Kpelle (ethnic group)
The Kpelle (also Kpèlé , Pele , in French Guerzé or Nguerze , Ngere ) are a black African ethnic group in West Africa , mainly in Liberia , in southwest Guinea ( Forest Guinea region ) and in Sierra Leone . There are around 300,000 kpels in Liberia and 100,000 in Guinea. Their share in the total population of Liberia is around 20%.
The Kpelle see their origin in the Mali Empire . The Kpelle in Liberia immigrated from Guinea in the 16th century.
Language and culture
Their language, a Mande language , is also called Kpelle and is divided into Guinean (northern) and Liberian (southern) Kpelle. The Kpelle developed their own standardized writing system for both dialects, the Kpelle script .
Among the Kpelle there are both Christians and followers of traditional religions with their own ideas of initiation (for example in connection with a mythological devouring motif as can also be found among the Marind-anim in New Guinea) and - especially in Guinea - Muslims. The Guinean kpelle are also called "French kpelle" by the Liberian ones.
economy
The most important food of the Kpelle is rice, which is grown in slash and burn farming and harvested once a year. The second most important food is cassava ; in addition, other crops are grown, fishing, hunting and collecting are carried out. Animal husbandry, however, is rather rare. Handicrafts are practiced in the villages. In addition to subsistence farming, there has also been a modest cultivation of cash crops such as sugar cane, cocoa and coffee since the 1960s . Many Kpelle now also work as wage laborers in rubber plantations and iron mines.
literature
- Caroline H. Bledsoe: Women and marriage in Kpelle society. Stanford, Calif. 1980, ISBN 0-8047-1019-8 .
- Diedrich Westermann: The Kpelle: A Negro tribe in Liberia. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1921, DNB 363061797 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ James Stuart Olson : The Peoples of Africa: An Ethnohistorical Dictionary. Greenwood Publishing, 1996, ISBN 0-313-27918-7 , p. 305. ( books.google.de )
- ↑ Lykke Aresin , Helga Hörz , Hannes Hüttner , Hans Szewczyk (eds.): Lexikon der Humansexuologie. Verlag Volk und Gesundheit, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-333-00410-0 , p. 208.