Bassa people (Liberia)

The Bassa people are a West African ethnic group primarily native to Liberia. The Bassa people are a subgroup of the larger Kru people of Liberia and Ivory Coast. They form a majority or a significant minority in Liberia's Grand Bassa, Rivercess, Margibi and Montserrado counties.[2] In Liberia's capital of Monrovia, they are the largest ethnic group.[3] With an overall population of about 1.05 million, they are the second largest ethnic group in Liberia (18%), after the Kpelle people (26%).[1] Small Bassa communities are also found in Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast.

This article is about ethnic group in Liberia. For other uses, see Bassa people (Cameroon).
Bassa
Bassa women in 1922
Total population
c. 1,005,000
Regions with significant populations
 Liberia900,000[1]
 Ivory Coast65,000
 Sierra Leone40,000
Languages
Bassa, Kru Pidgin English
Religion
Christianity
Related ethnic groups
Krahn, Kru, Grebo, Jabo

The Bassa speak the Bassa language, a Kru language that belongs to the Niger-Congo family of languages.[4] They had their own pictographic writing system but it went out of use in the 19th century, was rediscovered among the slaves of Brazil and the West Indies in 1890s, and reconstructed in early 1900 by Thomas Flo Darvin Lewis.[5][6] The revived signs-based script is called Ehni Ka Se Fa.[7]

In local languages, the Bassa people are also known as Gboboh, Adbassa or Bambog-Mbog people.[8]

History
A lid carved from wood, embedded with glass by an early 20th century Bassa artist.

The linguistic evidence and oral traditions of these geographically diverse, small yet significant group suggests that their name Bassa may be related to Bassa Sooh Nyombe which means "Father Stone's people". Early European traders had trouble pronouncing the entire phrase, and the shorter form Bassa has been used in Western literature ever since.[8]

The Dan people, neighbors of the Bassa in Liberia, were especially attracted to brass jewelry. Dan women wore significant amounts of brass jewelry, as the amount of brass was directly correlated to their husband's wealth. Many Dan women would wear several pairs of anklets and bracelets that could weigh up to 8 pounds each. Until brass jewelry was banned in the late 1930s by Liberia's minister of health, Rudolf Fuszek, that claimed the brass jewelry was the cause of chafing infections and orthopedic problems. The sudden surplus of brass would be melted down and recast for other purposes. The Bassa people are likely responsible for producing some of these new uses for brass among the Dan. they were miniature brass cast masks called ma go, or "small head".[9]: 93–94 

Society

The Bassa people are traditionally settled farmers who grow yam, cassava, eddoes and plantain. They are a lineage-linked independent clans who live in villages, each with a chief.[10]

The Bassa people, before colonial occupation, had populations with occupational categories of farmers, barterers / traders, and lagoon fishermen. As well as a set of categories that had hierarchies based on practitioner skill, consisting of blacksmiths, carvers, weavers, potters, and other craftsmen.[11]: 46 

The Bassa people acquired the Port Society and "Gree-Gree" bush traditions of education and initiation of children, from their neighboring Dei and Kpelle tribes.[11]: 45 

The Bassa people are among those that practice the woman initiation society called Sande. (Also referred to as Bondo). The Sande / Bondo sub-culture is believed to be originated from the Mende people.[9]: 56  The practice Sande (or Bondo), which consist of rituals involving special helmet / masks that some practicing cultures called Sowei / sowo. The masks themselves are not named, and Sowei / sowo, refers to the title of the association official that wears the helmet mask. These type of masks are made by numerous cultures leading to some distinction in style, but the purpose of the helmet mask is always a representation os a primordial ancestor spirit that originates from a body of water during a sacred journey by a member official.[9]: 57 

Religion

The traditional religion of the Bassa people has a moral and ethical foundation, one that reveres ancestors and supernatural spirits.[8]

The Sande / Bondo helmet masks, worn by a society official during special ceremonies, represent the idealized beauty of a female primordial ancestor spirit, believed to reside in bodies of water.[9]: 57 

Christianity arrived among the Bassa people during the colonial era, and the first Bible was translated into Bassa language in 1922. The adoption process fused the idea of Christian God with their traditional idea of a Supreme Being and powerful first ancestor who is merciful and revengeful, rewarding the good and punishing the bad.[8] The traditional religion has included secret rites of passage for men and women, such as the Sande society.[12]

The introduction of Christianity created a division between the inland Forest Bassa that maintained Bassa traditional practices and rituals, and the Coastal Bassa, that converted to Christianity.[11]: 45 

Numerous missionaries from different denominations of Christianity have been active among the Bassa people during the 20th century. These has led to many Bassa independent churches from Europe, North America, Africa and Evangelical movements.[13] In contemporary times, the Bassa people predominantly practice Christianity, but they have retained elements of their traditional religion.

Village Layout and Architecture

Inland Forest Bassa took extra consideration to the location and layout of villages. The choice of location is determined by simple factors, access to fresh water, good farmland, and the presence of certain reeds for use as roofing material.[11]: 46 

The layout of the village appears to be disorganized clusters of huts placed seemingly at random, but is actually very intentional. The village layout is arranged in such a way, looking in any direction one's line of sight is interrupted by huts, this inability to get bearings as an outsider is specifically for spies and attackers, as they would get lost easily, giving the Bassa, familiar with their own village an advantage. A Bassa village with this layout lacks any sort of main road, and do include several empty 'lots' making traveling through the village intentionally difficult and confusing for outsiders.[11]: 46 

Art

During the late 1930s, the brass jewelry the Dan wore was banned, the surplus brass from the jewelry was melted down and recast for other things. One of those things were created by the Bassa for the Dan. Those were ma go, "small head", miniature masks that featured protruding open lips, flared nostrils, and pierced slit eyes, as well as a tattoo pattern from forehead to chin.[14]: 93–94 

Another brass work of the Bassa people is the Brass Finial. the Brass Finial is an iron rod that had brass cast over it. the top of the staff features a woman's head, with five rows of hair that run from front to back, as well as an encircling herringbone pattern. According to Bassa legend, the staff was the walking stick of a mythical ancestor by the name of Sma Vlen. Who was believed to have migrated towards the coast during the 16th century.[9]: 101 

Bassa Masks were wood carved and are distinguished from neighboring peoples own masks through a style that gives the masks angular faces. With the mask, the wearer would also wear a braided bonnet, fastened at an angle to the forehead.[9]: 164–171 

Other Bassa Masks have perorated eyes, but are not worn directly on the face of the performer, but rather fastened to the forehead area of a weaved basket that is worn by the performer.[11]: 44 

Bassa Masks have a hierarchy based on the purpose that each mask is meant to fulfill, whether it be private or for a ritual. One type of Bassa masks are made with the intent of projecting reverence and fear with monstrous face with protruding eyes, swollen lips and contorted human and animal features. These masks depict the likeness of spirits from the darkest parts of the forest.[11]: 46 

The next type of mask are the portrait masks created exclusively by skilled carvers following tribal sculptural laws passed down by masters of the craft for generations. These masks are made to embody the defined concepts of beauty, within this category are ancestor masks, meant to give leniency, be at peace, and promise peace to heirs. these masks are deliberately made to not resemble specific individuals.[11]: 46 

An exception to the making of a mask that resembles a specific individual came when there was a need to accustom the people of a village to the disfigurement of someone. A mask in their likeness was made and used by a performer that danced with crowds and told jokes, giving the features of the individual's disfigurement positive association, as part of deliberate act of social to prevent a member of the village from becoming an outcast.[11]: 46 

Another type of portrait masks, known in English as "devil" masks are worn by soothsayers and various performers like acrobats and jugglers, and said wearers are agents of social control.[11]: 46 

References
  1. People and Society: Liberia, CIA Factbook, United States
  2. James Stuart Olson (1996). The Peoples of Africa: An Ethnohistorical Dictionary. Greenwood. pp. 78–79. ISBN 978-0-313-27918-8.
  3. Patricia Levy; Michael Spilling (2008). Liberia. Marshall Cavendish. p. 92. ISBN 978-0-7614-3414-6.
  4. Bassa, Ethnologue
  5. Paul Rozario (2003). Liberia. Gareth Stevens. pp. 52–53. ISBN 978-0-8368-2366-0.
  6. Bassa: A language of Liberia: Writing, Ethnologue
  7. Ayodeji Olukoju (2006). Culture and Customs of Liberia. Greenwood. p. 44. ISBN 978-0-313-33291-3.
  8. Emmanuel Kombem Ngwainmbi (2009). Molefi Kete Asante and Ama Mazama (ed.). Encyclopedia of African Religion. SAGE Publishers. pp. 108–110. ISBN 978-1-4129-3636-1.
  9. Grootaers, Jan-Lodewijk (2014). Visions from the forests : the art of Liberia and Sierra Leone. Minneapolis Institute of Arts. ISBN 9780989371810.
  10. James Stuart Olson (1996). The Peoples of Africa: An Ethnohistorical Dictionary. Greenwood. pp. 78–79. ISBN 978-0-313-27918-8.
  11. Meneghini, Mario (1972). "The Bassa Mask". African Arts. 6 (1): 44. doi:10.2307/3334641. ISSN 0001-9933.
  12. Daniel Mato; Charles Miller (1990). Sande: Masks and Statues from Liberia and Sierra-Leone. Galerie Balolu. pp. 15–16. ISBN 978-90-800587-1-2.
  13. Paul Gifford (2002). Christianity and Politics in Doe's Liberia. Cambridge University Press. pp. 20, 105–107, 140–141, 197, 215, 228–230 with footnotes. ISBN 978-0-521-52010-2.
  14. Grootaers, Jan-Lodewijk (2014). Visions from the forests : the art of Liberia and Sierra Leone. Minneapolis Institute of Arts. ISBN 9780989371810.

Sources
  • Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.), 2005. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Fifteenth edition. Dallas, Tex.: SIL International. Online version.
  • Somah, Syrulwa (2003), Nyanyan Gohn-Manan History, Migration and Government of the Bassa; Lightning Source Inc.
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