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Social Change on the Kru Coast of Liberia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2012

Merran Fraenkel
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Extract

The Kru people of Liberia are well known as deck-hands and fishermen all down the west coast of Africa, and they have established ‘colonies’ in most ports from Dakar to Douala—as well as in such distant centres as London, Liverpool, and New York. Little, however, has been published on their history and social structure, and the first part of this article is a contribution towards filling this gap. The second part concerns socio-economic change in one Kru town, Grand Cess, during the present century, and in particular its fission into two geographically and culturally distinct sections: the traditional town and the modern Municipality. The outline of the development of Grand Cess, of present interrelationships between its two main sections, and of the status of each vis-à-vis the central government, serves as an illustration of the Republic's unusual system of local administration. The account is based on three weeks' stay in Grand Cess in 1958, and on discussions with Kru people over a period of a year in Monrovia (1958–9).

Résumé

CHANGEMENT SOCIAL SUR LA CÔTE KRU DU LIBÉRIA

La structure politique traditionnelle kru était basée sur un grand nombre de bourgs autonomes. Au cours du xxème siècle, des groupes ont essaimé hors de ces bourgs pour constituer des communes ‘civilisées’ et des municipalités administrées dans la ligne des anciens établissements américano-libériens, hors de l'autorité tribale. L'un de ces bourgs est Grand Cess, qui comporte encore aujourd'hui deux secteurs principaux, Big Town sous autorité tribale et la Municipalité. Ces deux secteurs sont totalement distincts dans leur structure formelle, légale et politique. Le Maire et le Juge de paix n'ont aucune autorité sur Big Town, pas plus que n'en a le koloba (grand chef) sur la Municipalité. Mais la population des deux secteurs est liée (a) par une commune qualité de membres des treize pantons ou clans patrilinéaires suivant lesquels Big Town est divisée; (b) par des droits communs à la propriété fermière, dérivant de l'appartenance au pantom; (c) par le respect dû aux anciens et aux personnalités de Big Town; (d) par les droits et les obligations découlant de l'appartenance à l'une ou l'autre des classes d'âge qui constituent le gbau, l'armée traditionnelle; (e) par l'appartenance à des associations facultatives plus modernes, y compris les églises. Les habitants de Big Town sont encore surtout des pêcheurs et des cultivateurs pratiquant une agriculture de subsistance. Parmi les plus jeunes, un grand nombre d'hommes émigrent pour trouver du travail ou poursuivre leurs études. Il y a peu de chances de trouver un travail salarié sur place, mais les gros bonnets de la Municipalité, qui sont aussi les personnalités dirigeantes, favorisent actuellement le développement de fermes à récolte payée au comptant, avec culture du café, du chocolat et de la gomme. La principale difficulté résulte du manque de moyens de transport, puisqu'il n'y a pas de route allant jusqu'à Grand Cess et que les chargements n'atteignent pas le bourg. Grand Cess offre un champ intéressant à l'étude du développement d'un gouvernement local de type occidental dans une communauté tribale homogène.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 36 , Issue 2 , April 1966 , pp. 154 - 172
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1966

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References

page 154 note 1 Virtually the only published works on Kru ethnography are the two articles by Mekeel, H. Scudder on ‘The Social Administration of the Kru’, published in Africa, x. 1, 1937Google Scholar and xii. 4, 1939. These were based on information provided in the 1920's by a Grand Cess man, at the time living in the United States. I was fortunate in being permitted to read a manuscript on ‘The Tribe that Found the Sea’ by Father Feeney of the S.M.A. mission, for many years a resident in Grand Cess. These two accounts and my own material largely coincide. Discrepancies occur, however, especially in the duties assigned to the various officials. My own account is based on discussion with a large number of elderly people in Grand Cess, where there was considerable argument over the details of the traditional, and now largely obsolete, roles of the officials. On one point, however, Mekeel's account should certainly be corrected: the ‘devil bush’ and ‘gree-gree’ bush were not Kru institutions, nor did secret societies have the importance which he supposed.

page 155 note 1 Fraenkel, Merran, Tribe and Class in Monrovia, O.U.P., 1964, pp. 40 and 76 f.Google Scholar

page 155 note 2 Dept. of Agriculture and Commerce, RL: Census of Population of Greenville, 1958.Google Scholar

page 155 note 3 There is a very good account of the foundation and later history of ‘Maryland in Africa’ by a Liberian, Eastman, Ernest, A. History of the State of Maryland in Liberia, Bureau of Information, RL, c. 1958.Google Scholar

page 161 note 1 See Fraenkel, op. cit., pp. 236–7.

page 162 note 1 Revised Laws and Administrative Regulations for Governing the Hinterland (mimeographed), RL 1949.

page 162 note 2 Only cities make their own taxes and operate their own budget. In 1958 there were only two cities—the small settlements at Careysburg and Marshall. The larger towns have other status—Monrovia, for example, is a Commonwealth District.

page 162 note 3 Code of Laws, 1956, RL, 21: 82–89.

page 162 note 4 See Fraenkel, op. cit., fig. iii, p. 97.

page 164 note 1 In Sasstown, although the emigrant group seems to have been in the initial stages the more educated, both Filokli and Jekwipo, proceeded to develop a kwi klo, an internal civilized communiity, and today there is intense competition between the two for government posts.

page 164 note 2 The arrival of the Catholic Mission is described in Father Harrington's To Liberia and Beyond, Society of African Missions, c. 1952.

page 167 note 1 It is said that a German trader gave architectural advice when the first of these houses went up in the 1930's.

page 168 note 1 Code of Laws, RL, 1956, 32: 50–53.

page 170 note 1 Mekeel, 1939, p. 463.

page 171 note 1 See Fraenkel, op. cit., pp. 178 f.

page 172 note 1 Grand Cess, Picnicess, and Barclayville are the main townships of what was in 1958 the Kru Coast District in Maryland County. The bulk of Kru territory, including Sasstown, falls administratively into Sinoe County. In 1959 the Kru Coast District was elevated to the status of Territory. On the level of local administration, the main effect of this would be to increase the number of government posts available.