Kru (people)
The Kru are a West African people who are mainly resident in Liberia , but also in Ghana , Sierra Leone and Guinea .
The Kru speak their own language, which belongs to the group of Kru languages in the family of Niger-Congo languages . The Kru languages are named after the Kru people. In Liberia there are around 244,000, in Ghana around 21,000, in Sierra Leone around 11,000 and in Guinea around 3,800 Kru. They are coastal residents; Many Kru earn their living by fishing and processing as well as boat building and wood processing.
The Kru were hired as seafarers by European ships as early as the 16th century . They were therefore exposed to European influences from an early age. The English word crew is said to have changed from the name for the Kru people to a synonym for the crew of a ship.
Trivia
Seafarers: From a travel description by Margarethe von Eckenbrecher "What Africa took and gave me ..." (around 1900): As far as I know, the Krunegers are the natives of Liberia, pushed back and subjugated by the American negroes. Since they have lived on the coast for generations, they are, I would almost like to say, born seafarers. Their canoes are said to be by far the best on the whole west coast, their fishing skills are beyond reach, and they are the only ones standing there when it comes to getting a boat safely through the surf. ... Since landing in Swakopmund is also very dangerous, the Kruboys of every steamer destined for there are recruited by the captain here in Monrovia as needed. Once the cargo has been unloaded and disembarked and the steamer drives back again, it takes all the people it has signed on board and drops them off in Monrovia on the journey home. People get up to a mark a day, the headman, a kind of supervisor, double that ... Our captain needed about a hundred of these people. ... Most of them wore a kind of trousers made of huge checked silk, cotton or wool. Large-flowered calico was also very popular. ... They are extremely useful on the steamer. Every morning a real hell of a noise wakes us up: the Krus are scraping the deck with large square stones. They are very busy, oil the machines, help in the kitchen, wash the dishes, clean vegetables and clean the bare brass parts of the whole ship. There is even a black washer.
Well-known Kru
- Thomas Nimene Botoe (1912–1969), politician and deputy of the Kru in Monrovia
- Samuel Kaboo Morris (1873-1893), Christian missionary
- Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (* 1938), President of Liberia, Nobel Prize winner
- George Weah (* 1966), President of Liberia, professional footballer
literature
- Siegmund Brauner et al .: Common and national languages in Africa . Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1985, Liberia, p. 120-122 .
- Jan M. Hankonsen: Artisomal Fisheries and Fihermen's Migration in Liberia . In: Center for maritime research (ed.): MAST . tape 5/2 , 1992, ISSN 0922-1476 , pp. 75–87 ( The traditional fishing of the Kru (digitized version , English 0.6 MB; PDF)).
- Cynthia Schmidt: Kru Mariners and Migrants of the West African Coast. In: Virginia Danielson, Dwight Reynolds, Scott Marcus (Eds.): The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music. Volume 1: Africa. Routledge, London 1997, pp. 370-382
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Ethnologue.com: Klao.Retrieved June 9, 2011.
- ↑ [1]