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Kissi Penny
The Kissi penny, also seen transcribed as kissy or kisi penny or known as guenze, koli, and kilindi, was an iron currency made in Sierra Leone that circulated widely in the immediate vicinity of its production among Gbandi (Bandi), Gola people, Gola, Kissi people, Kissi, Kpelle people, Kpelle, Loma people, Loma, Mandinka people, Mandinka and Mende people, Mende and other people of Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea-Conakry. Origin West Africans from the region of modern-day Liberia and Sierra Leone have used iron as a trading good and standard of value for a long time. Iron working had developed in the region by ca. 600 B.C.E. and was of extremely high quality. Even in the Early modern period, West African iron and steel easily exceeded the quality of European steel. However, the relative lack of fuel available meant that West African iron was expensive compared to European iron. Portuguese records indicated that sailing voyages in the early sixteenth century carried iron bars amo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brooklyn Museum 2006
Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelve original counties established under English rule in 1683 in what was then the Province of New York. As of the 2020 United States census, the population stood at 2,736,074, making it the most populous of the five boroughs of New York City, and the most populous Administrative divisions of New York (state)#County, county in the state.Table 2: Population, Land Area, and Population Density by County, New York State - 2020 New York State Department of Health. Accessed January 2, 2024. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kru People
The Kru, Krao, Kroo, or Krou are a West African ethnic group who are indigenous to western Ivory Coast and eastern Liberia. European and American writers often called Kru men who enlisted as sailors or mariners Krumen. They migrated and settled along various points of the West African coast, notably Freetown, Sierra Leone, but also the Ivorian and Nigerian coasts. The Kru-speaking people are a large ethnic group that is made up of several sub-ethnic groups in Liberia and Ivory Coast. In Liberia, there are 48 sub-sections of Kru tribes, including the Jlao Kru. These tribes include Bété, Bassa, Krumen, Guéré, Grebo, Klao/Krao, Dida, Krahn people and Jabo people. History During the Atlantic slave trade, Kru people were considered more valuable as traders and sailors on slave ships than as slave labor, and Kru oral traditions strongly hold that they were never enslaved. To ensure their status as “freemen,” they initiated the practice of tattooing their foreheads and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Manilla (money)
Manillas are a form of commodity money, usually made of brass, bronze, or copper, which were used in West Africa.Chamberlain, C. C.(1963). The Teach Yourself ''Guide to Numismatics''. English Universities Press. p. 92. They were produced in large numbers in a wide range of designs, sizes, and weights. Originating before the colonial period, perhaps as the result of trade with the Portuguese Empire, manillas continued to serve as money and decorative objects until the late 1940s and are still sometimes used as decoration on arms, legs and around the neck. In popular culture, they are particularly associated with the Atlantic slave trade. Origins and etymology The name ''manilla'' is said to derive from the Spanish for a 'bracelet' , the Portuguese for 'hand-ring' ,Rees, Alun (April 2000). "Manillas". ''Coin News''. . p. 46–47. or after the Latin (hand) or from , plural of (necklace). They are usually horseshoe-shaped, with terminations that face each other and are roughly ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Katanga Cross
A Katanga cross (), also called a ''handa'', is a cast copper ingot in the shape of an equal-armed cross which was once used as a form of currency in parts of what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Katanga crosses were made in various sizes, typically about across, and weighing about . The name derives from Katanga, a rich copper mining region in the south-eastern portion of the DRC. These X-shaped ingots were cast by local coppersmiths by pouring molten copper into sand molds. Original value During its period of currency, a Katanga cross would buy about of flour, five or six fowls, or six axes. Ten would buy a gun. Modern uses In 1960, Katanga unilaterally seceded from the newly independent Congo-Léopoldville and declared its own independence as the State of Katanga The State of Katanga (; ), also known as the Republic of Katanga, was a breakaway state that proclaimed its independence from Republic of Congo (L ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cowry
Cowrie or cowry () is the common name for a group of small to large sea snails in the family Cypraeidae. Cowrie shells have held cultural, economic, and ornamental significance in various cultures. The cowrie was the shell most widely used worldwide as shell money. It is most abundant in the Indian Ocean, and was collected in the Maldive Islands, in Sri Lanka, along the Indian Malabar coast, in Borneo and on other East Indian islands, in Maluku in the Pacific, and in various parts of the African coast from Ras Hafun, in Somalia, to Mozambique. Cowrie shell money was important in the trade networks of Africa, South Asia, and East Asia. In the United States and Mexico, cowrie species inhabit the waters off Central California to Baja California (the chestnut cowrie is the only cowrie species native to the eastern Pacific Ocean off the coast of the United States; further south, off the coast of Mexico, Central America and Peru, Little Deer Cowrie habitat can be found; and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Numismatist
A numismatist is a specialist, researcher, and/or well-informed collector of numismatics, numismatics/coins ("of coins"; from Late Latin , genitive of ). Numismatists can include collectors, specialist dealers, and scholar-researchers who use coins (and possibly, other currency) in object-based research. Although use of the term ''numismatics'' was first recorded in English in 1799, people had been collecting and studying coins long before then all over the world. (The branch of numismatics that deals with the study and collection of paper currency and banknotes by notaphilists is called Notaphily) Numismatist collectors This group chiefly may derive pleasure from the simple ownership of monetary devices and studying these coins as private amateur scholars. In the classical field, amateur collector studies have achieved quite remarkable progress in the field. Examples include Walter Breen, a noted numismatist who was not an avid collector, and King Farouk I of Egypt, an avid col ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bridewealth
Bride price, bride-dowry, bride-wealth, bride service or bride token, is money, property, or other form of wealth paid by a groom or his family to the woman or the family of the woman he will be married to or is just about to marry. Bride dowry is equivalent to dowry paid to the groom in some cultures, or used by the bride to help establish the new household, and dower, which is property settled on the bride herself by the groom at the time of marriage. Some cultures may practice both simultaneously. Many cultures practiced bride dowry prior to existing records. The tradition of giving bride dowry is practiced in many East Asian countries, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, parts of Africa and in some Pacific Island societies, notably those in Melanesia. The amount changing hands may range from a token to continue the traditional ritual, to many thousands of US dollars in some marriages in Thailand, and as much as $100,000 in exceptionally large bride dowry in parts of Papua New G ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sande Society
Sande, also known as zadεgi, bundu, bundo and bondo, is a women's initiation society in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and the Ivory Coast. The Sande society initiates girls into adulthood by rituals including female genital mutilation. It is said by its supporters to confer fertility, to instill notions of morality and proper sexual comportment, and to maintain an interest in the well-being of its members throughout their lives. In addition, Sande champions women's social and political interests and promotes their solidarity vis-a-vis the Poro, a complementary institution for men. The Sande society masquerade is a rare and perhaps unique African example of a wooden face mask controlled exclusively by women – a feature that highlights the extraordinary social position of women in this geographical region. Geographic extent The Sande society is found throughout the Central West Atlantic Region, an ethnically plural and linguistically diverse region that lies within the forest ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Poro
The Poro, or Purrah or Purroh, is a men's secret society in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea, and the Ivory Coast, introduced by the Mane people (the Mandé peoples, Mande Elites leading large-scale migrations from the Mali Empire into the southern coastal areas). It is sometimes referred to as a hunting society and only men are admitted to its ranks. The female counterpart of the Poro society is the Sande society. Structure The Poro society was part of the culture introduced by Mane people, migrants to the region as early as 1000 AD.Fyfe, Christopher"Weighing the Probabilities."Review: ''Landlords and Strangers: Ecology, Society and Trade in Western Africa, 1000–1630.'' By George E. Brooks. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994. Two affiliated and secret associations exist in Sierra Leone, the Yassi society, Yassi and the Sande society, Bundu. The first is nominally reserved for women, but members of the Poro are admitted to certain ceremonies. All the female members of the Yas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Central Africa
Central Africa (French language, French: ''Afrique centrale''; Spanish language, Spanish: ''África central''; Portuguese language, Portuguese: ''África Central'') is a subregion of the African continent comprising various countries according to different definitions. Middle Africa is an analogous term used by the United Nations in its United Nations geoscheme for Africa, geoscheme for Africa and consists of the following countries: Angola, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and São Tomé and Príncipe. The United Nations Office for Central Africa also includes Burundi and Rwanda in the region, which are considered part of East Africa in the geoscheme. These eleven countries are members of the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS). Six of those countries (Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and Republic of the Congo) are also members of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
West Africa
West Africa, also known as Western Africa, is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations geoscheme for Africa#Western Africa, United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo, as well as Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha (United Kingdom Overseas Territories, United Kingdom Overseas Territory).Paul R. Masson, Catherine Anne Pattillo, "Monetary union in West Africa (ECOWAS): is it desirable and how could it be achieved?" (Introduction). International Monetary Fund, 2001. The population of West Africa is estimated at around million people as of , and at 381,981,000 as of 2017, of which 189,672,000 were female and 192,309,000 male.United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2017). World Population Prospects: The 2017 Revision, custom data acquired via webs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
