Book
The Kpelle: a negro tribe in Liberia
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht ; J. C. Hinrichs'sche Buchhandlung • Gö Ttingen • Published In 1921 • Pages:
By: Westerman, Diedrich H., Schütze, Frieda.
AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
Although based on only four month's field work in Liberia -- Sept. 26, 1914 to January 1915 (p. i) - this document presents a sufficient amount of well-rounded ethnographic information on the Liberian Kpelle, primarily along the St. Paul River, to make it one of the primary documents in this file. Data for this study were obtained not only from the author's own observations, but also from information provided by a number of native informants (see pp. 1-3). These data were further supplemented by other secondary source materials on the Kpelle. The first three sections of this source provide background information on the Kpelle - geography, physical appearance, general characteristics and outside influences on the culture - followed by major sections dealing with the economy, family and society, language, native concepts of the world (including much information on religion and the various secret societies), and a large section on folktales, of both Kpelle and Mende origin (the latter subheaded to appear in the FC07 Mende collection). In the final sections of the source a brief biographical sketch is presented of one of the author's key informants - William Kwei Pedersen - a Mende by birth, but Kpelle by assimilation, followed by some brief ethnographic contributions (mostly in terms of folktales) by the missionary H. Rohde. The Gola texts of folktales presented in the original German have not been translated.
- SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
- Tillage
- Cereal agriculture
- Dwellings
- Division of labor by gender
- Food preparation
- Eating
- Magic
- Ethnobotany
- Weights and measures
- Government regulation
- Districts
- Household
- Polygamy
- Arranging a marriage
- Judicial authority
- Sanctions
- Slavery
- Vocabulary
- Grammar
- cultureCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
- Kpelle
- HRAF PubDateThe date HRAF published the document
- 2009
- RegionThe area the document pertains to
- Africa
- Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region
- Western Africa
- Document TypeMay include journal articles, essays, collections of essays, monographs, or chapters/parts of monographs
- Book
- Evaluation
- Creator TypeThe type of person writing the document, e.g. Ethnographer, Missionary, Archaeologist, Folklorist, Linguist, Indigenous Person, and so on.
- Ethnologist
- Document Rating A ranking done by HRAF anthropologists based on the strength of the source material on a scale of 1 to 5, as follows: 1 - poor; 2 - fair; 3 - good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent; 4 - excellent secondary data; 5 - excellent primary data.
- 4: Excellent Secondary Data
- 5: Excellent Primary Data
- AnalystThe HRAF anthropologist who subject indexed the document and prepared other materials for the eHRAF culture/tradition collection
- John Beierle ; 1986
- Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
- 1914-1915 (4 months)
- Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
- 1900-1915
- Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
- Liberia
- NotesAdditional notes
- Diedrich H. Westerman
- Translation of: [Die Kpelle; ein Negerstamm in Liberia dargestellt auf der Grundlage von Eingeborenen-Berichte]
- Translated for the HRAF files by Frieda Schütze
- Includes bibliographical references (p. 622-626)
- LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
- Kpelle (African people)