Trade centres · in use before 1822 into the 20th century
Kissi pennies
Twisted iron rods, T-headed at one end, used as currency across the Kissi, Loma, Gbandi and Mende country.
Biography
The kilindi or 'kissi penny' is a rod of bloom iron about a foot long, flattened into a small hoe-shape at one end and a T at the other, made in bundles by smiths and counted in twenties.
It was not a token but a commodity currency: the iron had use-value, and a broken penny was ritually dead until a zoe repaired it. Bride-price, fines, land transfers and slave prices were all reckoned in them.
Historical significance
A standardised, locally minted currency with a legal doctrine attached — precisely the sort of institution nineteenth-century observers insisted did not exist here.
Timeline
- pre-1800In circulation across the Kissi–Loma–Mende zone
- 19th c.Used alongside cloth, salt and imported iron bars
- 1920sDisplaced by colonial coinage but retained ritually
Related entries
References
- Person, Yves (1961). 'Les Kissi et leurs statuettes de pierre.'
- Johnston, Harry (1906). Liberia, 2 vols.
Suggested reading
- Dunn, Beyan & Burrowes (2000), 'Kissi pennies'.