ABSTRACT
Kwara’ae culture is founded upon what they think of as a ‘heathen’ tradition, and the first step towards explaining how and why they have created the Christian society of the present is an understanding of this ‘tradition of the past'. As Christians, Kwara’ae have banished the ghosts of their ancestors but retained much of what they have inherited from them, and for the reason an account of their traditional culture can draw not only on the recollections of those who have seen it change under the authority of God and government, but also on the way people live it today. Everyone works the land, but men concentrate on clearing the forest and women do most of the tending and harvesting. The lands they claimed extended beyond their own settlements to include virgin forest which was subsequently cleared and claimed by their descendants or by others to whom they gave permission.
