CHAPTER ONE

        Bangwa society and culture

The Bangwa comprise nine independent chiefdoms of which Fontem is the largest, with a population in 1953, of 7,400. The others, from north to south, are Fozimogndi, Fozimombin (both together, 4,047), Fossungo (767), Fonjumetor (2,432), Fotabong I (1,909), Foto Dungatet (1,546), Foreke Cha Cha and Fotabong III (together, 1,462). These names are the ones in common use and are really the chiefs’ titles. ‘Fontem’ nowadays is the name given indiscriminately to the chief, his capital and his country, though strictly the country is called Lebang, and the capital where the palace and market are situated, Azi. In the authors’ field-work the chiefdoms covered most thoroughly during the recording of works of art were Fontem, Fotabong and Foreke Cha Cha . These are in fact, now as in the past, the centres of sculpture, and there seems to be very little carving activity in the northern chiefdoms.

   The name ‘Bangwa’ conveniently describes all the inhabitants of the nine chiefdoms, though the Bangwa do not, in any sense, constitute a unified tribe. The word derives from the stem Nwe (or Nwa in the northern dialects) which refers to both the country and the language. ‘Bangwa’ is correctly written MbaNwẽ (cf. MbaNwa for the easterly Bamileke chiefdom). It is doubtful whether all the inhabitants of the nine independent chiefdoms ever thought of themselves as ‘we, the Bangwa’ before they were grouped together as a unit of local government by the British colonial administration in 1921. Moreover, the term Nwẽ is used more specifically by Banyang and Bamileke neighbours to

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describe the central highland areas of the four chiefdoms Fontem, Fotabong, Fonjumetor and Foto Dungatet . Another term, Mok, describes the country of the northernmost chiefdoms Fozimogndi and Fozimombin, which are linked geographically and historically with other Mok chiefdoms among the Bamileke. Each Bangwa chiefdom maintains much closer cultural and commercial links with its Bamileke neighbours to the east than with its Bangwa neighbours to the north and south. Trade routes connecting the grassfields and the forest pass through a single chiefdom towards the savannah markets.

   The Bangwa language is closely related to languages spoken by the Bamileke of East Cameroon, particularly round Dschang and Fondongela. There are important differences in dialect even among the Bangwa themselves. On the whole the degree of mutual understanding depends on proximity; the inhabitants of Fontem have little difficulty in understanding their immediate Bamileke and Bangwa neighbours with whom they have the closest cultural links. Greater differences occur between the southern Bangwa chiefdoms and the northern Mok chiefdoms (see map on p. xii), which are cut off by the nature of the terrain. Nevertheless it appears that Nwẽ is related to other Bamileke languages, even as far as Fumban, through a chain of mutual intelligibility. These linguistic links reflect cultural links, particularly the interconnection of art sub-styles in the general Bamileke culture area. The languages of western and southern neighbours, Mbo and Banyang, are distinct, though there is a considerable amount of word-borrowing, especially between the Banyang and the Bangwa. Banyang is spoken by traders and members of the popular secret societies (the Leopard society, for example) which are imported via the Banyang from the Cross River area. Nearly all Bangwa, men and women alike, speak pidgin English.

   Until the middle 1960s communication with the outside world was on foot, and it was an arduous two-day trek from the road terminus in Banyang to Fontem. The path crossed the vast Banyang forests, passing through villages strung out on either side of a sandy street and traversing fast-flowing tributaries of the Cross River by means of woven swing-bridges. The Bangwa chiefdoms are situated far from the heat of the forests. Most of the Bangwa inhabit the middle regions (between 3,000 and 4,000 feet up), where the sparseness of oil-palm groves indicates the beginning of a highland climate. Compounds are scattered all over these escarpments. The highest inhabited point is about 7,000 feet, the lowest about 1,500 feet. From their vantage point in the mountains the Bangwa can look across the misty forests of the Banyang, Keaka and Ekoi to the Cross River lands of Biafra . In the other direction the undulating plateau ‘grassfields’ of the Bamileke stretch north-eastwards towards the great chiefdoms of Bandjoun and Bangangte and the kingdom of Fumban . Direct routes link Bangwa

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to areas; with the Bamenda peoples to the north the mountains prevent easy contact.

THEIR NEIGHBOURS

Mainly for commercial reasons the Bangwa have maintained contacts with their neighbours on all sides: the Bamileke to the east, the Mundani to the north Banyang to the west and the Mbo and Nkingkwa to the south.

   The Mundani, who claim to be migrants to their present position in the mountains, are very different in language, social organisation and material culture from the Bangwa, though they have adopted elements of Bangwa political organisation, such as titles, chiefship and secret societies. Today the Bangwa and Mundani share a council and a treasury but the two peoples lack common interests and there is a good deal of mutual suspicion between them.

   With the Banyang, the Bangwa have always had vital trading links. In Banyang markets, the Bangwa bought, or exchanged for slaves, such necessities and luxuries as salt, guns, cloth, currency beads and other miscellaneous European goods. Legend recalls that the son and heir of Chief Fontem was captured and enslaved by the Banyang, and was only released through the intervention of a Banyang chief, to whom a payment of seven slaves was made. In the present century, however, the Bangwa have become independent of Bayang markets, and they trade direct to Mamfe and Calabar for European goods. The Banyang still offer interesting bargains in the form of effective anti-witchcraft medicines. They are also responsible for the colourful and prestigious recreational societies which are so conspicuous at Bangwa cries.

    Any account of Bangwa social organisation and culture, however, is primarily an account of a Bamileke culture. The term ‘Bamileke’ is an administrative one, and was used first by the Germans, to describe a very mixed grouping of independent chiefdoms, almost a hundred of them, scattered over a vast, fertile plateau centring on Bandjoun, Bafoussam, Bangangte and Dschang. The Bamileke today number over half a million. Their social organisation has been described by Tardits and Hurault. Each small State is ruled by a sacred chief to whom his subjects owe political allegiance and economic services and to whom they are bound by proliferating ties of kinship and clientage. They worship matrilineal and patrilineal ancestors, through male and female skull lines. The Bangwa are the westernmost Bamileke group and as a result are more influenced by forest patterns than the central plateau chiefdoms. The Bangwa are also the only Bamileke peoples to have been administered by the British after the defeat of the Germans during the First World War; East Cameroon came under French tutelage. Because of their isolated position in the

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mountains their institutions have suffered less disturbance than those of their eastern neighbours.

    The Mbo are their hereditary enemies. Wars originated from disputes over boundaries or oil groves and the kidnapping of each other’s nationals for sale or food. Like the Banyang, the Mbo also played an important part in the early dynastic history of Bangwa chiefdoms and related Bamileke chiefdoms in East Cameroon . Foreke Cha Cha has historical connections with Mbo; Fongo Tongo , Foto, Foreke Dschang all claim Mbo origin. Unfortunately, since there has been no thorough ethnographic study of the Mbo, the degree of cultural interconnection is not clear. The Nkingkwa inhabit the mountain area on the Mbo borders. Linguistically related to the Mbo, they inter marry with the Bangwa and have adopted their institutions, such as chiefship. The Nkingkwa represent an important intermediary stage in a process of ‘Bamileke-isation’ which has been going on for centuries in this region. The process eventually leads to the loss of the people’s original language and the wholesale adoption of savannah culture and values. This seems to have happened with the Bangwa; the majority of the dynasties of chiefs and subchiefs claim a forest origin, and yet in terms of culture, language and interest the people must be classified as Bamileke.

HISTORY

History and legend confirm this process of ‘Bamileke-isation’. Paramount chiefs, who have the longest pedigrees, rarely trace their dynasties back further than seven or eight generations. Legend tells of the founding of the chiefdom by a hunter who came from the forest with his following – his family and the classic Nine servants whose descendants today form the inner sanctum of the secret Night society. The hunter met the Beketshe, a loosely grouped hunting and gathering people who lived a naked, nomadic existence in the wooded mountains without the advantage of permanent shelter or agriculture. The forest hunter, through guile or guns, deprived these people of their proprietary rights to the land. These Beketshe, from whom some contemporary Bangwa still claim descent, are described in stories as brainless, fickle and incredibly gullible, and are a constant source of amusement to sophisticated Bangwa. According to the myths the Beketshe were taught farming, fire-making and such elementary facts of life as copulation. The Beketshe ceased to rely on wild plants and game and the union of these armed hunters and mountain nomads formed the nucleus of the Bangwa people who were now confronted by the Bamileke peoples of the grasslands: settled agriculturists who fought with spears and who had a very elegant and highly structured political system. Guns again gave the forest hunter victory over these scattered miniature chiefdoms. A common

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myth tells how he hoarded royal paraphernalia (leopard skins, ivory tusks, the carved figures), the possession of these symbols of royalty ranking him immediately and indisputably as their suzerain.

    These legends clearly recount in mythical form the arrival in the mountains and savannah of people from the forest who had access to European goods, especially  guns, and who through superior prowess and commercial ability overcame the original inhabitants of the mountains and migrants from the eastern savannah. They did not, however, impose their cultural background, but adopted to a man the language and customs of the eastern culture we now know as Bamileke.

    Written records begin with the arrival of the Germans. The Bangwa in Fontem fought with Germans after the murder or suicide of Conrau in 1902. But their antique Dane-guns and spears could have little effect against modern guns and trained soldiers. Some Bangwa remember the Germans today: the ‘factory’ and the cloths and pans they could buy in exchange for oil, wild rubber, ivory, etc. Many remember the harsh treatment they received at the hands of the German-trained soldiers – as porters and labour recruits. After the defeat of the Germans in 1915 the British remained in effective control of the Bangwa area until independence in 1961. Bangwa was cut off from Bamileke neighbours and aligned with the Banyang, Mundani and Mbo. The British established no administrative post and apart from occasional tours by district officers and medical officers left the Bangwa to themselves. Customary courts were established to hear local civil cases; the members were the traditional chiefs. The administrators interfered only to settle land and boundary disputes and criminal cases, such as murder and witchcraft accusations.

    The most prominent Bangwa chief in this period was Assunganyi (Plate 3), chief of Fontem. It was he who met Conrau when he arrived in Fontem 1897. Later he organised the war against the Germans, and after defeat went into hiding in the forest for ‘fourteen years’, putting his son on the throne in his stead. When the deceit was discovered the Germans exiled Assunganyi to Garua in North Cameroon . He was reinstated by the British in 1915 and his inimitable personality dominated Bangwa politics until the 1950s. Assunganyi’s influence is still to be seen in Bangwa. He favoured traditional customs, and few, even district officers, cared to run counter to his wishes. He ruled his country and his large compound (he had over a hundred wives) with a generous, if iron hand. His prodigality was proverbial; no feast can be held today without unfavourable comparison with the orgies of meat, yams and wine which Fontem Assunganyi provided for his people. He became a legend in his lifetime and tales are told today of his feats of strength, his cunning, his hunting, and his fighting and dancing prowess. He could flay a wife and stop in the

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middle to listen to a bird’s song. He made a show on every possible occasion; his German brass band played, his horses paraded, his wives danced and his Dane-guns exploded when he wished to impress a neighbouring chief or a visiting European. When the Bangwa become nostalgic and recall the ‘good old days’, they refer to the time when the old chief was alive, when Bangwa was prosperous, the women naked and obedient, the young men respectful and the crops plentiful. Assunganyi died in 1951 and was succeeded by his son, Defang, the present chief.

TRADITIONAL SOCIETY

The British colonial administration interfered as little as possible in Bangwa affairs. Consequently the Bangwa lagged behind their Bamileke neighbours in acquiring European technological benefits; and their transition from the pre-colonial to the modern world has been less violent and has been characterised by slower social change. But with independence, in 1961, things began to move fast. The first road was built. Missionary activity was intensified. Until 1966 there was very little proselytisation; now there is a hospital and schools and a permanent Catholic mission station. The face of the country is changing too. Villages are springing up round the important markets. Ordinary people are leaving their isolated homesteads to build European compounds near the roads, which link the Bangwa with the towns, hospitals and markets of East and West Cameroon . The Bangwa are adaptable to new and profitable situations. Within a generation or two their culture will change beyond recognition. In this chapter it is not the contemporary situation which is described, but the indigenous, distinctive and highly developed culture which is today disappearing. Many of these elements still flourish. Others, involving religious and political institutions, lack significance for most Bangwa.

The Bangwa have never lived in villages. Across the hills a complicated tracery of paths links the compounds of individual families. In front of the compound of a noble or wealthy commoner is an open dancing place, before the meeting-house where visitors, friends and relatives meet. Within, each wife has her house in which she cooks and works and her children sleep. The compound head has his own house hidden behind a tall fence of fern poles. Here he keeps his heirlooms and his ancestors’ skulls and receives intimates.

The tall, solid houses are impressive to look at. Flat sites are difficult to find and areas are laboriously levelled by hand. The traditional shape of a Bangwa house is a cube on a shallow circular foundation of stones surmounted by a conical thatched roof (Plate 4). The size and proportions vary according to the importance of the building but the basic shape of a domestic hut and of a large meeting-house is the same. The method of making the walls recalls European

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half-timbering: a wooden framework of ant-resisting fern poles is plastered to leave the framework revealed. The roof is constructed of four triangular frames bound on to a round tray, the apexes of the triangles joining in the middle to form the curve of the roof (Plate 4). The interior of the house is either plastered or lined with bamboos tied together with vines making decorative patterns (Plate 5). Houseposts may be carved (Fig. 2).

    Today houses are being made of mud-blocks. The vast meeting-houses are crumbling and being replaced by the ubiquitous concrete and iron-roofed buildings of contemporary Bamileke towns.

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RANK AND POLITICS

An elaborate etiquette gives evidence of a complicated ranking order which includes chiefs, subchiefs, nobles, commoners, royals, slaves, servants, titled servants; also the old and the young, men and women, wife and wife-takers. The most obvious differentiation is between the sexes. Women are expected to adopt a subservient mien in the presence of men. They sit only when told to and do not eat when men are present. When a woman greets a noble on a farm paths she will bow, stamp her foot in greeting and move aside. Even today the old ladies of a compound will greet an important visitor by sweeping the ground with a swaying motion of the hands. Women, however, can achieve positions of importance. Titled wives and princesses take precedence over commoner men. Old women, particularly mothers of large families, receive great respect. General courtesy between the sexes and all ranks is a marked characteristic of Bangwa social life. The poorest woman, the meanest servant, the smallest child, is shown a serious and respectful attention due to any individual.

The Bangwa chief is the focal point and strength of the traditional system. He is not divine, but he has sacred attributes and performs important rites for the well-being and fertility of the land and people. In the past, as in some respects still, the chief was feared and with reason, since his power over his subjects was great. A paramount chief may be very rich. Ivory tusks and leopard skins are his due as traditional royal symbols. At the death of subchiefs nobles he receives death dues. He owns extensive oil-palm plantations, which in the past were cared for by slaves and servants. There is no formal tribute system although conquered areas, such as the Mbo, formerly brought smoked fish and game. But the greatest source of wealth is women. A chief, may have up to fifty wives and important rights in the marriage payments of a large percentage of his female subjects. Fontem Assunganyi , who was frequently accused of cupidity, gained considerable wealth as a marriage broker, arranging the marriages of widows or disputed wives to the highest bidder. He also confiscated the property of witches and adulterers who were hanged or sold. More reputable gains are made today from fines and from ‘thank-you’ fees for settling disputes or administering a nobleman’s property during the minority of his heir.

Although the chief is the supreme ruler important powers are delegated to subchiefs. Both within the subchiefdoms and attached directly to the palace of the chief are hamlets administered by nobles, either royal sons, commoners or ranking retainers. Some hamlets consist only of a man, his wives and children and a single servant.

    Subchiefs have a good degree of political independence. They vary in origin:

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Figure 2
House-post

some conquered, previously independent chiefs; others are royal cadets raised to subchief status. In the past an important subchief ruled a miniature state with its own hamlets, receiving the respect due to a chief, though subchiefs were forbidden to undertake private wars, or to inflict the death penalty in case of witchcraft, murder or adultery with a chief’s wife. In the segmented political system, even the hamlet heads had important governing and judicial rights. Matters of national importance were settled at the paramount chief’s palace by the subchiefs, hamlet heads and chief in concert. Leaders of the country also met at performances of the chief’s Gong society (called lefem in Bangwa after the sacred copse where they met). Here they discussed affairs of common interest and informally demonstrated their loyalty to their chief.

    Royal brother and sister titles are a feature of the Bangwa political system. A chief’s property goes primarily to his heir, but an important part is divided among his children, who also receive titles. Nkweta, for example, is the chief’s second-in-command. He may succeed if his brother dies soon after his installation. There are also two female titles, ankweta (female nkweta) and mafwa (female chief). Mafwa, translated here as princess royal, is an important title. The holder is given the respect of a chief and represents him at royal functions. Domestic disputes throughout the country may be brought to her. She also organises women’s activities – farming, recreational and (today) political. In Foreke Cha Cha the princess royal of the dead chief acted for many years as regent. The princess royal in Fontem today (Plate 6) is a powerful and admired personality; she was the support and solace of her father Chief Assunganyi through the last years of his reign. Married to one of her father’s servants, she divorced and now has her own compound, her own ‘wife’ and a standing in Bangwa which is undisputed. The princess royal plays an important part in the mortuary and succession rites described in Chapter Four.

    Chiefs and subchiefs depend very much on a body of servants or retainers who inhabit the palace precincts. Their origins vary: some are descendants of slaves. But even a free man could in the past become a chief’s servant since palace service entailed material advantages which a man’s father could not always provide. A slave had quite a different status from a servant. Retainers are ranked. Some look after the palace and the royal wives. Others supervise community work, collect dues or arrange the marriage of princesses. Some live within the palace and often acquire political influence through their close connection with the chief. A powerful chief trusts his servants more than his councillors or royal sons; they are often married to titled sisters of the chief.

    A chief’s major role is to judge. Aided by councillors (selected subchiefs and hamlet heads) and ranking retainers, the chief hears cases in the meeting house at the palace. Rich and poor bring cases, payment being a gift of wine

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Plate 6
Fontem's
princess royal, Mafwankeng

and food to the deliberating elders. In cases which have no obvious solution various methods of divination or ordeal are resorted to. In the past, for serious cases such as witchcraft or suspected adultery, the fearful sasswood ordeal was conducted by the country’s police society, the Night. The accused man or woman was given poison; if it was not vomited their guilt was proven and the society’s masked men beheaded the victim by the river’s edge.

    The Night society plays an important part in the rites and celebrations described in Chapter Four. Its members are the Bangwa kingmakers. It is to them that the chief confides the name of his successor on his death-bed. They protect the palace during the often turbulent interregnum and present the successor to the people during the late chief’s funeral celebrations (Plate 7). The Night society has sections. The lowest group consists of palace retainers; they perform executive functions such as collecting fines, punishing criminals, and placing injunction emblems (Plate 8) at the boundaries of disputed land. There is a section for subchiefs and nobles, who meet to discuss secret political matters. The inner sanctum of the Night society, the Great Night or

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the Nine, is a body of men who are the descendants of the original followers of the dynasty’s founder and the highest royal retainers of the chiefdom. The Nine, today, are great nobles, descendants of princesses who were married or retainers. They are only technically servants of the chief, taking precedence at state councils and wielding great political influence. The position of these Great Night members was not always secure, since their power was so great that they were often feared as rivals to the chief. Several were accused of witch craft or of plotting against the chief; traditions record that some were hanged or sold into slavery. The relationships between the chief and the Lord of the

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Plate 8
A Night mask as taboo sign

Night society is particularly close, involving mutual dependence but sometimes also bitter enmity.

    The Night society meets infrequently today, its functions having been taken over by the West Cameroon administration. In the minds of the people, this group, with its fearful role, its terror masks and mysterious midnight meetings, is associated with danger and the supernatural. The Nine accompany the chief on his supernatural exploits, joining other paramount chiefs and their retinues, transformed into leopards, serpents, rainbows and elephants, to perform feats of agility and to ‘feast’ on human flesh. These beliefs are involved in the Bangwa attitude to the society’s emblems, the Night masks and sticks, which are discussed in Chapter Five.

    The Night society is only one of many societies or jujus which play an important role in Bangwa social organisation. The societies are of many kinds and have political, economic and social functions. The Night society is a secret society, based on the palace and membership is strictly ascribed by birth. Sections of the Night society are also owned by subchiefs and nobles, who have their own Night retainers and their own emblems. Another old Bangwa society is the lefem, the word for the sacred copse where members meet to play their gongs. In the savannah Bamileke chiefdoms this society is known as kwifo; in this book it is referred to as the Gong society. Membership of the chief’s Gong society is reserved to nobles and subchiefs although meetings and performances are not secret. Subchiefs also have their own Gong societies attended by their own nobles. Wealthy men may buy the gongs and the techniques of playing them from the palace.

    The Night and Gong societies are ancient Bangwa societies. So are the warrior societies (manjong, Challenge and alaling). Other societies have been introduced into Bangwa by wealthy nobles and often play a completely different role in Bangwa from their country of origin. Aka (the Elephant society) is a secret society like the Night society among the Bamileke; in Bangwa it is for show only, being an association of the rich, with a slave as the membership fee. From the western forests other societies have been introduced mainly as recreational associations; they are popular at funeral celebrations and public occasions with their elaborate costumes and masks and joyous dancing and singing. All men are free to join for a nominal fee and even women join in the dancing during performances. Details of these societies (the Leopard, massem) are given in Chapter Four.

All of these societies are ‘owned’ by a chief or noble, membership being acquired by succession to a person’s status or by the payment of a fee. In some cases the society itself, with its songs, accoutrements and dances, may be bought by a wealthy man; performances by his retainers, friends and followers will add

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to his reputation as a ‘big man’. Women play only a small part, although titled princesses are automatically members of the Night and Gong societies. However, since the early 1950s women have been organising themselves into societies, known as ako, which meet regularly and present their own masks and dances at funerals of both men and women.

THE FAMILY

The Bangwa trace relationships through both parents, although most property and titles are inherited patrilineally, and a man’s heir is also the custodian of his skull. But there are no wide patrilineal groupings, no clans or lineages with a common name and marriage taboos. A patriline is primarily important to a man’s successors; the other sons cooperate in the mourning ceremonies, quarrel over the inheritance and go their separate ways. Half-brothers own no property in common. Female links are stressed in the kinship system. Ideally a woman’s property is inherited by a daughter and her skull becomes the focus of an ancestral cult of which the daughter is priestess. A female line is sometimes traced back several generations to a founding ancestress to whom sacrifices are made. The most important family relationships are those of a person’s own kindred in which the solidarity of the ‘children of one womb’ and their children is opposed to the weak half-sibling relationship within the polygynous family. Non-kinship factors are also important and institutionalised friendship is common.

    Children are born, named and grow to adulthood without any public ceremonies. In the past girls were betrothed soon after birth. This involved the future husband in a long period of service, mainly on behalf of his mother-in-law. Marriages are legalised by the concluding of the marriage payments and the transferring of the ‘marriage goat’ to the bride’s kin. Bridewealth is high; about £200 on average in 1965. A large selection of relatives receive their share of ‘goats’, ‘hoes’ and ‘salt’, nowadays converted into Cameroon currency. The bulk of the money is shared between four persons, the bride’s ‘marriage lords’. They are her father, her mother’s father, her mother’s mother’s father and her tangkap, her ‘money father’. Tangkap needs special explanation. In Bangwa thinking, everybody is descended from a female slave. The successor of the man who bought her is their tangkap, or major marriage lord, and he receives multiple services and dues from his wards, both men and women. These include death dues and tribute as well as the important bridewealth rights.

    Polygyny rates are high, more than fifty per cent of married men having more than one wife. This is made possible by a late marriage age for men: a commoner cannot afford to marry until he is in his thirties. A man’s widows are inherited by his successor although some are handed out to unmarried sons.

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BELIEFS

The most common of the unnatural causes ascribed to illness and death is witchcraft, which may be divined or confessed by the witch. Witchcraft in Bangwa, however, is an ambivalent power and may be used for good or evil. Basically it is a belief that all men and women, even children, have the capacity to change themselves into animals or natural forces, for the purpose of bewitching their relations, or for the less anti-social activities of chiefship and medical healing. Witches can change into elephants, swarms of bees, lightning, aero-planes, landslides. A witch preys on the flesh of living people causing their illnesses and deaths. Witchcraft also causes crop failure, sterility and drought.

    Beliefs in the afterworld are complex. Dead men’s souls go to the Bangwa heaven or hell, the good and bad countries below the earth. The sky is the abode of witches, not angels. Ghosts of the dead return from the grave to haunt family members and are exorcised by a simple lustration rite. Ancestors are worshipped through skulls. There is no regular skull cult, individuals worshipping their ancestors through the mediacy of the successor of a patriline or matriline. The skulls of the chief’s ancestors receive special treatment; on a special day of the week the chief or the princess royal sacrifices to the skulls to the accompaniment of a carved elephant horn blown by a palace retainer (Col. pl. 8). While the ancestors are the most vital spirits, each adult also worships at a shrine dedicated to his personal spirit guardian.

THE ECONOMY

The Bangwa chiefdoms are able to participate in the advantages of two distinct ecological environments, having boundaries with the high savannah to the east and the low forest to the west. Even within the chiefdoms there is a kind of dual division between the highlanders and the ‘down’ people. The former put a premium on hierarchical political organisation and rank. It is they who own the palm groves in the forests; in the past they sent their slaves and servants to supervise oil production. Highlanders are proud and independent; they despise farmwork but are consummate politicians, dancers and artists. They consider their lowland countrymen to be steeped in the magic and witchcraft of their Banyang and Mbo neighbours.

    There are two seasons, a wet and a dry. The dry season is short, lasting about four months and beginning in December. The soil is volcanic, a tenacious red clay of limited fertility. In the highlands the less dense forests have been cleared for intensive agriculture but in the forest regions shifting cultivation is the rule. Climatic variations within each chiefdom are due mostly to sudden altitude changes: a few hours’ climb and topography, climate, flora and fauna undergo a complete change. The women carry out subsistence farming, travelling many

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steep miles up the hills to plant maize, beans and groundnuts and towards the forests for cassava and cocoyam farms. Cocoyams are the staple. Clearing, even of heavy bush, is done by the women themselves, sometimes with the help of an adolescent son or an obliging son-in-law. A hazard comes from the roaming livestock (goats, sheep and cattle) owned by their husbands. Men show no interest in farming apart from growing plantains round the compound, though they have recently started coffee farms in the highlands and cocoa farms in the forest areas. The production of oil forms one of Bangwa’s biggest exports to the Bamileke grassfields. Other permanent crops include kola, avocado pears, Indian bamboo and two kinds of raffia. Palm wine is made from raffia and ‘date’ palms. In general land is a ‘free good’ although the chief is nominal owner of the land. A compound head has a fenced area used for garden crops, plantains and, today, coffee. Most women depend on a share of a farming tract divided annually by their chief; plus farms in other hamlets, since certain areas are valued for certain crops. Six or seven smallish farms prevent the calamity of a crop failure in one area. No payment is made to the ‘owner’ of the land.

    Much of the internal trade is also in the hands of women who carry smoked meat and fish, cocoyams and oil to the east, returning with palm wine, ground nuts and maize. There is a general trading pattern from Banyang forest market, to Bangwa market, to the grassfield market. Royal wives, who are forbidden to carry out long-distance trading expeditions earn their pin-money by trading foodstuffs in their local markets; cocoyams, cassava flour, maize, beans, kola nuts, etc. With these small profits they are able to buy quantities of salt, meat and oil to supplement their husband’s contributions. Women who trade more extensively can afford to buy European household articles and cloth and contribute to their children’s schooling.

    The flourishing Bangwa economy has always depended primarily on trade. There are many markets. In Fontem, with a population of less than 10,000, there are four important markets and half a dozen others are attended regularly. A market is established by the chief planting a ‘fig’ tree in an open place before the palace and sacrificing a goat which is buried below it. The chief protects the markets though he himself may never enter it. He sits with his retinue outside the palace to receive the compliments or complaints of his subjects. A royal servant makes announcements after sounding the slit-gong (Plate 9). Palm wine is sold in prodigious quantities from tiny stalls. Cattle and pigs arc slaughtered and sold in one section, smoked game and fish in another. Solidly built shops are now slowly springing up round the market squares but sites are difficult to acquire, especially for strangers.

    External trade is carried out by men. Apart from the always important trade in salt, oil and other subsistence goods, the Bangwa acted in the past as middle-men

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in the commerce of slaves, guns, European articles and prestige articles made locally. Currencies used were trade beads, iron rods and to a lesser extent cowries. Slaves were bought in the east and sold to Banyang or Keaka (Ekoi) traders for sale in Cross River markets. Some slaves in Bangwa came from as far afield as Fumban. People alive in Bangwa today testify to having been kidnapped as babies in the grassfields and sold there. The chiefs were the principal traders, acting through retainers, and many private fortunes were made by commoners. The whole structure of Bangwa society depended on the slave trade; much of its present structure is a result of it. Slaves were on the whole well-treated and frequently rose to positions of wealth and political importance. Descendants of slave-retainers are now important subchiefs. No stigma is attached to slave parentage.

    Bangwa men were warriors in the past. Now they are also oil-producers,

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hunters and rearers of livestock. Traditional specialised activities include those of the diviner, priest, healer, smith and carver. Nowadays there are also tailors and carpenters. The Fontem blacksmiths are well-known in the Cameroon grassfields. The craft traditionally came to Fontem during the slaving period. The ancestor of the blacksmiths (the craft is preserved within a family) was bought by a Fontem subchief and, when his prowess at making the double gongs used in the Gong society and the Bamileke kwifo societies was discovered, he was transferred to the palace of the paramount chief. At first the blacksmiths worked exclusively for the chief. They sold domestic objects (knives and hoes) in the market, but the magical gongs were only sold through the palace. The Fontem blacksmiths are still nominally royal servants but their goods are sold independently of the chief today.

    Another specialised role is that of the artist.

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