About Digital Collections
Browse
Search only public domain materials
Search Browse About
Search only public domain materials
Items Collections Divisions
Digital Collections Using Images Using Data
Items Vai manuscript

Vai manuscript

More Details Cite This Item

58967401
300px
760px
All download options
Original Scan
Order Print

Library division & collection with this item:

LIBRARY DIVISION
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division

  • Schomburg Center Scrapbooks
  • Relazione della spedizione e conquista dell'isola di S. Domingo
  • Harlem, Mecca of the new Negro
  • A Poetical Epistle to the King of Hayti
  • Considérations diverses sur Haïti
  • Negro anthology
  • The Independent Republic of Liberia
  • The Negro; a selected bibliography
  • The history of the New-York African free-schools, from their establishment in 1787, to the present time...
  • Observations on the inslaving, importing, and purchasing of Negroes; with some advice thereon, extracted from the epistle of the yearly-meeting of the people called Quakers held at London in the year 1748.
  • The speech of William Wilberforce, esq., representative for the county of York, on Wednesday the 13th of May, 1789, on the question of the abolition of the slave trade
  • An address to the people of Great Britain, on the utility of refraining from the use of West India sugar and rum
  • Comparative statement with reference to a British claim against the United States, for the illegal seizure and condemnation of the ship "Francis and Eliza", and an American claim against Her Majesty's government, for the seizure and liberation of slaves on board two American vessels stranded upon the Bahamas, for which latter claim the proprietors of the slaves have lately received a large compensation from Her Majesty's government
  • Véritable origine des troubles de S.-Domingue : et des différentes causes qui les ont produits
  • Relation d'une conspiration tramée par les nègres
Previous Next

COLLECTION
Vai manuscript

This Item

View this item elsewhere:

Title
Vai manuscript
Additional title: Boima Kiakpomgbo's diary
Additional title: The Book of Dreams
Names
Kiakpomgbo, Boima (Author)
Collection

Vai manuscript

Dates / Origin
Date Created: 1913 - 1927
Place: Mando Town, Lake Piso, Liberia
Library locations
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division
Shelf locator: Sc MG 987
Topics
Liberia
Liberia -- History -- 1847-1944
Vai (African people)
Vai language
Grand Cape Mount County (Liberia)
World War, 1914-1918
Genres
Manuscripts
Diaries
Notes
Biographical/historical: The Vais are a West African ethnic group based in modern-day Liberia and southeastern Sierra Leone, with a population of approximately 200,000 people. They speak Vai, a Western Mande language that is best known for its written system, Vai script. Vai script was invented in the 1820s by Mɔmɔlu Daulu Bukɛlɛ of Jondu, modern-day Grand Cape Mount County, Liberia. Bukɛlɛ worked for European merchants and noticed how they communicated through reading and writing. This ignited his desire to develop a writing system for his tribe and he developed Vai script with a group of male associates. Vai script is a syllabary, as each symbol represents a syllable. The men studied the script and learned to communicate with each other using Vai script, then continued on to set up a school to teach men from surrounding towns how to read and write Vai script. Vai script is regarded as one of the few indigenous African languages that is not modeled after Arabic or Latin script. The Vai manuscript is Boima Kiakpomgbo's diary, written in a blank German accounts book, and is the longest available Vai manuscript written by an author without Western education. Kiakpomgbo's 190-page diary roughly spans 1913-1915, with some entries from 1922 and 1927. This manuscript offers a descriptive account of daily African life during World War One, as Kiakpomgbo writes of his dreams and experiences living in Mando Town on the eastern bank of Lake Piso, Liberia. Scholars who have studied this manuscript often refer to it as "The Book of Dreams".
Physical Description
Extent: 190 pages ; 16 x 34 cm
Description
The Vais are a West African ethnic group best known for their written system, Vai script. Vai script was invented in the 1820s and is regarded as one of the few indigenous African languages that is not modeled after Arabic or Latin script. The Vai manuscript is Boima Kiakpomgbo's 190-page diary and offers a descriptive account of everyday life in West Africa during World War One.
Type of Resource
Text
Languages
Vai
Identifiers
NYPL catalog ID (B-number): b23511174
MSS Unit ID: 186348
Archives EAD ID: 3575143
Universal Unique Identifier (UUID): 8159d490-cc72-013d-ca68-0242ac110003
Rights Statement
The copyright and related rights status of this item has been reviewed by The New York Public Library, but we were unable to make a conclusive determination as to the copyright status of the item. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use.

Item timeline of events

  • 1913: Created (Approximate)
  • 2025: Digitized
  • 2025: Found by you!
  • 2026

MLA Format

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, The New York Public Library. "Vai manuscript" The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1913 - 1927. https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/c8badc20-d051-013d-aa87-0242ac110003

Chicago/Turabian Format

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, The New York Public Library. "Vai manuscript" New York Public Library Digital Collections. Accessed May 23, 2025. https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/c8badc20-d051-013d-aa87-0242ac110003

APA Format

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, The New York Public Library. (1913 - 1927). Vai manuscript Retrieved from https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/c8badc20-d051-013d-aa87-0242ac110003

Wikipedia Citation

<ref name=NYPL>{{cite web | url=https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/c8badc20-d051-013d-aa87-0242ac110003 | title= (text) Vai manuscript, (1913 - 1927)|author=Digital Collections, The New York Public Library |accessdate=May 23, 2025 |publisher=The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations}}</ref>

Vai manuscript