Ethnic groups · pre-1822 and continuing
Krahn people
Forest cultivators and hunters of the southeastern interior, far from the beaches.
Biography
The Krahn held the deep interior forest between the Cestos and Cavalla headwaters — country so difficult that it remained largely outside both Atlantic commerce and interior caravan routes. Authority was decentralised to the town and the lineage; there were no kings in the sense the coast used the word. Their reputation as hunters and their remoteness meant that much of what is recorded about them dates only from the later nineteenth century.
Historical significance
One of the sixteen principal peoples mapped in the atlas; Kru (Niger–Congo) in language, with an economy built on hunting and forest farming.
Timeline
- pre-1822Krahn settlement of the south-eastern interior
On the map
Associated with Zwedru-area towns. Open the historical atlas.
Related entries
References
- Later ethnography; oral tradition
Suggested reading
- Dunn, Beyan & Burrowes (2000). Historical Dictionary of Liberia.