Abstract
Sierra Leone is endowed with variety of cultures. Instead of seeing this setback towards development, the country needs take the advantage of this rich cultural form of diversity in its effort towards economic empowerment. Likewise, the country needs to undertake changes of the attitude of its citizens towards work, personal trust, women, youth and time. Probably, there are various meanings of culture because of the varieties of cultures. Culture may mean the features and the knowledge of a given sect that is distinguished religion, social habits, art, music, religion, cuisine and language. On the same note, culture is a complicated aspect that entails arts, laws, beliefs, knowledge, beliefs, customers plus other capacities and habits that a given societal member acquires . Hence, this paper explores on the background of culture and the diversity of Sierra Leone of West Africa.
Background of the Culture
The name ‘Sierra Leone’ traces its history from the year 1462 after the explorer from Portugal; Pedro da Cintra sailed down the coast of West Africa. The sailor came across tall mountains that were rising upwards from what is currently identified as the Freetown Peninsula. It is from here that he recognized them as the "Lion Mountains" or the "Serra Lyoa” (Advameg, Inc, 2019) . Other successful visits by sailors from Britain and at a later date by the colonialists went ahead to modify the name as "Sierra Leone." Irrespective of this, the region has varied languages identified with their respective traditions (Millar, 2011) . Currently, the people of Siera Leone have been united by various factors such as their shared lingua franca Krio, more spread membership among men and women social setups. Others include sporting activities such as the case where the national team is playing (Advameg, Inc, 2019) .
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The Diversity of Sierra Leone West Africa
In Sierra Leone, there exist between fifteen and twenty ethnic communities, that this case is determined by the linguistic tendency of an individual to speaking various dialects. Relations have most of the time been very cordial among these ethnic communities. Sierra Leone has also tried to evade the racial tension as witnessed in other sections of the world (Northrup, 2006) . Wherever there are instances of the emergence of the ethnic-related problems, they tend to be associated with the national elections; where there are accusations directed towards the politicians for fulfilling the desires of a given constituency (often theirs) for the sake of gaining votes.
Many people in Sierra Leone still practice ancient, agricultural way of lifestyle, with the ruling chiefs and the religious sects also still preserving the social form of stability together with dance, local music and other forms of traditions (Millar, 2011) . Handshaking is the normal way of greeting. For instance, it has become a custom of being entertained in a restaurant or hotel especially for the business visitors. Casual wear is put in each place. Men on rare occasions wear ties and suits (Millar, 2011) . Secret societies are the basic component of the culture of Sierra Leone. Cases of ceremonies for major societies in the country such as ‘Poro’ (secret society of men) plus the ‘Bundu’ (secret society for women), where after attaining the puberty stage, the two genders learn the basic skills and knowledge that are crucial for the role they play in the society.
The Limba tribe plays a basic role in the culture of Sierra Leone since they are people that have the capacity of tapping the palm wine or the ‘poyo’ from its tree ( Northrup, 2006). There is a belief that a village will end up putting an advertisement on the local based notice boards talking about the good Palm Wine tappers. This eventually puts the tribe in a position of providing to the village with a lot of the naturally alcoholic drinks as much as possible.
References
Advameg, Inc. (2019). The culture of Sierra Leone - history, people, clothing, traditions, women, beliefs, food, customs, family. Retrieved from https://www.everyculture.com/Sa-Th/Sierra-Leone.html
Millar, G. (2011). Between Western theory and local practice: Cultural impediments to truth ‐ telling in Sierra Leone. Conflict Resolution Quarterly , 29 (2), 177-199.
Northrup, D. (2006). Becoming African: identity formation among liberated slaves in nineteenth-century Sierra Leone. Slavery and Abolition , 27 (1), 1-21.
