Jabo people

Ethnic group of Liberia

Jabo (pronounced , variant spellings Dyabo, Djabo) is the self designation of an ethnic group located in the southeastern part of the Republic of Liberia in West Africa. They have also sometimes referred to themselves as Gweabo
or Nimiah tribe. English speakers also use the name of the group for a single member of that group, or for their speech variety.

Like many of their neighbors in the area, the Jabo have very pronounced ethnocentric attitudes, and are frequently referred to both by themselves and by others as a tribe, a term that in Liberia has a meaning imprecise at best. Confusion may arise due to the circumstance that in Liberia the English word "tribe" is also sometimes applied to the second order administrative "districts," which are not necessarily congruent with "tribes" defined in local ethnotaxonomic terms. "Tribe" is also occasionally used for a third order administrative "clan" when the latter comprises multiple ethnic clans, as well as for a variety of other more or less ad hoc groups. The Jabo describe themselves as a "confederation of tribes. ", or even "a nation".

The area inhabited by the Jabo is now mostly in the Lower Kru Coast district of the new (1984) Grand Kru County, with a few outliers across the river in Maryland County. Their area coincides more or less with the southern half of Lower Kru Coast District in Grand Kru County. This southern portion of the district is defined in terms of Liberian administrative units as the Garawe/Nemia "clan" (code 180810). Jabo territory extends along the coast of southeastern Liberia from Garraway in the northwest proceeding in a southeasterly direction to the Deeah River, and from there inland almost as far as Bewehn. The northern half of the district is inhabited by the Trembo ethnic group and which has its center at the district capital in Bewehn.

The Jabo are known for their drum signalling system, which mirrors to some degree the suprasegmental system of their highly tonal language. The collection of their proverbs and sayings assembled by Herzog and Blooah is often cited in the folkloristic literature. The Jabo language is complex and has been studied by well known scientific linguists.

Blooah sometimes also claimed to be a member of the "Nimiah tribe;" sometimes Nimiah was called a township. As mentioned above, it corresponds to a Liberian administrative clan. The pronunciation in Jabo which was recorded was
.

Dealing with a people with little recorded history and for which little detailed ethnographic information is available, the most reliable framework for placing them with respect to related peoples is the classification of their language. Jabo clearly belongs within the Kru family of Niger–Congo languages. For further discussion, see the article Grebo people.

A certain amount of confusion is created by the fact that many sources treat "Jabo" as being either identical with, or as a subgroup of Grebo. For a discussion of this see the article Jabo (language).

Although the Jabo area is adjacent to the Seaside Grebo area to the east southeast, the two are separated by the Deeah (Die or Decoris) River, which is often treacherous and difficult to cross, especially during the rainy season or when a strong tide is running in the estuary. Because of the lack of usable roads connecting them, the Jabo tend to go northwest to market, into a Kru oriented area at the county seat of (Barclayville) and Garraway, north to Bewehn, or sometimes northeast to Plibo, rarely to the commercial and government center in Harper. This tends to emphasize mutual affinity and intercommunication with the Klao (Krao or "Kru Proper"), rather than with the Seaside Grebo. They are also located in the same newly created (1984) county as the Klao (Grand Kru County), unlike the Glebo in Maryland County, from which they are once again politically separated.

A cultural trait present among the Jabo, and apparently widespread across the Kru group is the practice of virilocal exogamy. This is enforced as a taboo at the clan level, but in practice, many also marry outside their tribe. The extent of this practice is obviously limited by the difficult transportation situation. Nonetheless, the exogamy factor has a certain effect of heightening intergroup awareness and communication. It remains to be seen how this will be affected by the refugee situation and urbanization.

In researching the literature pertaining to the Jabo, one may occasionally come upon references to them practising cannibalism and Charles Blooah, Sapir's Jabo informant, apparently made no secret of the fact. Against the backdrop of widespread violence during the Liberian civil war, reports of ritual murder and cannibalism seem scarcely to rise to the level of newsworthiness. Yet the inhabitants of the Cape Palmas region have been repeatedly characterized since at least 1668 as having this practice culturally entrenched among themselves. Considering the practice's links to Liberian internal politics and secret societies (Leopard Men), which cut across all social strata, and considering also a sensational legal proceeding in Maryland county in 1977, there is no reason to hope that the practice or its associated belief system has abated or been extirpated. This is not intended to convey the impression that such practices are limited to this area of Africa alone.