The Organization and Functions of the Ragbenle Society of the Temne

Africa ◽  
1959 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 156-170 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vernon R. Dorjahn
Keyword(s):  
Sierra Leone ◽  
Geographic Distribution ◽  
Adult Population ◽  
Northern Province ◽  
General Area ◽  
Guinea Coast ◽  
Restricted Area ◽  
Area Distribution ◽  
Seeking Help ◽  
Opening Paragraph

Opening ParagraphThe Temne of the Northern Province of Sierra Leone are second only to the Mende in the Protectorate, numbering over half a million and inhabiting some 10,500 square miles of land. In general, they are culturally similar to their neighbours, especially in their possession of a number of societies, some secret, some not, which play integral roles in their lives. Of the societies found in this westernmost section of the Guinea Coast area, the Bundu or Sande for women and the Poro for men have been described by various writers for a number of groups. The emphasis placed on these two societies in the literature is justifiable in view of their multi-tribal geographic distribution, their general membership embracing most of the adult population and much of the adolescent segment in the groups where they are found, and the important functions they serve. In addition, however, there are a number of societies in this general area which, although they have a more restricted area distribution and less general membership, nevertheless also serve important functions for one or more groups. Such a society is the Ragbenle, also known as Maneke, which is centred in the eastern section of Temne country, where it is closely connected with the chiefs, particularly in conducting the ceremonies associated with their death, burial, selection, instruction, and installation, and, in addition, purifies violators of incest prohibitions, heals the chief and anyone else seeking help, divines witches, and provides other supernatural services. The purpose of this paper is to consider the membership of the society in terms of both supernatural and human members, and its functions in various aspects of Temne life.

The Temne Family in a Modern Town (Lunsar) in Sierra Leone

Africa ◽  
1963 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 209-226 ◽  
Author(s):  
David P. Gamble
Keyword(s):  
Sierra Leone ◽  
Iron Ore ◽  
Conveyor Belt ◽  
Northern Province ◽  
Iron Ore Mine ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
Development Corporation ◽  
Unskilled Workers ◽  
Opening Paragraph ◽  
Open Cast

Opening ParagraphLunsar is a town of some 10,000 people which has grown up since 1930 beside an open-cast iron-ore mine worked by the Sierra Leone Development Corporation (Delco) in the Marampa Chiefdom of the Northern Province, about sixty miles from Freetown. In the early days large numbers of unskilled workers were employed, but now the mine is highly mechanized. The ore is excavated and removed by mechanical scrapers and transported on a conveyor belt to a mill where most of the waste material is separated. It is then taken by conveyor belt to stockpiles and from there is mechanically loaded on to wagons.

1787–1887–1987: reflections on a Sierra Leone bicentenary

Africa ◽  
1987 ◽  
Vol 57 (4) ◽  
pp. 411-421 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Fyfe
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Sierra Leone ◽  
Forest Belt ◽  
Long Period ◽  
Language Pattern ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Opening Paragraph

Opening ParagraphSeen in the widest perspective, 1787 is only one date among the uncounted tens, perhaps hundreds, of thousands of years during which the present Sierra Leone has been inhabited. Archaeologists have done disappointingly little work there. But it is clear from their findings (and by implication from findings in the rest of forest-belt West Africa) that people have lived there a very long time. Though traditional historiography always tends to present the peoples of Sierra Leone as immigrants from somewhere else, the language pattern suggests continuous occupation over a very long period. As Paul Hair (1967) has shown, there has been a striking linguistic continuity in coastal West Africa since the fifteenth century. Nor is there evidence to suggest that before that period stability and continuity were not the norm.

Biogeography after Burbidge

1998 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 231 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pauline Y. Ladiges
Keyword(s):  
Geographic Distribution ◽  
Analytical Methods ◽  
New Method ◽  
Memorial Lecture ◽  
General Area ◽  
Australian Flora ◽  
Cladistic Biogeography

The contributions of Nancy Burbidge and Leon Croizat to an understanding of Australian phytogeography are summarised and compared. The focus of systematics on relationship and nodes of cladograms is outlined as the basis of modern cladistic biogeography. It is argued that development of explicit analytical methods for the discovery of general area cladograms has been hindered by lack of recognition of geographic paralogy—evidenced by duplication or overlap in geographic distribution of taxa related at a node in a cladogram. A new method, subtree analysis, which recognises and eliminates paralagous nodes, and often inconsistencies, is illustrated with examples from the Australian flora. General patterns are congruent with conclusions of Burbidge and Croizat. Paper Presented as the 1996 Nancy Burbridge Memorial Lecture.

scholarly journals Psychosis in youth in Singapore: a case series

BJPsych Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (S1) ◽  
pp. S117-S117
Author(s):  
Pei Ling Lim ◽  
Roselyne Shirley ◽  
Pat Fong
Keyword(s):  
Adult Population ◽  
Psychiatric Service ◽  
Case Series ◽  
Psychotic Symptoms ◽  
First Episode ◽  
Term Outcome ◽  
Duration Of Symptoms ◽  
Long Term Outcome ◽  
Paediatric Hospital ◽  
Seeking Help

ObjectiveIn this report, we present a case series of children with psychotic symptoms referred to a child consultation liaison psychiatric service within a tertiary paediatric hospital in Singapore. The purpose of this case series is to identify common symptoms at presentation, review the current practices in our hospital for investigation and treatment of first episode psychosis and short-term outcomes.Case reportWe identified 9 cases over a 1 year period, for which 7 were seen whilst admitted to hospital and 2 in the outpatient clinic. There were 6 females and 5 males ranging in age from 11 to 16 years old. The commonest symptoms on presentation were perceptual disturbance (88%) most commonly auditory hallucinations and altered behaviour (55%). Of the 7 children admitted to hospital, all were seen by the neurology team prior to the request for a psychiatric opinion. All admitted patients had blood and radiological investigations carried out. Most of the children were started on a short course of antipsychotic medication with the majority continuing to attend follow-up outpatient.DiscussionOnly 9 cases were identified in this case series over a 1 year period highlighting that psychosis is not a common presentation in the paediatric population. From the history alone, it can be challenging to distinguish between primary and secondary causes of psychosis. Acute onset of symptoms and the presence of other neurological signs should raise the suspicion of an underlying organic cause. Out of 9 cases, only 1 case was treated for a presumed organic aetiology, which is consistent with findings from other authors who only found underlying organic factors in 12.5% of cases.In this case series, we also noted that 45% of cases reported having symptoms for over 1 year before seeking help. This is also seen in the adult population in Singapore. Stigma, denial and lack of information about psychosis may all contribute to delay in seeking help. Although prolonged duration of untreated psychosis has been shown to be associated with poor long-term outcome, we found in our case series that even patients who reported a long duration of symptoms still responded well to medication.ConclusionThere is room for collaboration with our neurology colleagues in the approach towards children with first presentation of psychosis, both in terms of investigations and management. Identifying reasons for disengagement from psychiatric care is an area for further investigations to improve outcomes in our patients.

Mosque-Building and Tribal Separatism in Freetown East

Africa ◽  
1959 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 405-416 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Proudfoot
Keyword(s):  
Sierra Leone ◽  
Near East ◽  
Architectural Style ◽  
Ecclesiastical Architecture ◽  
Opening Paragraph ◽  
New Buildings ◽  
Foundation Stone

Opening ParagraphOf recent years many mosques have been built in Sierra Leone, while in Freetown itself the number and character of these new buildings is transforming the Eastern Ward into a visibly Islamic city. Several of the new Freetown mosques are alike in their ambitious scale, their architectural style, and in being associated with a particular sponsoring tribe. The older mosques, even the two or three which were built of permanent materials, were small in scale, had but few architectural pretensions, and were communal rather than tribal in character. The new mosques—the Temne, the Mandinka, the Fula, and the Hausa—are all very large and advertise the ecclesiastical architecture of the Near East; a particular tribe was responsible for the building of each, and the tribal vernaculars are—except in the case of the Mandinka—either being used already within them, or about to be introduced. Moreover, the process is obviously continuing. The foundation-stone has been laid of a Limba mosque; land has been acquired and collections are being taken for a Mende mosque, and both are intended to be large buildings in the new style. Finally, a small Susumosque, scarcely finished as yet, is reported to be destined for demolition in order that it may be replaced by a more handsome structure.

THE EVOLUTION OF ‘PORTUGUESE’ IDENTITY: LUSO-AFRICANS ON THE UPPER GUINEA COAST FROM THE SIXTEENTH TO THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY

1999 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 173-191 ◽  
Author(s):  
PETER MARK
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Sierra Leone ◽  
Group Identification ◽  
Cape Verde ◽  
African Women ◽  
Guinea Coast ◽  
Cape Verde Islands ◽  
Geographically Dispersed ◽  
Late Fifteenth ◽  
Cape Verdeans

During the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century, Portugal established a trading presence along the Upper Guinea Coast from Senegal to Sierra Leone. Emigrants from Portugal known as lançados – some of them Jews seeking to escape religious persecution – settled along the coast, where many of them married women from local communities. By the early sixteenth century, Luso-Africans, or ‘Portuguese’ as they called themselves, were established at trading centers from the Petite Côte in Senegal, south to Sierra Leone. Descendants of Portuguese immigrants, of Cape Verde islanders, and of West Africans, the Luso-Africans developed a culture that was itself a synthesis of African and European elements. Rich historical documentation allows a case study of the changing ways Luso-Africans identified themselves over the course of three centuries.The earliest lançados established themselves along the coast as commercial middlemen between African and European traders and as coastal traders between Sierra Leone and Senegambia. Their position was formally discouraged by the Portuguese Crown until the second decade of the sixteenth century, but they nevertheless played an important role in trade with Portugal and the Cape Verde islands. Lançado communities were permanently settled on the Petite Côte, while in Sierra Leone and Rio Nunez much early commerce was in the hands of lançados who sailed there regularly from S. Domingos, north of present day Bissau. The offspring of these lançados and African women were called filhos de terra and were generally considered to be ‘Portuguese’.Throughout the sixteenth century, the descendants of the lançados maintained close commercial ties with the Cape Verde islands. Cape Verdeans were themselves the offspring of mixed Portuguese and West African marriages. Sharing elements of a common culture and united by marriage and economic ties, mainland Luso-Africans and Cape Verdeans represented a socially complex and geographically dispersed community. Cape Verdeans, like mainland Luso-Africans, resolutely maintained that they were ‘Portuguese’, and both sub-groups employed the same essentially cultural criteria of group identification.

Kinship, Emigration, and Trade Partnership among the Lebanese of West Africa

Africa ◽  
1965 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 385-395 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fuad I. Khuri
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Sierra Leone ◽  
Muslim Community ◽  
Greek Orthodox ◽  
Kinship Structure ◽  
Opening Paragraph ◽  
Kinship Ties ◽  
Upper Volta

Opening ParagraphThis article describes the kinship structure of some Lebanese communities in West Africa, and the resemblances they bear to the communities from which they originated in Lebanon. It also shows the extent to which kinship ties promote emigration, and the kind of trade partnership normally practised by kinsmen. Two communities are considered: the Greek Orthodox community in Ouagadougou (Upper Volta), and the Shi'ite Muslim community in Magburaka (Sierra Leone).

Causes and prevalence of blindness in the Northern Province of Sierra Leone

1983 ◽  
Vol 56 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 115-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. S. Stilma ◽  
S. Bridger
Keyword(s):  
Sierra Leone ◽  
Northern Province

English Traders on the Guinea Coast, 1657–1668: An Analysis of the East India Company Archive

1989 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 237-284 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Makepeace
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Sierra Leone ◽  
East India Company ◽  
Guinea Coast ◽  
Charles I ◽  
Cape Of Good Hope ◽  
The North ◽  
Manufactured Goods ◽  
Council Of State ◽  
The Way

English trade with Guinea in west Africa was regulated during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries by royal letters patent. In 1631 Charles I issued a patent which entitled the Guinea Company, headed by Sir Nicholas Crispe, to the monopoly of trade from Cape Blanco to the Cape of Good Hope for a period of thirty-one years. The Guinea Company continued to operate during the Interregnum in spite of increased competition both from freelance merchants, known as interlopers, and from rival European powers. The Council of State in 1651 decided to allow the monopoly to run for a further fourteen years, but restricted the Company to an area lying between two points set twenty leagues to the north of Cormantine, its headquarters in Guinea, and twenty leagues south of the fort at Sierra Leone, leaving the remainder of the coast open to all English traders.The East India Company was eager to gain a part in the Guinea trade because ships calling there on the way to India could exchange a cargo of European manufactured goods for a consignment of gold and ivory which was used to sustain operations at the factories in India. In this way the Company had less need to export large quantities of bullion from England to India, a practice which was both heavily criticized and formally restricted before 1660. In 1649 the East India Company reached an agreement with the Assada adventurers that the Guinea and East India trades should be united, but decided that this scheme could not be effected immediately.

scholarly journals Factors influencing COVID-19 vaccines hesitancy in rural and urban West Africa: Implications for vaccination strategies

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sylvain Faye ◽  
Ralf Krumkamp ◽  
Seydou Doumbia ◽  
Moctar Tounkara ◽  
Ricardo Strauss ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
West Africa ◽  
Sierra Leone ◽  
Adult Population ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Vaccine Hesitancy ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Factors Influencing ◽  
Rural And Urban ◽  
Sub Saharan

Abstract Background: Raising immunization coverage against COVID-19, in particular in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), is crucial in addressing the current pandemic. Additionally, in Africa reaching the necessary herd immunity threshold is jeopardized by factors, such as vaccine hesitancy. To build confidence in COVID-19 vaccines, it is important to understand and address the reasons for vaccine hesitancy. Yet, few studies for rural and urban Sub-Saharan Africa exist, which have analyzed these factors. Methods: This study reports on a cross-sectional survey in five West African countries (Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali, Senegal, and Sierra Leone) to identify and describe factors influencing COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in rural and urban settings. The survey was conducted at a time when in these countries the roll-out of COVID-19 vaccines had not yet or only just begun. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and Poisson regression models, with robust standard errors. The general protocol is registered on clinicaltrial.gov (protocol number: NCT04912284)Results: Findings show that in West Africa COVID-19 adult vaccine acceptance ranges from 60% in Guinea and 50% in Sierra Leone to 11% in Senegal. This is largely congruent with acceptance levels of COVID-19 vaccinations for children. Multivariable regression analysis shows that perceived effectiveness and safety of COVID-19 vaccines increased the willingness to get vaccinated, rather than socio-demographic factors, such as educational attainment and rural/urban residence. Primary sources of information about COVID-19 vaccines, include television, radio, and social media. Conclusions: Communication strategies addressed at the adult population using mass and social media, which emphasize COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness and safety, could encourage greater acceptance also of COVID-19 child vaccinations in Sub-Saharan countries.

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