A masking ceremony of the Yoruba people which acknowledges and celebrates women as the source of new life and spiritual power. A people residing along the western border of Liberia whose major economic activity is producing palm oil and palm kernals for export. Among the Yoruba, these figures are carved to honor a dead twin infant. A village-based culture of Southeastern Nigeria living in the delta land east of the Niger River. The Ibo society is strictly communal with no inherited power.
Honor is bestowed on the basis of individual merit and personal achievement.
A society which invaded and settled the area now known as western Guinea in the 15th century bringing the Mande language and Islam to the region. Now residing in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Mali and Guinea, the Mende have evolved an elaborate culture in which secret societies for both men and women maintain and control the social structure and fabric. An agricultural society of the Ivory Coast, noted for their textile arts. The Baga men's secret society. A farming culture found primarily in northern Liberia which shares with the Dan a dualistic cosmology separating domestic or village life from the forest where spirits and the untamed world resides.