An Ethnolinguistic Inventory of the Lower Guinea Coast before 1700

We considered earlier whether the ‘Karou’ in the Kquoja account were speakers of a ‘Kru’ language: if they were, then this is the earliest documented use of the term in an ethnolinguistic sense. Before their conquest of Kquoja, the Karou lived in part of ‘Folgia’, on the twin streams of the Junk River ‘ten to twelve’ Dutch miles inland, and neighbouring the Folgia people. ¹ Folgia itself was separated by the Junk River from its overlordship, the kingdom of Manou. ² Finally (according to the Kquoja account), to the immediate West of the Karou-Folgia-Manou complex, around Cape Mesurado and on the East bank of the St. Paul River—and therefore the Eastern coastal neighbours of the Vai—lived the Gebbe. ³