus; si bien que l'on assiste à un recoupement des populations au lieu d'avoir des populations isolées.

L'ethnicité au niveau du dako et au niveau du village se manifeste d'une manière irrégulière, lorsqu'on estime qu'un évènement a des prolongements ethniques. Les identités ethniques Kru et Grebo existent à peine dans la vie ordinaire des individus. Plutôt que de porter sur l'étude de l'‘identité véritable’ des Kru et des Grebo, les recherches devraient au contraire tenter davantage d'élucider les raisons qui gouvernent l'usage d'une ou plusieurs identités dans un cas particulier ou de nombre d'autres identités dans des circonstances différentes.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 47 , Issue 1 , January 1977 , pp. 62 - 80
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1977

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

d'Azevedo, W. 1966. The Artist Archetype in Gola Culture. University of Nevada, Desert Research Institute, Preprint No. 14.Google Scholar
d'Azevedo, W. 1971. ‘Tribe and Chiefdom on the Windward Coast,’ Rural Africana 1: 10–29.Google Scholar
Banton, M. 1957. West African City: A Study of Tribal Life in Freetown. London: Oxford University Press for the International African Institute.Google Scholar
Banton, M. 1970. ‘Tribal Headmen in Freetown’, in: Middleton, J. (ed.) Black Africa: Its Peoples and Their Cultures Today. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Barth, F. (ed.) 1969. Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organisation of Cultural Difference. Little, Brown and Company.Google Scholar
Brooks, G. E. Jr, 1972. The Kru Mariner in the Nineteenth Century: An Historical Compendium. Newark, Delaware: Liberian Studies Monograph Series, No. 1.Google Scholar
Buell, R. L. 1928. The Native Problem in Africa, iv. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Cohen, A. 1969. Custom and Politics in Urban Africa: A Study of Hausa Migrants in Yoruba Towns. University of California Press.Google Scholar
Cohen, R. and Middleton, J. (eds.) 1970. From Tribe to Nation in Africa: Studies in Incorporation Processes. Chandler Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Coutouly, F. De 1920. ‘Quelques Coutumes des Kroumen du Bas-Cavally (Côte d'lvoire),’ Bulletin du Comité d'Etudes Historiques et Scientifiques de l'Afrique Occidental Française 3: 79–98.Google Scholar
Davis, R. W. 1968. Historical Outline of the Kru Coast, 1500 to the Present. Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of History, Indiana University, Bloomington. University Microfilms.Google Scholar
Deluz, A. 1970. Organization Sociale et Tradition Orale: Les Gun de Côte-d'Ivoire. Mouton & Cie. pour Laboratoire d'Anthropologie Sociale.Google Scholar
Fortes, M. 1969. Kinship and the Social Order: The Legacy of Lewis Henry Morgan. Chicago: Aldine.Google Scholar
Fraenkel, M. 1964. Tribe and Class in Monrovia. London: Oxford University Press for the International African Institute.Google Scholar
Fraenkel, M. 1966. ‘Social Change on the Kru Coast of Liberia’, Africa 36: 154–72.Google Scholar
Fried, M. 1967. The Evolution of Political Society. Random House.Google Scholar
Gluckman, M. 1963. ‘The Reasonable Man in Barotse Law’, in: Order and Rebellion in Tribal Africa (The Free Press): 178–206.Google Scholar
Goody, J. 1967. The Social Organisation of the LoWiili. 2nd Edition. London: Oxford University Press for the International African Institute.Google Scholar
Herskovits, M. and Ta'gbwe, S. 1930. ‘Kru Proverbs,’ Journal of American Folk-Lore 43: 225–93.Google Scholar
Herzog, G. and Blooah, C. G. 1936. Jabo Proverbs from Liberia. London: Oxford University Press for the International African Institute.Google Scholar
Innes, G. 1967. A Grebo-English Dictionary. Cambridge University Press. West African Language Monograph No. 6.Google Scholar
Johnson, S. J. M. 1957. Traditional History and Folklore of the Glebo Tribe. Monrovia: Republic of Liberia, Bureau of Folkways.Google Scholar
Köbben, A. J. F. 1963. ‘Land as an Object of Gain in a Non-literate Society: Land Tenure among the Bété and Dida (Ivory Coast, West Africa)’, in: Biebuyck, D. (ed.) African Agrarian Systems (International African Institute): 245–66.Google Scholar
Kroeber, A. L. 1966. ‘The Nature of Land-Holding Groups in Aboriginal California’, in: Heizer, R. (ed.) Aboriginal California: Three Studies in Culture History (University of California Archaeological Research Facility): 81–120.Google Scholar
Kroeber, A. L. and Kluckhohn, C. 1963. Culture: A Critical Keview of Concepts and Definitions. Random House.Google Scholar
Liebenow, J. G. 1969. Liberia: The Evolution of Privilege. Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Martin, J. 1968. The Dual Legacy: Government Authority and Mission Influence Among the Glebo of Eastern Liberia, 1834–1910. Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of History, Boston University. University Microfilms.Google Scholar
McEvoy, F. D. 1969. ‘Social and Historical Factors Bearing on Dialect Boundaries in Southeastern Liberia’, Unpublished paper read at the Annual Meeting, American Anthropological Association, New Orleans, November 1969.Google Scholar
McEvoy, F. D. 1970. ‘Traditional and Contemporary Patterns in Sabo Labor Migration’, Liberian Studies journal 2: 153–66.Google Scholar
McEvoy, F. D. 1971a. ‘Some Proposals for Liberian Archeology’, Liberian Studies Journal 3:129–41.Google Scholar
McEvoy, F. D. 1971b. History, Tradition, and Kinship as Factors in Modern Sabo Labor Migration. Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Oregon, Eugene. University Microfilms.Google Scholar
Meillassoux, C. 1965. ‘The Guro-Peripheral Markets Between the Forest and the Sudan’, in: Bohannan, P. and Dalton, G. (eds.) Markets in Africa: Eight Subsistence Economies in Transition (Doubleday Natural History Press): 67–92.Google Scholar
Mekeel, S. 1937. ‘Social Administration of the Kru, I’, Africa 10: 75–96.Google Scholar
Migeod, F. W. H. 1919. ‘Tribal Mixture on the Gold Coast’, Journal of the African Society 19: 109–26.Google Scholar
Murdock, G. P. 1959. Africa: Its Peoples and their Culture History. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Murphy, R. 1964. ‘Social Change and Acculturation’, Transactions of the New York Academy of Sciences, Series II, Vol. 26: 845–54.Google Scholar
Nadel, S. F. 1951. The Foundations of Social Anthropology. Cohen and West.Google Scholar
Paden, J. and Soja, E. 1970. The African Experience: Volume II, Syllabus. Northwestern University Press.Google Scholar
Paulme, D. 1962. Une Socièté Côte d'lvoire Hier et Aujourd'hui: Les Bété. Paris: Mouton & Cie.Google Scholar
Payne, J. 1845. ‘Journal of the Rev. J. Payne, Missionary at Cavalla, Western Africa’, Spirit of Missions (Board of Missions of the Protestant Episcopal Church in USA) 10: 113–18, 145–7, 331–40.Google Scholar
Reade, W. 1870. ‘The Cavalla River,’ African Repository and Colonial Journal 46: 204–5.Google Scholar
Reade, W. 1873. The African Sketch-Book. Smith, Elder and Co.Google Scholar
Schröder, G. and Massing, A. n.d. ‘A General Outline of Historical Developments within the Kru Cultural Province’, paper presented at the Liberian Studies Conference, Indiana University, May 1970.Google Scholar
Schröder, G. and Seibel, D. 1974. Ethnographic Survey of Southeastern Liberia: The Liberian Kran and the Sapo. Liberian Studies Monograph Series, No. 3.Google Scholar
Schulze, W. n.d. ‘Plantation Workers in West Africa: Social-geographic Case Studies of the AFC Plantation, Greenville, and other Rubber Plantations’, paper presented at Liberian Studies Conference, Shaw University, May 1975.Google Scholar
Seibel, D. and Massing, A. 1974. Traditional Organisations and Economic Development: Studies of Indigenous Cooperatives in Liberia. Praeger Special Studies in International Economics and Development.Google Scholar
Service, E. 1971. Profiles in Ethnology: Revised Edition. Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Skinner, E. 1970. ‘Processes of Political Incorporation in Mossi Society’, in: Cohen, R. and Middleton, J. (eds.) From Tribe to Nation in Africa: 175–200.Google Scholar
Taylor, H. R. 1939. Jungle Trader. London.Google Scholar
Vincent, J. 1971. African Elite: The Big Men of a Small Town. Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Wilson, J. L. 1856. Western Africa. New York.Google Scholar