Mystical weapons: Some evidence from the Liberian War

Journal of Religion in Africa

Volumn 31, Issue 2, 2001, Pages 222-236

  Ellis, Stephen ^a  

^a Afrika Studiecentrum   (Netherlands)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 33749171849     PISSN: 00224200     EISSN: 15700666     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1163/157006601X00130     Document Type: Article

References (46)

1. A French version of this paper was published in Politique Africaine, 79 (October 2000), pp. 66-82
2. Stephen Ellis, The Mask of Anarchy: The Destruction of Liberia and the Religious Dimension of an African Civil War (Hurst & Co. and New York University Press, London and New York, 1999)
3. J. Sibley and D. Westermann, Liberia Old and Mew (James Clark, London, no date), p. 207
4. Throble Suah, 'In Pursuit of One Man', The Inquirer [Monrovia], April-July 1996, pp. 2-4
5. James Youboty, Liberian Civil War: A Graphic Account (Parkside Impressions, Philadelpliia PA, 1993), pp. 342-343
6. Ken Cain, 'The Rape of Dinah: Human Rights, Civil War in Liberia, and Evil Iriumphanl', Human Rights Quarterly, 21, 2 (1999), p. 283
7. Jean and John Comarofl? (eds.), Modemij and its Malcontents: Ritual and Power in Postcolonial4frica (University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 1993)
8. Peter Geschiere, Sorcellerie et politique en Afrique: la viande des autres (Karthala, Paris, 1995)
9. Stuart Clark, Thinking with Demons : The Idea of Witchcraft in Early Modem Europe (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1997)
10. Robin Briggs, Witches and Neighbours: The Social and Cultural Context qf European Witchcraft (1996; Fontana edn., L.ondon, 1997)
11. Ian Bostridge, Witchcraft and Its Transformations, c. 1650-1750 (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1997)
12. Jean-François Bayart, L'illusion identitaire (rayard, Paris, 1996), p. 138
13. Barry Hallen and J.O. Sodipo, Knowledge, Belief and Witchcraft: Analytic Experiments in African Philosophy (Ethnographica, London, 1986)
14. E.E. Evans-Pritchard, Witches, Oracles and Magic among the Azande (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1937), pp. 9-10
15. Cf. the discussion in Geschiere, Sorcellerie et politique, pp. 279-286
16. Adam Ashforth, 'Reflections on Spiritual Insecurity in a Modern African City (Soweto)', African Studies Review, 41, 3 (1998), pp. 57-58
17. Jane Martin, 'The Dual Legacy: Government Authority and Mission Influence among the Glebo of Eastern Liberia, 1834-1910' (Ph.D. thesis, Boston University, 1968), pp. 290-291)
18. Sir Harry Johnston, Liberia (2 vols., Hutchinson, London, 1906)
19. George Schwab (ed. G.W. Harlcy), Tribes of the Liberian Hinterland (Peabody Museum, Cambridge, MA, 1947)
20. A fuller summary is in Ellis, Mask of Anarchy, esp. chapters five and six
21. Lady Dorothy Mills, Through Liberia (Duckworth, London, 1926), esp. pp. 118-121
22. K.J. Beatty, Human Leopards (1915; republication by AMS press, New York, 1978)
23. Harley, Notes on the Poro in Liberia (Papers of the Peabody Museum, XIX, Cambridge, MA, 1941)
24. Native African Medicine, with Special Reference to its Practice in the Mano Tribe of Liberia (1941; new impression, Frank Cass, London, 1970)
25. Masks as Agents of Social Control in Northeast Liberia (Peabody Museum, Cambridge, MA, 1950)
26. Harley also edited Schwab's Tribes of the Liberian Hinterland and was a source of information to many other authors who quote conversations with him
27. Graham Greene, Journey Without Maps (Pan Books edn., London, 1947), pp. 156-168
28. Harley, Native African Medicine, p. 14
29. Beryl Bellman, Village of Curers and Assassins: On the Production of Fala Kpelle Cosmological Categories (Mouton, I he Hague, 1975)
30. Nya Kwiawon Taryor, 'Religions in Liberia', Liberia-Forum, 5, 8 (1989), p. 6
31. Article 69 of 'Revised Laws and Administrative Regulations Governing the Hinterland', Department of the Interior, Government of Liberia, 1949, National Documentation Center, Monrovia, unclassified
32. Elizabeth D. Furbay, Top Hats and Tom-Toms (Ziff-Davis, Chicago and New York, 1943), pp. 127-128
33. Robin Horton, 'Stateless Societies in the History of West Africa', J.F. Ade Ajayi and Michael Crowder (cds.), History of West Africa (2 vols., 3rd edn., Longman, Harlow, 1985), I, pp. 87-128
34. Quoted in Kenneth Little, ' I he Political Function of the Poro', Africa, XXXV, iv (1965), p. 355
35. R. Fulton, 'The Kpelle Traditional Political System', Liberian Studies Journal, I, 1 (1968), p. 15
36. R.F.C. Maugham, The Republic of Liberia (George Allen and Unwin, London, 1920), p. 248
37. Y. Person, Samori. line révolution dyula (3 vols., IFAN, Dakar, 1968-1975)
38. Svend Holsoe, 'The Condo Confederation in Western Liberia', Liberian Historical Review, 3, 1 (1966), pp. 1-28
39. S. Henry Cordor, The Study of Africa: An Introductory Course in African Studies for liberian Schools (Monrovia, 1979), p. 12
40. Jean-François Bayart, L'Etal en Afrique: la politique du ventre (Fayard, Paris, 1989), pp. 193-226
41. James Thomas-Queh, 'La politique de contrǒle social dans un pays en voie de developpement: analyse des lois, des institutions judiciaires et l'application de la justice penale au Liberia' (These de doctorat, Université de Paris, Sorbonne-2, 1986), pp. 411-447
42. James Thomas-Quch, 'Capital and Corporal Punishments in Liberia (1971-1985)', Liberia-Forum, 3, 5 (1987), p. 58, note 2
43. Harrison Oladunjoye Akingbadc, 'The role of the military in the history of Liberia, 1822-1947' (Ph.D. thesis, Howard University, 1977)
44. Amos Sawyer, The Emergence of Autocracy in Liberia: Tragedy and Challenge (Institute for Contemporary Studies, San Francisco, 1992), pp. 205-207
45. Amos Sawyer, Effective Immediately: Dictatorship in Liberia 1980-1986: A Personal Perspective (Liberia Working Group paper no. 5, Bremen, 1987), p. 5
46. Author's interviews