Bassa
The coastal people of central Liberia — farmers and fishers of the Buchanan hinterland who devised their own alphabet in the diaspora, whose Poro and Sande societies govern initiation, and who were among the first to meet the American settlers in 1822.
Bassa people
A Picture of Bassa Lady 3.jpg · Wikimedia Commons
Identity
Population: Around a million, Liberia's second-largest group
Location: Grand Bassa, Margibi, Rivercess and River Cess counties, centred on Buchanan
Language: Bassa (Gbasa)
Language family: Niger-Congo → Kru
Traditional governance: Town and clan chiefs with the Poro and Sande societies exercising parallel authority over initiation, law and land; Liberian county administration today.
Clans, Sections & Sub-groups (3)
Most African peoples are federations of named sub-groups — clans, sections, chiefdoms or sub-tribes — each with its own dialect, territory and traditions.
Coastal Bassa
Fishing and trading communities around Buchanan and the river mouths.
Interior Bassa
Farming communities of the forest and the rubber belt.
Diaspora communities
Substantial Bassa populations in the United States, particularly since the civil wars.
Gallery
2 images
Culture
Clothing: Country cloth woven in narrow strips; lappa wrappers and headties; Poro and Sande regalia restricted to initiates.
Food: Rice as the staple and as the definition of a meal, with palm butter, cassava leaf and pepper soup; fish and bushmeat; palm wine and cane juice.
Ceremonies: Poro initiation for men and Sande for women, conducted in bush schools over months; masked appearances at funerals and at the closing of the societies' sessions; harvest and river rites.
Marriage customs: Bridewealth in cloth, livestock and cash; Sande completion traditionally required before marriage; polygyny historically common.
Initiation rites: Poro and Sande bush schools with seclusion, instruction in law, craft and sexuality, scarification and a graduation ceremony; the societies remain active though attendance has declined.
Stories & Oral Literature
The Vah ScriptLanguage history
Thomas Flo Darvin Lewis, a Bassa man taken to Brazil and educated in the United States, devised a full alphabet for Bassa around 1900 and brought it home, founding an association to teach it. It is a genuine indigenous-designed script with letters for the language's tones, and though it never became general, it is taught and used and stands alongside Vai and N'Ko in West Africa's tradition of home-made writing systems.
1822 on the CoastHistorical account
When the American Colonization Society landed freed Black Americans on this coast, the treaties that transferred land were made with local rulers under conditions the Liberian state later treated as settled and the coastal peoples never did. The gap between settler and indigenous Liberia opened there, and it structured the country's politics until the coup of 1980 and the wars that followed.
Proverbs
“Rice not eaten is not a meal.”
Liberian insistence that a meal means rice.
“The bush school teaches what the town cannot say.”
Poro and Sande as the real curriculum.
“The river knows the town before the town knows itself.”
Trade and news arrive by water.
Mythology & Spiritual Beliefs
Creation: A high creator (Gedepo) who withdrew, with ancestors and bush spirits handling daily affairs; the societies mediate between the village and the forest powers.
Beliefs: Poro and Sande as religious as well as legal institutions; ancestor veneration; masked spirits; Christianity widespread and often held alongside society membership.
Ancestors: Ancestors are consulted through elders and diviners; lineage graves anchor land claims in a country where land tenure is contested.
Gods, Goddesses & Spirits
Gedepo
The high creator, distant from daily affairs
Poro spirits
Powers embodied in the men's society's masks and rites
Sande spirits (Sowei)
Powers of the women's society, embodied in the sowei mask
Architecture
Traditional settlements: Villages of round and rectangular houses with thatch or zinc roofs, palaver hut at the centre for public discussion; bush school sites hidden away from the town.
Building techniques: Wattle and daub with palm thatch; the open-sided palaver hut with a conical roof; raised rice barns.
Village layout: Town around the palaver hut and the chief's compound; farms and rice fields beyond; society grounds in the bush and off limits.
Artifacts
Vah script materials
Language heritage
Primers and texts in the Bassa alphabet devised around 1900.
Sowei mask
Performance
Helmet mask of the Sande society, one of very few African masks danced by women.
Country cloth
Textile
Narrow-strip woven cloth used for dress, bedding and payment.
Palaver hut
Architecture
Open-sided round structure where disputes are heard in public.
Historical Timeline
Pre-1800
Bassa communities established on the central coast and its hinterland.
1822–1847
American Colonization Society settlement; the Liberian state is founded on the coast.
c. 1900
The Vah script is devised and taught.
1980–2003
Coup and two civil wars devastate the region; mass displacement and diaspora formation.
Present
Rubber, iron ore and the port at Buchanan dominate the county economy.
Sources & Further Reading
Open sources
- Britannica: Liberia — peopleEncyclopaedia Britannica
Premium & scholarly sources