Kpelle

The Kpelle, called the Guerze in Guinea, are a Mande-speaking people of central Liberia and the adjoining forest belt of Guinea. In a country of heavy rainfall and broken ground they farm rice as their staple crop, and their towns were traditionally governed by paramount chiefs and town chiefs.

Their traditions place their ancestors in the Sudanian belt in the sixteenth century, from where they moved westward as the Mali Empire crumbled into tribal wars, clearing forest land for their settlements. In later centuries they traded rice and forest produce with Muslim Vai and Mandinka merchants on the routes to the coast.