Bamileke - Traditional Associations
Associations are a vital feature of Bamileke social and political organization. The fon heads all of the important associations, therefore permitting him to have direct contact with his subjects without dignitaries and state servants acting as intermediaries. Each association has at least one specific purpose, such as providing arms in time of war, functioning as a police force, guarding musical instruments used in ritual ceremonies, being custodians of ancestral skulls, or organizing collective work. Usually discussions of the affairs of the chiefdom take up much of the time.
Most associations recruit their membership only from certain elements of the population. Some admit only sons of the lineages of chieftains. Usually there are three of these associations, but their number varies slightly from one chiefdom to another. They are ranked by importance — access to one with higher prestige being possible only after membership in a lower one — except for a man's chosen heir who takes over his place. Within the association members are given titles, which are also ranked by importance. Only after obtaining the highest title within one association is it possible to be admitted to the next higher ranking one. During the weekly meetings members sit on special stools and in special order according to their rank.
A parallel hierarchy of associations exists for ordinary citizens and sons of the tsofo and wala. Social mobility is, however, possible because the highest ranking associations, of which there are also usually three, have mixed membership for persons who have risen through one or the other hierarchy of associations. In fact, it is harder for sons of chiefs to rise because, in addition to paying the rather steep fees that are mandatory for everyone when joining an association or obtaining a title, they must at each step get express permission from the chief. Members are judged on their seriousness of purpose, faithfulness of attendance, and willingness to make financial sacrifices by paying the large fees that go to the chief and to the association. Members must state which of their sons they want as a successor. Sometimes a father will enroll his son in several associations and watch his performance before he decides to appoint him as his principal heir.
There are also a great many autonomous associations based only on membership within a quarter or subquarter. Among these are various types of savings groups, associations grouping diviners and healers, or simply young people who organize social meetings for drinking and dancing.
In addition, there are age associations that group young males born roughly within five-year spans within the precincts of a quarter. The organization is open to all who qualify, regardless of social status, and who are able to pay the entrance fee. A particular group is established on the initiative of the son of a chief. Meetings are held regularly in the house of a notable, who is addressed as "father" and who receives a small fee from new members in return for providing facilities for meetings. Members learn skills by performing practical tasks. They also participate in the ke (special dance), which marks the transition to adult status. Members purchase the right to participate in this dance by paying a fairly large fee to each member of the preceding group, which was established four or five years earlier in the house of the same notable.
The age-based associations have become less important as more and more children attend school. In the early 1970s meetings were short and infrequent. But participation in the ke continued to be highly valued, and families helped their sons to pay the high fees required, even to persons who had migrated. There are also secret societies of men whose objectives are reputed to be malevolent. Members identify with an animal; the most noted of these are the leopard societies.
Very important is the mandjon, an association to which all males belong without payment of dues. Boys join at the age of twelve and transfer to the adult section when they reach eighteen. They must attend weekly meetings in the house of the subquarter's chief to discuss the public works ordered by either the fon or the central government officials. Mandjon members also collect the taxes within the subquarter, maintaining a treasury from which tax payments are made to the government of the fon when due.
Women, too, have their associations. Their own mandjon society is presided over by the mother of the fon. Its members help each other in their agricultural work. The most skillful cultivators are grouped in the mue su association, whose members also help each other in the field. Their insignia is the large knife that is used in clearing the land. In some Bamileke chiefdoms the mother of the fon, his first wife, and the wives of wealthy notables are joined in an association. They meet once a week to learn what tasks need to be accomplished, although they will not actually do the work themselves.
The Bamileke trace descent through the father's and the mother's lines, but affiliation through the former is far more visible and important. Patrilineal descent is tied intimately to sacrifices to ancestral spirits, to possession of skulls, and to inheritance. A chosen son inherits — along with the skulls of his ancestors — his father's title and property, as well as his duties of caring for the young, the old, and the sick. Members of a patrilineage tend to live close together. They are not very numerous because sons who are not chosen as heir found their own lineages. They sacrifice to the spirits of their fathers and grand-fathers but not those farther back in the lineage. Except in the line of the chosen heir, ties are thus cut in Bamileke society after the second generation.
Women perform the major share of agricultural work and thus play an important economic role in Bamileke society. The payments that a husband makes to her family upon marriage give him rights not only to his wife's offspring but also to the results of her labor. Marriage payments compensate the bride's family for the loss to her lineage of her procreative powers and for her considerable economic contribution.
Among the Bamileke there is a particular form of marriage called nkap, in which no marriage payments are made. Under this system, a girl is given by her father or legal guardian, who is known as tankap (father of the bridewealth), to a man who furnishes only some minor services and gifts but who receives rights to the woman only as a wife, not as a mother of his children. When his daughters are born, he cannot arrange their marriages or receive marriage payments. This right is reserved for the tankap, who may choose to give away his granddaughters under the same nkap system. He thus continually increases his capital stock of marriage wards.
The nkap institution gives enormous power to the fon, who may have as many as a hundred wives. Traditionally, fons have given their daughters in nkap marriage to their retainers in return for services rendered or to persons with whom they wished to establish an alliance. It has been estimated that in one instance a fon who ruled over approximately 20,000 people had 1,500 female wards and was linked through nkap marriage to most of his subjects.
A variety of other forces has driven many young Bamileke to emigrate. One important cause is the system of inheritance in which land is not divided among the children but goes instead to one chosen successor, who is the father's favorite but not necessarily the oldest son. The others have to depend on the good graces of the fon, who controls the allocation of land. In the past this tradition often led to armed incidents between neighboring chiefdoms over unused land. In recent times a high birth rate and dwindling land resources have often compelled the other sons to seek their fortunes elsewhere and have often led them to resent the authority of the traditional chiefs. Those who do not inherit include the children of notables, who may be quite numerous because of polygyny among the traditional upper social strata.
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
