This paper deals with certain implications of our ‘conventional understandings’ of the Kru and Grebo peoples of the Cape Palmas region of coastal West Africa. These ‘traditional’ scholarly understandings of ‘traditional’ political organization, when combined with misfocused questions about the nature of ethnicity, effectively preclude accurate knowledge not only of traditional polities but also of how a people's ethnic identity may be redefined with changing circumstances. Subjecting traditional perspectives as well as ethnographic data to re-examination may clarify the complex role of ethnicity among the Kru and Grebo.