The largest group involved with the CDF was the kamajoisia, or kamajors. Traditionally, the title “kamajors” is used to refer to the Mende belief in “specialized hunters empowered to use both firearms and occult ‘medicines’ in pursuit of big game” and against all other forces that threatened Mende villages.[3] In Mende culture, the identity of the kamajors is synonymous with protection, and represented a similar meaning when community defense militias mobilized in reaction to the Sierra Leonean government’s failure to defeat the rebel forces of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF).