Liberia *^ 



make quite elaborate hats of plaited palm-leaves, with high 

 crowns, decorated with dried pineapple leaves and plumes of 

 feathers. 



All these people of the Kru and Kpwesi stock usually go 

 bare-foot, without any form of sandals. In war-time the men 

 wear elaborate head and breast ornaments made from the skins 

 of colobus monkeys, leopards, serval cats, or civets. They 

 (the men) do not appear to attach so much importance to 

 amulets or grigris, nor do they deck their bodies with beads 

 or with metal necklaces. They nearly always wear rings one 

 or more on the fingers, and these are made out of the hard 

 rind of palm-nuts, out of horn, iron, brass, or silver. 



The clothing of the Kru women when they are young and 

 unmarried is still limited to little else than a string of beads or a 

 wire circle or bundle of string round the loins from which may 

 depend a tiny bead-work square of leather or cloth, something 

 like a sampler in shape. But it is becoming far more customary 

 amongst the coast peoples for the women in addition to wind 

 a length of European calico round the waist, extending to the 

 knees. Bead necklaces sometimes to an extravagant extent 

 are worn round the neck, metal bracelets round the wrists or 

 on the ankles. In default of brass, copper, or silver out of 

 which to make wrist and ankle ornaments, plaited grass rings 

 will be used. Mothers often wind broad pieces of cloth round 

 their bodies from above the breasts to below the knees, arranged 

 in such a way as to bind closely to them the child they bear 

 on the back. 



Amongst the Mandingo, Vai, Gora, and other Muham- 

 madanised people in the north and west of Liberia, clothing 

 is much more elaborate in both sexes, at any rate amongst 

 the men ; here come into play native manufactures to a much 

 greater extent than imported cotton goods or other stuffs. 



960 





