The Perspective
Atlanta, Georgia
April 24, 2019

Rebuttal
First of all, I’d like to commend Siahyonkron Nyanseor, historian, for publishing some historical events that’d occurred in the lives of the people of the Kru tribe. He published them in his pamphlet, “Peace Was In    Heaven  When The   Kru People Got There” (see  http://frontpageafricaonline.com/april62018).

History, as it’s well known, is an accurate record, past or present, often written interestingly to spur people onto reading it with excitement and enjoyment. But,  where there appears to be an inaccurate reporting, there is always a possibility for someone knowledgeable of the subject matter to throw some light.

The historian wrote a brief account about Sasstown’s Paramount Chief Senyon Juah Nimene that he declared war on the Liberian government in August 1936, that he was released from Gbarnga prison in 1937, and that he died shortly after his release in the same year. But this account is inaccurate  and misleading; it contains  an anachronistic  element  in the  history  of  the  Sasstown war  told  and retold  by some of  the  22 warriors  of  the  war; it also distorts  the  true  story  narrated  by  the fighters and the eyewitnesses of the war for the purpose of passing the important event onto generations of Sasstown.

Here’s the true episode: Senyon Juah Nimene declared war on the Liberian government on  August   26,   1931.  It was the result of government’s unabated refusal to improve the deplorable condition of the  Sasstown people.  There were no public schools, health facilities, and economic opportunities; the people of Sasstown had been utterly marginalized for public service from  1847 up to the time of the uprising, let alone the entire Kru region which government had plunged into intellectual, social, and economic darkness for a very long time.

The war was also precipitated by the public execution of Sactown's 8 activists by a firing squad for exercising civil disobedience to pay hut tax; the civil disobedience, in fact, was designed to draw the government’s attention  to negotiating table to discuss some possibilities of unshackling the people of Sasstown from privation of the necessities of life.

A week following the rebellion, Senyon Juah Nimene, Toe Juah Santee and Tipla Palleh Weah were arrested and taken to Monrovia; they were labeled {(protagonists) of the war and imprisoned separately in former Central and Western Provinces, now known as Bong, Lofa, and Nimba Counties.

The war, which began during the administration of President Edwin J. Barclay, lasted six years; however, Sasstown surrendered in 1937 upon the intervention of  League of Nations represented by its emissary, General McKenzie, who defused the crisis and restored peace. It was the same year, 1937, that Juah Wru Meh Boye, who succeeded Senyon Juah Nimene, passed away following a few months of the surrender.

During the maiden inauguration of President William V. S. Tubman in 1944, he granted Senyon Juah Nimene, Toe Juah Santee, and Tipla Palleh Weah an executive pardon for their immediate release. He was well familiar with the be-all and the end-all of the Sasstown war when he was a junior senator of Maryland County.

Following the inauguration and having paid their respects with profound gratitude to the president,  Senyon Juah Nimene, Toe Juah Santee, and Tipla Palleh Weah returned to Sasstown; but, amid their joy, they were banned from all political activities as long as they lived. Senyon Juah Nimene was enjoined to reside in New Sasstown, the seat of government, where it’d be feasible to monitor his movements.

Senyon Juah Nimene’s steadfast stance on declaring war on the Liberian government resulting from the latter’s willful refusal to settle the matter peaceably had famed him nationally and internationally. All over Liberia, essentially in government circles, an epithet- Nimene the hardheaded- was thrust on him by his admirers from all stations of life.

Senyon Juah Nimene was an iconic figure revered by the people of Sasstown and other components of the Kru tribe for his persistence in seeking relief of the suffering of his people and making such suffering known to the world by resorting to rebellion as the only appropriate course to enlist international intervention. He passed away in 1947 in Sasstown; he was buried in Old Sasstown, the original city of Sasstown, where he was born and appointed paramount chief.

Before  the  arrival  of  the  first  group  of  the  freed  African  slaves repatriated to Liberia in 1820 by the United States government under the auspices of  American Colonization  Society, Sasstown had already established its own government  (ca. the 1700’s). The government was ruled by a chief chosen and anointed by elders and traditionalists of the chiefdom; his term of office was eight years only.

The chief’s decisions on matters  of the chiefdom were unquestioned and irreversible; even his authority infringed  on personal matters;  he had the power to take as his own any child in dispute between two men claiming biological fatherhood; his choice of any woman to marry was carried out without hesitation; he was clad with  authority  to order his followers slaughter any domesticated animal for a feast.

At the end of the chief’s  8-year term of office, he was executed by the knights who’d sworn to protect the chiefdom against foes and eradicate all ills brewing within. The reason for the execution was that, if the former chief remained alive, he’d interfere with the day-to-day operation of his successor, formulate any sinister plan to create chaos, or organize an opposition party to destabilize the incumbent’s government.

Reason for Fees to Ferry the Souls of the Dead
The ancients of the Kru tribe believed that there was a river between the living and the dead and that for the ferryman to ferry the soul of a dead person, it was compulsory to pay him a fee. Hence, they set a white saucer on the coffin into which families and sympathize put coins as payment for the ferryman. In some cases, of course in rare instances, the ancients put one or two coins into the coffin to expedite ferrying the soul of the dead person.   But the practice of the tradition has become obsolete nowadays.

The Kru ancients were not the only ones whose tradition was to pay fees to ferry souls of the dead; the Greeks and the Romans, in ancient times, were the originators to pay fees for ferrying souls of the dead. They maintained that a wide, long river,  Styx, was the boundary between the Upper World and the Under World and that Pluto was the ruler of the realms of the dead.

In Greek mythology, Charon was the ferryman who lived near the river. A coin was placed on the tongue of a dead person as Charon’s fee to ferry the soul to the next world; stern Charon always demanded a fee under all circumstances.

There were souls waiting anxiously to be ferried;  some were with fees; others, without. The souls that did not have Charon’s fees were not ferried and doomed to linger by the river for a longer time.   After lingering 100 years by the river, Charon was obliged to ferry them free of charge.

A Mysterious Rock
It was in times past that a huge rock existed in the heart of Cancun, a component of the  Kru tribe located in Sinoe County. The rock was believed, as devotion to animism was customary, to protect the people of Sanquen against war, famine, disease, and other disasters.

Even though the people of Sanquen were immersed in referencing the rock, residents of the city,  particularly women and children, were accustomed to washing clothes and breaking palm nuts on the rock. Similarly, men were bent on sharpening cutlasses on the rock to brush farms or carve slaughtered domesticated animals in adherence to communal sharing. Because of the desecration which angered the rock, it disappeared from the city center of Sanquen in the dead of the night and made its abode into the ocean, about a mile offshore.

According to some historians of Sanquen, the rock would sometimes make itself available at some distance closer to the shore so that women could chisel octopuses, urchins, oysters, and other shells that’d grown on it.  After one or two days, when the women had gathered sacks of shells, the rock would return to its spot afar into the ocean.

On a summer starry night, while a ship was smoothly sailing through the waters of Sanquen, the rock blinded the eyes of the captain with its magical lights. It conjured the captain to steer the ship toward the shallow location where she bogged down and became immobile.

The intent of the rock was to supply abundantly the needs of the people from the ship. When she was declared a derelict, the people of Sanquen plundered all that they needed.  Today,  vestiges of the shipwreck masterminded by the power of the rock are visible in Sanquen near Baffa Bay.

A Widow and Her Dog
There was a woman who had been a widow for 22 years. She, in order to overcome gradually her lamentation, raised a dog to full growth and big size; she loved it and was dear to her. The dog, too, was fond of her, always lying beside her. In the throes of the widow’s solitary life, the dog took sick and died; she decided to give it a Christian burial. This, she believed, would allay her grief over her adversity.

First, the widow went to a Baptist pastor to perform the ceremony. He told her that the house was a Baptist Church and that the dog was not baptized.  Furthermore, he said that if he performed the ceremony, he’d be disrobed.

Second, the widow sought the consent of a Lutheran pastor to perform the ceremony. He told her that it’d be a gross irreverence to perform a Christian burial for a pet; he rejected her request outright.

Third, the widow went to a Catholic priest to perform burial rites for her pet. He told her that it’d be sacrilege, in keeping with the Catholic dogma, if he performed a burial ceremony for a pet. Additionally, he told her that he’d be severely punished and defrocked for the commission of sacrilege.

In despair, the widow shouted aloud in front of the Catholic priest, “Why is it that the three clerics have rejected my request? After all, I have ten thousand dollars for the burial ceremony.”

On hearing ten thousand dollars for the burial ceremony, the priest got up quickly and asked the widow excitedly, “What did you say?” The widow  replied,  “Ten  thousand  dollars  for  the  ceremony.”  The priest said, “But I did not know that the dog was baptized; bring the body so that I’ll perform  the burial rites at once.”  So she brought her dead pet to the priest who, without delay, performed the funeral service and burial rites.

Birthdays
Happy birthday, greetings to the following members of the Minnesota   Chapter  and  other   individuals   whose   birthdays  fell   in January and February 2019: January 2019: Beatrice J. Hinneh, January 1; Tetee Cole, January 1; Josie Doryen  Frazer, January 5; Annie  Bartee, January 8; Christiana Kunn-Weeyee, January 12; Solomon N. Sipply, January 23; and Shadae Duhart, January 23.

February 2019: Taylor  Talloh Kai Lewis, February  7;   Ray Bacon, February  10;    Leona  Blah  Williams, February  12; Hadrian  Dabwaka Sebwe,  February  12;  Poleti  Tuning, February  13; and     Denise Sadi Sebwe,  February  14.  Other birthday celebrators included Zephyrus Dekonti Sebwe, February 16; Earl Johnson, February 18; Anthony T. Mwah,  February 18; Liguori Delekri  Flanagan, February 21; and Rae Singer-Sebwe, February 24.

Bereavements
The elder and advisor of the Minnesota  Chapter, Liguori N. Sebwe, grieved over the sudden death of his nephew, Gregory Jusiowri Kie; he passed away on January 7, 2019, in Monrovia. Gregory was the 6th  son of Judge J. B. Kie of Sasstown, Grand Kru County. He was in the employ of Liberia Electricity Corporation  (LEC), but later resigned and founded a consultancy group composed of electrical engineers operating in Monrovia to this day. Gregory Junior Kie is survived by his wife, Ruth, and 3 children in addition to a stepson. He’s also survived by 4 brothers, 3 sisters, 15 nephews, 8 nieces, and a host of relatives. He was 60 years old.

The  Grand Cess community of Minnesota lamented the earthly departure of Sister Carolyn. She passed away on January 23, 2019, in Reading, Pennsylvania. Sister Carolyn, born Joyce Wachen Mwanah in Grand Cess, Grand Kru County, was the daughter of Beatrice Faefle Nyenati and Flemming B. Muus. She entered the religious order in 1962 at the age of 20; she took her perpetual vows of chastity in 1969 and was admitted into the Bernardine Franciscan Sisters. She was one of the two original nuns of the Kru Catholic community of Liberia since Catholicism was established in Liberia in 1906.

Culled from the eulogy by Bernardine Franciscan Sisters, Sister Carolyn’s early years of the ministry in the United States Included two years as Group Mother at Kennedy Memorial in Hyde Park, Massachusetts. She also took social work courses in Boston and spent a year in Stanford, Connecticut, learning skills for Retreat Work to use in Africa.

In Monrovia, Sister Carolyn was teacher at St.  Mary’s  School, Bushrod Island; assistant director  of communications  upon her return from  London,  England, where  she  acquired  skills  in  television  and broadcasting; represented Liberia at the International  Association of Catholic Broadcasters in Dublin, Ireland; co-director  of the Catholic Communications  Center for  Liberia  operating  out  of  Monrovia; and Group  Mother  of  Sacred Heart  Mission  Boarding School for  Girls in Cape Palmas.

When the Liberian civil war broke out in 1989, Sister Carolyn fled the country and sought refuge in the United States. Here, in Chester, Pennsylvania, her 22 years of service included numerous positions at Bernardine Center. Her final three years of ministry were spent at St. Joseph Villa in Reading, Pennsylvania.

Sister Carolyn is survived by one sister, several nephews, nieces, and relatives; her mother and her brother, Peter, had predeceased her.

Something Laughable
She said softly to comfort her husband over their lack of some urgent needs, “Don’t worry,  patient  dog eats the  fattest  bone.”  He replied, “Then the dog will die of malnutrition.”

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About the Author: Elder Liguori N. Sebwe can be rfeached at: 763-205-1470

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