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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Ivory Coast
Index
Lobi homestead, northeastern Côte d'Ivoire
Courtesy Robert Handloff
Kru
The dominant peoples in the southwest region, where the
forest
zone reaches the coastal lagoons, are the Kru. Kru
languages are a
subgroup within the Kwa branch of the Niger-Congo language
family,
related to those of the Akan and lagoon peoples to their
east. Kru
societies are found along the coast from Monrovia,
Liberia, to the
Bandama River in Côte d'Ivoire. They include the Bété,
Dida, Guéré,
Wobé, and several smaller groups.
Kru cultures generally lack the centralization
characteristic
of the Akan to the east. The basic social unit is the
patrilineage,
tracing descent through males to a common male ancestor
for both
men and women. The lineage, which usually coincides with a
village,
is further subdivided into segments or branches. Village
leadership
may be exercised by a council of elders, sometimes headed
by a
chief whose power is limited by the council. The result is
an
uncentralized, but not anarchic, society. Few status
distinctions
are recognized other than age and lineage membership,
although many
Krou people kept slaves from neighboring societies before
the
arrival of European slave traders. Villages maintain ties
based on
presumed common descent, reinforced by ceremonial
exchanges and
gifts. Unrelated villages maintained neutral relations but
were
rarely united into a larger polity until the colonial era.
For their livelihood, the Kru rely on farming
supplemented by
hunting in forest areas. Land is held collectively by
members of a
village but is worked by individual lineage branches or
families.
Age groups were traditionally assigned military and
religious
responsibilities, and they still organized communal work
projects
in the late 1980s. Women were important in the village,
with
responsibilities for most activity concerning crops. They
also
formed age groups or village councils, which were
traditionally
consulted before implementing political decisions,
although women's
councils lost influence under colonial rule.
The Bété, the largest Kru society, are probably the
descendants
of groups pushed southward from savanna woodland to
forested areas
by warfare to the north. They are divided into
patrilineage-based
villages, often allied with other villages by tracing
descent to a
common ancestor. Lineage exogamy prohibits marriage within
the
patrilineage and contributes to links among patrilineages
through
intermarriage.
Marriage is a family responsibility, as it is in many
societies. The family of the groom compensates the family
of the
bride for their loss, a practice crudely translated as
"brideprice ." This exchange legitimizes children of the
marriage, who are
considered members of their father's patrilineage, while
their
mother retains her membership in her father's lineage.
Polygyny, or plural marriage by Bété men, remained
relatively
common in the 1980s, although as in all societies, it was
an
expensive means of gaining prestige, sexual access, and
children,
and it was not recognized by Ivoirian law. Divorce,
although not
common, was socially acceptable and allowed children to
retain
their membership in their father's patrilineage even if
they
continued to live with their mother.
In the twentieth century, the Bété have been recognized
for
their success in cash cropping and for their widespread
acceptance
of Christianity. They have a strong ethnic consciousness
despite
these foreign influences and have been active both within
the
government and in antigovernment dissent groups since
independence.
They also have a long history of resistance to foreign
domination
and strong beliefs in their own cultural superiority.
Around the Bété are a number of smaller groups,
including the
Dida, Guéré, Wobé, Neyo, Niaboua, and several others. Most
are
organized into farming villages, with a greater dependence
on
fishing along the coast. Many villages share common basic
features
with neighboring groups, and most have an ethnically mixed
labor
force and large immigrant population. Some have adopted
myths of
origin of other groups to legitimize their pride in their
past, and
many maintain strong loyalties to the region, despite
their
apparent mixed origins.
Data as of November 1988
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