1787–1887–1987: reflections on a Sierra Leone bicentenary

Africa ◽  
1987 ◽  
Vol 57 (4) ◽  
pp. 411-421 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Fyfe
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Sierra Leone ◽  
Forest Belt ◽  
Long Period ◽  
Language Pattern ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Opening Paragraph

Opening ParagraphSeen in the widest perspective, 1787 is only one date among the uncounted tens, perhaps hundreds, of thousands of years during which the present Sierra Leone has been inhabited. Archaeologists have done disappointingly little work there. But it is clear from their findings (and by implication from findings in the rest of forest-belt West Africa) that people have lived there a very long time. Though traditional historiography always tends to present the peoples of Sierra Leone as immigrants from somewhere else, the language pattern suggests continuous occupation over a very long period. As Paul Hair (1967) has shown, there has been a striking linguistic continuity in coastal West Africa since the fifteenth century. Nor is there evidence to suggest that before that period stability and continuity were not the norm.

Kinship, Emigration, and Trade Partnership among the Lebanese of West Africa

Africa ◽  
1965 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 385-395 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fuad I. Khuri
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Sierra Leone ◽  
Muslim Community ◽  
Greek Orthodox ◽  
Kinship Structure ◽  
Opening Paragraph ◽  
Kinship Ties ◽  
Upper Volta

Opening ParagraphThis article describes the kinship structure of some Lebanese communities in West Africa, and the resemblances they bear to the communities from which they originated in Lebanon. It also shows the extent to which kinship ties promote emigration, and the kind of trade partnership normally practised by kinsmen. Two communities are considered: the Greek Orthodox community in Ouagadougou (Upper Volta), and the Shi'ite Muslim community in Magburaka (Sierra Leone).

Towards a Reassessment of the Dating and the Geographical Origins of the Luso-African Ivories, Fifteenth to Seventeenth Centuries

2007 ◽  
Vol 34 ◽  
pp. 189-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Mark
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Sierra Leone ◽  
West African ◽  
Historical Documents ◽  
Documentary Evidence ◽  
Art Historians ◽  
Coherent Body

Fifty years ago, a group of 100 ivory carvings from West Africa was first identified by the English scholar William Fagg as constituting a coherent body of work. In making this important identification, Fagg proposed the descriptive label “Afro-Portuguese ivories.” Then, as now, the provenance and dating of these carved spoons, chalices (now recognized as salt cellars), horns, and small boxes posed a challenge to art historians. Fagg proposed three possible geographical origins: Sierra Leone, the Congo coast (Angola, ex-Zaïre), and the Yoruba-inhabited area of the old Slave Coast. Although Fagg was initially inclined on stylistic grounds to accept the Yoruba hypothesis, historical documents soon made it clear that the ivories—or at least many of them—were associated with Portuguese commerce in Sierra Leone. This trade developed in the final decades of the fifteenth century.Today approximately 150 works have been identified by scholars as belonging to the “corpus” of carved ivories from West Africa. Although the sobriquet “Afro-Portuguese” remains the most common appellation, these pieces should more appropriately be referred to as Luso-African ivories. The latter term more accurately reflects the objects' creation by West African sculptors who were working within Africa. The works, although hybrid in inspiration, are far more African than they are Portuguese. In addition, no documentary evidence exists to indicate that any of the ivories were carved by African artists living in Portugal. West African artists created the sculptures within the context of their own cultures.

The Changing Political System of the Temne

Africa ◽  
1960 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 110-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vernon R. Dorjahn
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Sierra Leone ◽  
Political System ◽  
Administration System ◽  
Time Period ◽  
Opening Paragraph

Opening ParagraphThe purpose of this study is to consider some of the changes that have taken place in the positions of political officials and in the administrative hierarchy of the Temne of Sierra Leone, British West Africa. The time period under concern extends from approximately 1880, towards the end of the ‘tribal wars’, as they are called by the Temne, through the establishment of the Protectorate and the later introduction of the Native Administration system, to the ‘disturbances in the Provinces’, November 1955 to March 1956.

War-Towns in Sierra Leone: a Study in Social Change

Africa ◽  
1968 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. J. Siddle
Keyword(s):  
Sierra Leone ◽  
Cultural Landscape ◽  
Wide Distribution ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Economic Changes ◽  
Long Period ◽  
Internal Structures ◽  
Four Square ◽  
Opening Paragraph ◽  
Rural Settlement Pattern

Opening ParagraphOne of the most interesting features of the cultural landscape of Sierra Leone is the very large number of settlements which still bear the marks of the long period of anarchy which preceded the colonial era. This is reflected both in the choice of sites and in the internal structures of settlements. Such influences are still to be found despite the impermanence of mud and wattle buildings and the sixty years which have elapsed since pacification. These settlements are interesting not only by the fact of their survival, but also for their wide distribution and their small size. There are probably more than a thousand defensive villages in the country, an average of one for every twenty-eight square miles, and reaching a maximum density of one for every four square miles in parts of Mendeland in the south. Most of them have populations of between two hundred and a thousand inhabitants. It is the aim of this paper to reconstruct the original character of these ‘war-towns’ as they were described by nineteenth- century explorers; to attempt an explanation of their wide distribution; and finally to show how social and economic changes are gradually causing a breakdown of this nucleic and defensive rural settlement pattern.

The Influence of Wharfs on School Children: A Case Study of Portee Wharf in Freetown, Sierra Leone

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 128-140
Author(s):  
Alhaji Bakar Kamara
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Sierra Leone ◽  
School Children ◽  
Research Area ◽  
Background Information ◽  
Control Problems

The focus of this research is to investigate the influence of wharfs on school children. Therefore it will report the findings of the result on the influences of wharfs on school children with specific case on Portee Wharf in Freetown, Sierra Leone in West Africa. In this regard, the introduction describes the research area, stating the statement of the problem, the overall goal and specific objectives that will be attained in this study, justification for selecting the topic, problems to be encountered during the course of carrying out this research and major influences. Besides, an indication of the methods used to investigate the topic will also be highlighted. Moreover, the studies will analyze the actual responses of the respondents of the activities of the wharf on school-going children. It will address the questionnaire in accordance with the following: Background information of respondents, this investigated areas such as sex, age, religion, occupation and tribe; It enquires about the activities of the wharfs, reasons and consequences of children engaged in wharfs and strategies to control problems that may emanate from the wharf. The paper will show the findings, gives the summary, conclusion and recommendations of problems identified while carrying out the research.

scholarly journals Music for Monkeys: Building Methods to Design with White-Faced Sakis for Animal-Driven Audio Enrichment Devices

Animals ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (10) ◽  
pp. 1768
Author(s):  
Roosa Piitulainen ◽  
Ilyena Hirskyj-Douglas
Keyword(s):  
Longitudinal Study ◽  
Electronic Music ◽  
Computer Systems ◽  
Interactive System ◽  
Novelty Effect ◽  
Non Invasive ◽  
Long Period ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Audio System ◽  
Computer Interaction

Computer systems for primates to listen to audio have been researched for a long time. However, there is a lack of investigations into what kind of sounds primates would prefer to listen to, how to quantify their preference, and how audio systems and methods can be designed in an animal-focused manner. One pressing question is, if given the choice to control an audio system, would or could primates use such a system. In this study, we design an audio enrichment prototype and method for white-faced sakis that allows them to listen to different sounds in their regular zoo habitat while automatically logging their interactions. Focusing on animal-centred design, this prototype was built from low fidelity testing of different forms within the sakis’ enclosure and gathering requirements from those who care for and view the animal. This process of designing in a participatory manner with the sakis resulted in an interactive system that was shown to be viable, non-invasive, highly interactive, and easy to use in a zoo habitat. Recordings of the sakis’ interactions demonstrated that the sakis triggered traffic audio more than silence, rain sounds, zen, and electronic music. The data and method also highlight the benefit of a longitudinal study within the animals’ own environment to mitigate against the novelty effect and the day-to-day varying rhythm of the animals and the zoo environment. This study builds on animal-centred methods and design paradigms to allow the monitoring of the animals’ behaviours in zoo environments, demonstrating that useful data can be yielded from primate-controlled devices. For the Animal-Computer Interaction community, this is the first audio enrichment system used in zoo contexts within the animals own environment over a long period of time that gives the primate control over their interactions and records this automatically.

Western Education and Rural Productivity in Tropical Africa

Africa ◽  
1962 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 313-323 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. C. C. Evans
Keyword(s):  
Rural Life ◽  
Tropical Africa ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Western Education ◽  
Political Independence ◽  
White Collar Workers ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Complete Rejection ◽  
To Come ◽  
Opening Paragraph

Opening ParagraphFor many years British administrators and others concerned with the developing countries of tropical Africa have criticized Western-type schooling introduced there for what they believe to have been its bad effects on the life of rural peoples. They have complained that such schooling is prejudicial to rural life, since it produces a distaste for agriculture and leads to a drift from the land. They say it promotes in schoolchildren a desire to be clerks or white-collar workers and, because of their schooling, they develop a strong dislike for manual work and a reluctance to soil their hands with physical labour. They assert that these values inculcated by Western schooling lead finally to an almost complete rejection of rural life, a contempt for agriculture, and therefore to a decrease in rural productivity. Finally, they maintain that this is particularly serious in view of the fact that, as far as we can see at present, many African countries will have to depend on agriculture and the land for a long time to come, for it is only through such dependence that it seems likely that they will achieve economic viability which will be an important factor in making a success of political independence.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document