Abstract
This article introduces the reader to central elements in Ferdinand de Saussure's linguistic theory. Saussure's focus on signifier and signified is applied to a historical context in order to analyse the worldview encounter and the religious change that took place when the Dii people met the Norwegian missionaries in northern Cameroon in the mid 20th century. Analyses of the Dii and missionary discourses show that they used the same theological key terms, but that these terms were understood rather differently by the two groups. Application of saussurian ideas related to the internal relationship between signs can help us understand why the missionaries used key theological terms to describe liberation from spiritual oppression, whereas the Dii first of all interpreted the Gospel (in a wide sense) as liberation from physical oppression.
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