Tuesday, April 29, 2014

World of the Mende
People of Mende practice the chieftaincy rural system whereby each chiefdom is made up of different sections with each consisting of a number of villages or towns. Traditional houses are built relatively close to each other and are usually round or rectangular in shape built from mud daub and palm thatch as roofs. 
typical mende house 

The subsistence way of farming is the most common farming method, where families engage in gardening
around their family homes to grow crops like cassava, yam, millet, rice and vegetables like tomatoes, eggplant, chili peppers,etc.
Animal domestication is purposely done for meat and poultry for eggs and excess of food is being sold at the market and those they couldn't produce is being acquired at the market place.






Manufacturing of crafts in the form of earthenware, brooms, mats, etc is very common. other forms of industrial artifacts include simple farm tools like machetes, hoes, rake; and sculpted objects like masks, ritual objects,etc used during traditional ceremonies and festivals. 

Wednesday, April 16, 2014


Homeland of the People of Mende
They primarily occupy the southern and eastern parts of Sierra Leon and have a small group believed to reside in Liberia.. There are 3 different Mende sub-groups; the Kpa-Mende, Sewa Mende, and the Ko-Mende also known as Kolo Mende. They speak the Mende language and have a population roughly over 1.7 million in Sierra Leone alone and 1.8 million worldwide. Primarily religion is Islam and they also believe in native elements such as a supreme being, ancestral spirits, secret societies and witch finders; and that all humanistic and scientific power is passed down through secret societies. They live primarily in villages of 70 to 250 residents situated from 1.5 to 5 kilometers apart. Most of them engage in agriculture and animal domestication usually in their homes. Work is divided by gender with men attenting to heavy work like clearing land (usually use simple farm tools like hoes and machetes) and the women attend to cleaning and pounding crops harvested. Crops grown may include millet, cassava, yams, sesame. Palm nuts are harvested to produce oil raffia palms are tapped for palm wine.
a typical mende house

A mende family engaged in farming
Mende market place




History of the People of Mende
Historically the people of Mende are believed to be descendants of the 13th century Mali empire which migrated to Sierra Leon from Sudan as invading forces. They are one of the 2 largest ethnic groups in Sierra Leon along with the Temne's. Regional warfare in the 19th century led to a lot of Mende people being sold into slavery some of whom won their freedom and sent back home; others were not so lucky. Today in Sierra Leone some of them are found in major cities like Bo, Kenema and Movamba.

geographic location on the african map
people of Mende