Abstract
This article argues that libation, often associated with the ancestors, artefacts, images and pre-Christian religious devotions, constitutes sources for articulating authentic African cultural history of Obang community in the Northwest Region of Cameroon. It highlights that among traditional memory carriers, the ritual of libation remains trust worthy and pervasive, even among communities challenged by globalisation and colonising effects of Christianity. The article demonstrates the immense potentials of libation as an epitome and stabiliser of cultural memory, and a maxim in cultural resilience in contemporary Africa. Thus, the article calls for revisiting this ancient ritual to expose its potentials as a veritable memory repertoire in cultural–historical studies, especially at a time when social change and modernism continue to challenge the memories of traditional societies.
Highlights
Traditional African perspectives on history and historical records are unique in a variety ways
It has been demonstrated that libation is so broad to the extent that no single perspective can box it
Different communities and different occasions direct the significance that may be attached to the practice of libation
Summary
Traditional African perspectives on history and historical records are unique in a variety ways. Among the people of Obang, the community’s participation during libation brings together their collective and cultural memory, instils in them a sense of their common heritage and unites them in an unbroken historical and cultural relationship with the environment and people, past and present. The most common objects among the people of Obang which automatically bring libation and related memories to mind include bags, cups, calabashes, clay pots and so on Even when they are no longer in use, such objects contained certain memories that expedite remembrance of a past event. Like in other parts of Cameroon, among the people of Obang, the guardians of cultural artefacts, traditional stools, royal tombs and cups must know their history and in a coherent manner recall the ancestors through whom the item descended. Even without uttering a word, memory is refreshed and history recollected by just seeing the objects
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