The Vais are a West African ethnic group best known for their written system, Vai script. Vai script was invented in the 1820s and is regarded as one of the few indigenous African languages that is not modeled after Arabic or Latin script. The Vai manuscript is Boima Kiakpomgbo's 190-page diary and offers a descriptive account of everyday life in West Africa during World War One.
Biographical/historical: The Vais are a West African ethnic group based in modern-day Liberia and southeastern Sierra Leone, with a population of approximately 200,000 people. They speak Vai, a Western Mande language that is best known for its written system, Vai script. Vai script was invented in the 1820s by Mɔmɔlu Daulu Bukɛlɛ of Jondu, modern-day Grand Cape Mount County, Liberia.
Bukɛlɛ worked for European merchants and noticed how they communicated through reading and writing. This ignited his desire to develop a writing system for his tribe and he developed Vai script with a group of male associates. Vai script is a syllabary, as each symbol represents a syllable. The men studied the script and learned to communicate with each other using Vai script, then continued on to set up a school to teach men from surrounding towns how to read and write Vai script. Vai script is regarded as one of the few indigenous African languages that is not modeled after Arabic or Latin script.
The Vai manuscript is Boima Kiakpomgbo's diary, written in a blank German accounts book, and is the longest available Vai manuscript written by an author without Western education. Kiakpomgbo's 190-page diary roughly spans 1913-1915, with some entries from 1922 and 1927. This manuscript offers a descriptive account of daily African life during World War One, as Kiakpomgbo writes of his dreams and experiences living in Mando Town on the eastern bank of Lake Piso, Liberia. Scholars who have studied this manuscript often refer to it as "The Book of Dreams".
Content: The Vai manuscript consists of Boima Kiakpomgbo's diary and a copy of Traditional History, Customary Laws, Mores, Folkways, and Legends of the Vai tribe by The Bureau of Folkways Department of Interior Monrovia, Liberia, which held this title from 1927-1971 but is now named the Ministry of Internal Affairs-Republic of Liberia. This undated book provides contextual information about Vai history and cultural practices. It is unique to NYPL and is the first major monograph that the Bureau published.
