Basiana was a ramo, a warrior and bounty-killer, of the Gounaile area of the Kwaio highlands who on 4 October 1927 led the killing of the British District Officer William R. Bell, his cadet, and their tax-collecting party at Sinalagu harbour, an act provoked by the imposition of the colonial head tax and the confiscation of guns. He was taken in the punitive expedition that followed and executed. In Kwaio understanding the dead become adalo, and Basiana became a feared and powerful ancestral spirit invoked in sacrifice by his descendants. The desecration of Kwaio shrines during the government reprisals made his memory a touchstone of the later Kwaio struggle for religious and cultural autonomy.