The Bassa numbering just under 300,000 live in the middle of present-day Liberia. They practice shifting cultivation, with rice as the dominant crop in the interior and cassava more prominent near the coast. They are patrilineal and live in small settlements seldom numbering more than two hundred inhabitants. The Bassa have both men’s and women’s societies and practice both circumcision and clitoridectomy. Bassa artistic tradition has been strongly influenced by their northeastern neighbors, the Dan and has many similarities with the classical northern Dan style of idealized naturalism.

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