DESIGNING WOMEN, CAMEROON

Abstract

The Dowayos are a montagnard people numbering some 15,000 and living in the Poli prefecture of North Cameroon. They speak a language that has been classed as Niger‐Congo. Culturally and linguistically, they subdivide themselves into highland and lowland groups, though the distinction is hard to maintain. Dominated as they are by Muslim Fulani groups, there are two paths to modernity: Islamicization or Christianity—though many young people hold fast to the traditional ancestral cult. Subsistence is based on the cultivation of millet but men hunt and keep cattle. There are specialist (unclean) male smiths and female potters as in other parts of West Africa, but other specialist groups also exist, such as “true cultivators” and “hunters” who have to observe numerous prohibitions.Groups of brothers tend to herd and live together; and geographical distance is often an approximate measure of kin propinquity. A man's foremost friends will be drawn from among those he was circumcised with, a woman's from the girls who began menstruating in the same year as herself. Chiefs were imposed by the French colonial authorities but traditionally the important people were rich men who could organize expensive festivals. Poorer people could associate themselves with these and so fulfill otherwise impossible ritual obligations. Above all other powers were the chiefs of the rain and the earth who organized the annual cycle and controlled the weather and the crops.