Mende people
The Mende are one of the two largest ethnic groups in Sierra Leone; their neighbours, the Temne people, constitute the largest ethnic group at 35.5% of the total population, which is slightly larger than the Mende at 31.2%. The Mende are predominantly found in the Southern Province and the Eastern Province. The Mende are mostly farmers and hunters. Some of the major cities with significant Mende populations include Bo, Kenema, Kailahun, and Moyamba.
Like a majority of African nations, Sierra Leone's political parties are often tied to specific ethnic groups and have been dominated by the Mende, on the one hand, and the Temne and their long-time political allies, the Limba, on the other. The Mende are known to typically support the Sierra Leone People's Party, while the Temnes and Limbas are associated with the All People's Congress party.
History
In their oral tradition, the Mende describe themselves as being a mixture of two peoples: their original members were hunters and fishers who sparsely populated the area in small peaceful settlements, and their leaders came later, in a recent historical period, bringing with them the arts of war, and also building larger, more permanent villages. This is supported by analyses of their language and culture, which show signs of a layering of two different forms; they have both matrilineal and patrilineal inheritance, for instance. These leaders described in oral histories were almost certainly Mane people who descended into the coastal lowlands from the area near Moussadou, Guinea in the 16th century. They conquered and mixed with the native Bullom people to form the Mende.Regional warfare throughout the 19th century led to the capture and sale of many Mende-speakers into slavery. Most notable were those found aboard the Amistad in 1839. They eventually won their freedom and were repatriated. This event involved fifty-two free Mende people, stolen by Portuguese slavers in 1839, who were shipped via the Middle Passage to Havana, Cuba, where they were sold to Cuban sugar plantation owners, José Ruiz and Pedro Montes.
After working the plantation, they were placed on the schooner Amistad and shipped to another Cuban plantation. On the way, they escaped their bondage and were led in a rebellion by Sengbe Pieh. They told the crew to return them to Africa. Their efforts to return home were frustrated by the ship's remaining crew, who navigated up to the United States. The ship was intercepted off Long Island, New York, by a U.S. Coastal brig. The Cubans merchants Ruiz and Montes denounced the Mende and asserted that they were their property. The ensuing case, heard in Hartford and New Haven, Connecticut, affirmed that the captives were free, and resulted in the return of the thirty-six surviving Mende to their homes.
Language
The Mende people speak the Mende language, which belongs to the Mande language branch of the proposed Niger-Congo language family. In the 1930s African-American linguist Lorenzo Dow Turner found a Gullah family in coastal Georgia that had preserved an ancient song in the Mende language, passing it down for 200 years. In the 1990s three modern researchers – Joseph Opala, Cynthia Schmidt, and Tazieff Koroma — located a Mende village in Sierra Leone where the same song is still sung today. The story of this Mende song, and its survival in both Africa and the US, is chronicled in the documentary film The Language You Cry In.Traditional social structure
The Mende are divided into five clans: the Kpa-Mende, who are predominantly in the Moyamba district to the south; the Golah-Mende, who inhabit the Gola forest between Kenema and Pujehun districts into Liberia; Sewa-Mende, who settled along the Sewa River; the Vai-Mende, who are also in Liberia and the Pujehun district of Sierra Leone; and the Koh-Mende, who are a dominant tribe in Kailahun district.The Mende traditionally live in villages of 70 to 250 residents, which are situated from 1.5 to 5 kilometers apart. There is little or no mechanization over the greater part of rural Mende country. Mende farmers use hoes and machetes, but few other tools. The Mende are generally known as growers of rice and several other crops, practicing crop rotation to protect soil productivity. Coffee, cocoa, and ginger are grown as cash crops, whereas rice, pepper, groundnuts, beniseed, and palm oil are grown for local consumption. Rice cooperatives have been formed in some rural areas.
Traditionally, Mende farming has been carried out by labour groups organised on a local basis and moving from farm to farm. Work is divided by gender: men attend to the heavy work of clearing the land for planting rice, while women clean and pound rice, fish, and weed the planted crops. This routine is followed during ten months of every year, with a couple of months left around the New Year, when they can spend more time in the village engaging in domestic pursuits like house building.
The Mende are patrilineal, patrilocal, and polygamous. The household unit is represented by at least one man and perhaps several of his brothers, with all of their wives and children. One or more brothers and married sisters usually leave sooner or later and are incorporated into other residential units. The senior male has moral authority—the right to respect and obedience—over the family as a whole, especially with regard to the negotiation of debts, damages, and bride-wealth.
Secret societies
Poro society
The greatest sins a Mende man can commit is to give away the secrets of their tribe. The Poro society is the male equivalent to the female Sande society. When inducted into this society, Mende boys are initiated into manhood. Many of their rituals parallel those of the Sande society.During their training, the initiates learn everything that is essential for the survival of the community. The process is described as being reborn, transformed, and—during a masquerade—as being "regurgitated" into fully socialized adult men.
The Poro prepares men for leadership in the community, so they might attain wisdom, accept responsibility, and gain power. It begins with the child's grade of discovery, followed by extensive training and service. During the seven-year initiation period, the young men converse with each other using a secret language and passwords, known only to other Poro members. The member always knows and understands what is being said. This is part of the mystery of this secret society.
At the beginning, young men aged 20 are called into the society and are trained by the group above them, along with a few elders. There is much work to be done during the initiation process. Dancing the masks is part of this work, but not the most important part. Only through work does the dance of the mask become meaningful.
The Mende have always had a remarkable enthusiasm for secret societies. According to Kenneth Little, writing in the 1960s, even the prevalence of Poro societies was far more widespread among Mende than Temne.
Sande society
All Mende women when they reach puberty begin the initiation process into the Sande society. The goals of this secret society are to teach young Mende women the responsibilities of adulthood. The girls are taught to be hardworking and modest in their behavior, especially towards their elders. Sande influences every aspect of a Mende woman's life; it is present before birth and still present after.Sande is the guardian of women: their protector and guide through life. It is Sande that grants a woman with an identity and a personality. The Sande society is concerned with defining what it is to be human and with discovering the ways of promoting love, justice, and harmony. It is a moral philosophy that focuses on the perpetual refinement of the individual.
Sande leaders serve as models to women in the community. They exemplify the highest of Mende ideals, and they have the duty of enforcing positive social relationships and of removing any harm that might come to women in their community. "This is Sande; women together in their womanhood, in a free exchange of words and actions among sisters. Wherever two or three women are gathered together, there is the spirit of Sande."
Sande groups conduct masked performances that embody the Sande guardian spirit, who is associated with water and rivers. Descriptions of the society and its masquerade events have been made by visitors since the seventeenth century.
Sande hierarchy
The Sande society is organized by a hierarchy a number of positions all around. The sowie are the highest-ranking leaders of the group. It is their job to model to the Mende women the most important Mende social values. It is also their duty to enforce proper social relationships and to remove anything that might be harmful to the women in their community.The sowie have control over certain sacred knowledge that is essential to the development of success and happiness in an individual, and also to the well-being of the community. They are the experts of the Sande women and have access to spirit ancestors and forces of nature.
The rank below sowie is ligba. There are two grades within ligba; Ligba Wa and Ligba Wulo. In any group there is only one Ligba Wa; she is an executive officer in Sande. Before a woman can take a leadership role in artistic activities she must be eligible at least as a Ligba Wulo.
An ordinary member is referred to as nyaha. The word indicates that the Sande initiation makes a woman of a child, and every woman into a wife. An initiate in training is called mbogdoni. A non-member is kpowa. As a noun kpowa means "an ignoramus, stupid, retarded, a fool" as a verb it means "to become insane or deranged."
Female culture
Arts
Much Mende art is in the form of jewelry and carvings. The masks associated with the fraternal and sorority associations of the Marka and the Mende are probably the best-known and finely crafted in the region. The Mende also produce beautifully woven fabrics which are popular throughout western Africa, and gold and silver necklaces, bracelets, armlets, and earrings.The bells on the necklaces are of the type believed capable of being heard by spirits, ringing in both worlds, that of the ancestors and the living. Mende hunters often wear a single bell that can be easily silenced when stealth is necessary. Women, on the other hand, often wear multiple bells, referring to concepts of community, since the bells ring harmoniously together.