Temne Culture

There are a vast variety of culturally diverse ethnic groups across the country of Sierra Leone. Throughout all of Sierra Leone there are fifteen different ethnic groups that reside there. Each ethnic group has established their land that they call home. The largest ethnic group that has made Sierra Leone their home is the group known as Temne. Of all of the different ethnic groups in Sierra Leone, The Temne people take up 35% of the total population in Sierra Leone (The World Factbook), with 1.6 million members.The Temne can be found in a region that lies in the Northwestern/Central part of Sierra Leone. The Temne group is said to be mostly farmers, their main crop that they grow is "rice, supplemented by peanuts, cotton, cassava, and millet; cash crops are palm kernels and kola nuts." (Encyclopædia Britannica).

Ethnic Groups of Sierra Leone
(ecoi.net)

In the book Wild Flower Nina describes her reaction to a the Temne people when she visits Makump with her sister, even specifically mentioning cassava, a plant that is commonly used as a food source by the Temne. 

"The smell smell of the burning wood, the roasted cassava aroma, the crystal laughter of the children running barefoot on the red dirt without a care in the world - that was Makump, the land of the Temne people, the place where I first experienced the natural beauty of Sierra Leone"(Smart 71).