KISSI

also spelled Kisi people inhabiting a belt of hills covered by wooded savannas where Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia meet; they speak a language of the West Atlantic branch of the Niger-Congo family. Rice, cultivated in marshes, is the staple of the Kissi diet; other foods include yams, sweet potatoes, and taro. Coffee and kola are grown for external trade. Kissi villages are built of round clay huts with conical roofs. They rarely contain more than 150 persons and are composed of several exogamous patrilineages. Each lineage is headed by its senior member, who serves as the priest of the ancestor cult and the intermediary between the living and the dead family members. Kissi religion includes agricultural, ancestral, and other cults. Small stone statuettes (kissi), made by former inhabitants of the area, are used to represent the ancestors, who provide the only means of communication with the creator god.