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[M-A Lagrange]

marct:
I have to wonder why he did it. At a pure, gut level, guess - and please correct me if you know better! - I suspect he thought it was about on par with teenagers fooling around with Satanic rituals.

Do not forget that Liberia has a very particular history. It's the only African country colonized by Black people (may be Sierra Leone also).
What I did observe there was: the natives, the original people of Liberia, dreaming of America (more gangsta rap than anything else but still America). And the Congos, the descendants of slaves imported to Liberia as Freemen, dreaming of a savage Africa (like in Tarzan I would say).
So you have 2 groups who built their representation of the opponent culture on that imaginary model made of Hollywood movies and cheap pulps.

Personally, I believe that Taylor (he is a "Congo" educated in US) just wanted to be "African" and terrorizes his adversaries. He also completely felt into the wired Christian interpretation of cannibalism and the magic force that eating hearts, sex and leaver of his adversaries would give him.
But he also destroyed purposely sacred lands, exposed the ritual masks… I really believe that he was in a total American dream of savage Africa.