In the event you decide you’d like to impress your friends with your knowledge of how people live in the NW Province of Cameroon….
TRADITIONAL RULERS (FONS – not the Fonz)
Every village in Cameroon has a traditional leader. In the NW Province, the leader is called a fon, and he (always a ‘he’) is incredibly well respected by the people both within and outside of his village. Fons carry a tremendous amount of power and influence, even with the political leaders here. There is typically one fon for each village, meaning that there are 9 in Santa alone (it’s actually much more complicated than that, but the details would only be of interest to someone living in the area).
Some things to remember next time you meet a fon:
- It is not acceptable to shake a fon’s hand. In fact, you will never see a person make physical contact with a fon, unless he initiates it. It is also not appropriate for a fon to eat in the same room as us common folk. At public gatherings, you won’t even see a fon being served food. Usually when mealtime comes around, they will just disappear, and reappear after the meal has finished.
- Some fons still believe it reasonable to take any woman they please as a wife. I’ve heard stories of how a fon would see a woman walking down the street, and simply lay claim to her. The woman would be taken to his palace, and a bracelet made of cowry shells would be placed on her wrist, which meant ‘hands off, this one belongs to His Majesty’. As you might guess, many women disapprove of this practice, although to be a wife of a fon is still considered a position of considerable esteem. Nevertheless, you will never see a fon’s wife out in public on her own.
- Fons don’t ‘die’, they just ‘disappear’. I was recently invited to a memorial for a fon and one of his more noble wives, both of whom had passed away a few years ago. The invitation notes the ‘missing’ of the fon, and the ‘death’ of his wife.
- People believe that fons are capable of turning into animals. When we hiked up Mount Lefo a few weeks ago, we were told not to kill a snake if it was crawling toward the village, because it could very well be a fon making his way home. Some people really know how to take the fun out of a hike. I recall my friend Celestina, a local Cameroonian, making the comment, “I don’t know if it’s really true, that they can change themselves into animals.” A doubter among us.
- Several fons from the slave era were actually involved in the trade. They would develop relationships with European and American slave traders, then would invade neighbouring villages to provide people to trade as slaves in exchange for various goods such as cloth and guns. This, of course, made the invaders richer, stronger and more capable of carrying out further invasions. Sad but true.
I realize some of what I’ve written may have painted an unfavourable picture of fons, but to be fair, many of them can be quite progressive in their mindset. Younger fons generally don’t take multiple wives, and some have obtained university degrees in Europe or America. Conversely, some are not well educated at all, and speak only their local tribal language and Pidgin. Most fons take a very strong interest in the well-being of their village, and actively participate in its development.
POLYGAMY
You may or may not have known that polygamy is legal, and widely practiced in Cameroon. It’s a sign of prestige, although the majority of polygamists are from the elder generation. It’s not just the fons who take multiple wives, although they are the only ones who can marry a woman without her consent. Most people my age have 3 or 4 ‘stepmothers’, and 25 to 30 siblings. Fons have the largest families, with some of them having 8 to 10 wives, and up to 70 children. Fons of past generations have had literally dozens of wives and hundreds of children. As you might guess, it’s the men who can take multiple wives, not the other way around, although I’m told there is a region in east Cameroon where the tradition is for women to take multiple husbands.
It seems that with each passing generation, the idea of polygamy is fading out. Most men in my age group have one wife and 7 or 8 children, and people younger than me have 3 or 4 kids, maximum, with no plans to have any more. I wonder to myself if the trend is due more to a function of finances than the phasing out of dated customs.
DEATH CELEBRATIONS
Death celebrations are a very big deal here. Upon one’s passing, there is the church funeral, then within a week or two, a traditional memorial, known as a Cry Die. To top it off, over the next several years, more memorials for the same person might be organized. I had to get used to people telling me that there’s a service for their mother who is of late, only to find out she died 10 years ago. People also say their sibling or parent just died, when there is no family relation at all. In fact, familial terms are very commonly used - many people here call me their brother or son, although I don’t really see the resemblance.
Cry Die celebrations typically involve the consumption of lots of alcohol, along with singing and dancing, and the traditional firing of guns to ensure that the soul of the deceased properly gets to the final resting place. It is usually the inebriated men that start with the guns. Then they say, “here, 5 year old kid, give this gun a try, it works most times…” These folks know how to party.
FORMALITIES
It took some time, but I have finally become accustomed to addressing my elders as ‘Mami’ and ‘Pa’. I no longer even notice when I use the terms. I’ve also gotten used to being called ‘Mista Eric’, ‘Uncle’, and of course, ‘White Man’. When I first got to Cameroon, I kept insisting to people that they drop the ‘Mista’. Too formal for my liking. They would smile back at me, and next time we met, would say, ‘Hi, Mista Eric!’ I figured out pretty fast that it’s not my place to try and alter local customs.
Another rather formal custom – names are not used here nearly as often as titles. When I first got here, I was knocking myself out trying to memorize names, only to discover that it is more appropriate to call people by their job titles, or simply, Pa, Madame, etc. Given my absentee memory, this is ok with me (my pal Frankie likes to tell the story of a fellow I’d met back in Calgary, whose name I’d forgotten later when we were talking about him. His name was Eric).
SONG & DANCE
We’ve all seen the stereotypes from films showing Africans breaking into song & dance. I can tell you, they are not stereotypes. Music is everywhere. Some western pop, but predominantly African music: pop, traditional, church choirs. It’s very common to hear people singing while they’re working, walking down the street, etc. What’s really amazing is that when an impromptu sing-along breaks out (at a community meeting, for example), people harmonize as though they’ve been rehearsing for the moment. What appeals to me so much is that none of what I’m seeing is a show set up for tourists; it’s simply people living their day-to-day lives, and entertaining one another.
Music definitely takes a different tone in people’s lives here, compared with at home. There’s no pretentiousness, no one thinking they have ‘superior’ taste in music, and most of all, as I said, it’s everywhere. I’ve yet to meet any local people who do not love to sing and dance.
LANGUAGE
In Canada, around 5% of the population is indigenous to the country. In Cameroon, more than 99% of the population is African, and almost all of them have been in the country for so many generations, one can only think of them as Cameroonian.
There are 24 distinct indigenous language groups, and about 280 languages in Cameroon. In the subdivision of Santa, there are 9 villages, each with its own dialect, and 3 distinct languages (or vice-versa; I can never figure out the difference between a language and a dialect). The official languages in Cameroon are English and French, although I find in the “Anglophone” NW Province that the first language people tend to speak is the local dialect. If they are not from the same village, they’ll speak Pidgin. English and French are more commonly used in more formal settings, or when one of us foreigners is around.
It’s possible to get by without speaking Pidgin, but it is kinda fun to learn. That, and many people from the elder generation don’t speak English. That would include the Day Watchman at the Santa Council, who is based just a few metres from my office, and loves to carry on long conversations with me….. in Pidgin. It is truly a hoot. I’ve suddenly started picking up the language in the last month or so, to which people here are responding, “Well done, Mista Eric, you’re learning to speak bad English!!”
The Far North Province is considered Francophone, and is the other province where VSO is active. One of my colleagues there was telling me about the language difficulties he faces. Many of the people he works with only speak their local tribal language (ie: no French or English), and many of them don’t even understand one another. At least a couple of interpreters are needed for larger meetings. I find it quite fascinating how these relatively small regions can have completely distinct languages from one another.
It’s quite interesting trying to explain to people here that most of us in Canada do not speak a local dialect; most languages in Canada have been ‘imported’ from other countries.
As an unrelated side note, it’s also interesting to see people’s reactions when I tell them that one can get arrested for drunk driving in Canada. More on law enforcement another time.
LAKE AWING
The Santa Council, where I work, is trying to find ways to promote Lake Awing as a ‘touristic’ destination. According to folklore, Lake Awing was once located adjacent to central Awing, but several years ago moved to the other side of Mount Lefo, which involved crossing a mountain range. It’s not clear why (I’ve asked a few people, and everyone seems to have a different answer), but it’s quite clear that the Awing people believe the whole lake just made its way over the mountain range. Works for me. It’s a shorter drive to the new location, anyway.
FINALE
I realize this entry will be of limited interest to many of you, so I apologize if you kinda faded out along the way. It seems my journal entries are consistently getting longer. It also just dawned on me that I’m not going to have anything to talk about when I go home a year from now. Y’all better have some good stories ready!!
Next time!!
eb
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