Sierra Leone
Capital: Freetown · West Africa
The 'Lion Mountains' — homeland of Mende and Temne chiefdoms, the women's Sande masking society, and the Krio culture of freed-slave descendants in Freetown.
Ethnic communities
- MendeSouthern chiefdoms; Sande society's sowei helmet masks
- TemneNorthern kingdoms with Poro traditions
- KrioDescendants of liberated Africans; Krio language and Freetown culture
- Limba, Kono, SherbroOlder indigenous groups of the interior and coast
More communities of Sierra Leone
- Limba — Palm-wine cultivators, the land's oldest claimants
- Kono — Diamond-country farmers of eastern forests
- Sherbro — Coastal islanders of Yassi society heritage
- Fula (Fulbe) — Cattle and commerce across the north
- Loko — Northern farmers of Temne-side traditions
- Susu — Border traders toward Guinea's coast
- Kissi — Tri-border rice farmers of stone ancestors
- Madingo (Mandinka) — Muslim merchant-teachers in every town
- Yalunka & Kuranko — Highland Mande farmers of the northeast
- Vai & Gola — Border communities of script and Sande fame
- Krim & Gallinas — Southern coast fishing and old trade towns
Languages
Major languages: Mende, Temne, Krio, English
Language families: Niger-Congo (Mande, Mel); English Creole
Historical kingdoms & states
- • Koya (Temne) Kingdom
- • Mende confederacies
Heritage sites
- • Bunce Island slave fort
- • Freetown Cotton Tree heritage
Cultural highlights
Deep-dive community profiles
Mende
The rice-farming people of Sierra Leone's forested south whose Sande and Poro societies school every generation, whose Sowei mask is the only known African mask danced by women, and whose chiefs and orators shaped the modern state.
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The people of Sierra Leone's central and coastal heartland — heirs of chiefdoms that met the first Atlantic traders, keepers of the Poro and Bondo/Sande societies, the Ragbenle and Ramena institutions, and the paramount chieftaincies that shaped the nation.
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