Who is Bai T. Moore?

Bai Tamia Johnson Moore (12 October 1916 – 10 January 1988), commonly known by his pen-name, Bai T. Moore, was a Liberian poet, novelist, folklorist and essayist. He also held various cultural, educational and tourism posts both for the Liberian government and for UNESCO, and was the founder of Liberia's National Cultural Center. He is best-known for his novella Murder in the Cassava Patch (1968), the tale of a crime passionel in a traditional Liberian setting.

Life
Moore was born in Dimeh, a traditional Gola village on the Monrovia-Tubmanburg highway. He trained overseas as an agriculturist at Virginia Union University before returning to Liberia in 1941 to take up a post in the civil service.

After co-editing, alongside Roland T. Dempster and T. H. Carey, the Liberian poetry collection, Echoes from the Valley: Being Odes and Other Poems (1947), he was seconded to work for UNESCO on its Liberia desk. In 1957, he headed the government's Fundamental Education project designed to bring education and information to rural Liberia.[1], when President William Tubman appointed him Under-Secretary of State for Cultural Affairs.

In 1962, Moore was one of a team of Vai scholars who took part in a conference at the University of Liberia to standardise the Vai script for modern usage.[2]

The publication of Murder in the Cassava Patch secured Moore's reputation as Liberia's best-known writer, and its popularity ensured that he was able to maintain his public position through some of the most turbulent years of Liberia's history. Under the government of President Samuel Doe, Moore was appointed Minister for Cultural Affairs and Tourism, a position that he held at the time of his sudden death at the age of seventy-one.

After a state funeral at the Centennial Memorial Pavilion, attended by cultural troupes from the Dey, Gola, Vai, Kpelle, Gbandi, and Gio tribes, Bai T. Moore was finally laid to rest in his native Dimeh. Wilton Sankawulo wrote: " The best tribute we can pay to the memory of Bai Tee is making our culture part of our daily life, for culturally we are dressed in borrowed robes. Unless we replace these alien garments with ones of our own making, we will continue failing in all our attempts to build a society that can meet our needs and aspirations." [3]


Works
Moore's earliest published poems appeared as part of the anthology Echoes from the Valley (1947). Ebony Dust (1962, reprinted 2001), a collection of Moore's poetry, was followed in 1968 by Murder in the Cassava Patch (1968), which has been called "a Liberian literary classic" [4]. This short novel - which deals with the murder of a young Liberian girl by her jealous lover - has been part of Liberian school curricula every year since its publication. It deals unromantically with traditional Liberian life - there are references to human sacrifice and to indigenous slavery - and the meretricious attractions of the modern world, where freedom for young people seems to involve a more conspicuous consumption of palm wine and cane juice, and a yearning for material possessions over loyalty and love.

It was followed by The Money Doubler (1976), about a trickster who convinces people to part with their cash on the promise that he will be able to use "African science" to double it. Like its predecessor, The Money Doubler presents a picture of that is realistic, but by no means idealised; and it makes a more sustained effort to represent an accurate version of Liberian English in all the dialogue throughout the novel[5].

Moore contributed one of the Four Stories by Liberian Writers, edited by Sankawulo in 1980, and together with Jangaba Johnson he compiled a collection of Liberian folk tales entitled Chips from the African Story Tree.


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Categories: Liberian poets | Liberian novelists | Liberian folklorists | Liberian

His Works:

Echoes from the Valley: Being Odes and Other Poems (1947), Co-edited with Roland T. Dempster


In 1962, Moore was one of a team of Vai scholars who took part in a conference at the University of Liberia to standardise the Vai script for modern usage.[2]

Murder in the Cassava Patch (Novel)


Ebony Dust (Poems)

Money Dubler (Novel)

An Elder’s Prayer
By Bai T. Moore


Oh great Spirit of the forest,

I have nothing in my hand

But a chicken and some rice

It’s the gift of all our land

Bring us sunshine with the rain

So the harvest moon may blow

Save my people from all pains;

When the harvest time is done

We will make a feast to you.