An Expression of Power, Unity and Faith Through Dance: The /Abine-mfor/ Fon’s Dance of the Bafut People in the Bamenda Grassfields of Cameroon (original) (raw)
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As objective, Bafut is a tribe that migrated as far back in the Seventieth Century from the Northern part of Cameroon via the Eastern Grassfields to Bamenda, found in the Western Grassfields today, North West Region of Cameroon. Actually, the Objective of this article seeks to show and explain some number of cultural dancing groups which among them is the Mbinfo'o known as the Fon dance that is always performed in an annual festival that comes up at the end of every year. More so, in the kingdom palace is found another dance called the Mandele dance usually performed and reserved just for the prince and princesses of the Village. Due to some changes these dances has experience evolutionary mutations thus giving their full flesh substances that has been admired internally and internationally hence bringing some advantages into the country and the society or tribe. As method, to better bring out this cultural heritage history, we concentrate very much on oral, and written sources that could best expound on these two mention dances. Also, it will be vital for us to say or give as result that, these dances have, as among, the several advantages, shown that the existed an interrelationship advantage as far as cultural festivals are concern in the Grassfields political, economic and socio-cultural domains and derived or has as importance to the entire country and the tribe itself. In this article it should be noted that some names of items and places has been spelled differently but all meaning the same.
Ritual Dance as Factor in African Communities: An Appraisal of Oyarore Salt Festival
Over the years, African ritual dances have been castigated as relics of our die-hard evil traditions. This is because people are either too scared or impatient to look deeply into these so-called devilish dances in order to ascertain what they really entail. African ritual dance which is mainly an offshoot of the traditional religion of our fathers, has suffered a major setback due to the advent of foreign religions-Christianity and Islam. There is no gainsaying the fact that, African dance; an esoteric art, is an embodiment of the totality of the African way of life. The aim of this paper therefore; using Oyarore Salt festival of the Alagon Keana people as a yardstick, is to create a new awareness for African ritual dances and also to highlight the numerous positive roles of ritual dance in the African society. This study collates its data using the Participant-observer method, in addition to several unstructured one-on-one interactions with some Alagon Keana elders who are considered to be custodians of the Alago culture. This study finds that Oyarore festival; especially its dance content, is indeed crucial to the well-being of the Keana people.
Celebrating the Past, Present, and Future: The Case of Odumu Music and Dance Among the Idoma People
Musicologist
Odumu music among the Idoma people in Nigeria has served historical, sociological and entertainment functions. Performed predominantly by male members of the society, female community members are allowed to participate in the dance as a mark of collective cultural identity and responsibility. Communality is a core community ethos among the Idoma which promotes individual expression within a wider communal space. This paper, therefore, examines Odumu musical performance from the angle of its socio-cultural significance as well as its reflection of anthropocentric impact in shaping the environment. In a specific sense, the paper aims to highlight the musical narrative of how the people have encountered and impacted their environment, and how such experience have shaped their cultural expressions using the instrumentality of traditional music and dance. The research adopted observations and interviews as field methods among the Idoma people as well as Odumu performers to obtain data fo...
Performance and Performativity in Pastoral Fulbe Culture
Helsingin yliopisto eBooks, 2003
Location of the Adamaoua Province and the Djerem Department in the Republic of Cameroon. 2 Migration route of Gaani. 3 Migration routes of Iisa and Hajara. ix graduate students and secretaries-in Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Helsinki for their collective support through all these years; writing this study could hardly have been possible without this support. I also want to thank the staff of the Department of Finnish and Cultural Research at the University of Joensuu for their understanding attitude as I struggled with revising and editing the final manuscript. Warm thanks go to Professor Erkki Sevänen who kindly provided me with the needed facilities for bringing this project to an end. Tero Koistinen helped me with compiling this book, and Varpu Heiskanen assisted in converting illustrations into printable form; I am grateful to both of them. I thank Kaisu Kortelainen and Matleena Pekkanen for giving a helping hand whenever I needed it. My dissertation project was mainly funded by the Academy of Finland in 1994-1997 as part of the project Changing Gender Relations in Three African Communities directed by Professor Karen Armstrong. Additional funding was provided by the Graduate School of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences, University of Helsinki, in 1997-1999. I also received a travel scholarship for a field trip to Cameroon in 1998 from the Scandinavian Institute of African Studies. In Cameroon I was privileged to have the opportunity to cooperate with many helpful people. I thank the staff of the Ministry of Scientific and Technical Research in Yaounde, especially Dr. Jean Blaise Nyobe, the research director, for providing me with a research permit in Cameroon. I thank the staff of Ngaoundere-Anthropos, a Cameroonian-Norwegian research program, for helping me with practical arrangements, and for inviting me to three of their seminars on cultures of the Adamaoua region, organised in Ngaoundere, Cameroon, in 1994-1995. Special thanks go to Professor Lisbeth Holtedahl and Mohammadou Djingui for their interest in my research project; their moral support was important in the course of my fieldwork. I am also grateful to Professor Saibou Nassourou, as well as to Professor Jean Louis Dongmo who was my Cameroonian supervisor during my fieldwork. I have also received help from several research assistants. I thank Magali Robert whose sad and untimely death I heard about while writing these lines. Mr. Robert, together with Tibiyea Philippe and Ngnandal Edouard, consulted materials stored in the National Archives in Yaounde for me; I am grateful for their valuable work. In addition, I thank Tibiyea Philippe for recording and transcribing part of the interviews, as well as for making me and my son feel at home in Cameroon. Ismaila Saidu, besides recording a few of the interviews, was my Fulfulde teacher; I thank him for his inspiring language lessons. I also appreciate the practical help of Miia Laurila at the preparatory phase of my fieldwork. 1 In this study I shall employ the terms "pastoral Fulbe" and "cattle Fulbe" (as well as "pastoralists" and "cattle herders") as synonyms, in order to differentiate the people studied from the "town Fulbe" or "village Fulbe" who, at an earlier phase in Fulbe history, gave up the pastoral way of life and shifted to various urban activities. Among themselves, the pastoral Fulbe call themselves "Fulbe ladde", "the Fulbe of the bush", while other people in Cameroon call them by the term "Mbororo". When speaking of individual Fulbe, I shall use the singular form "Pullo".
2005
Cameroonians essentialize their Bamiléké populations as highly disciplined, hard working, successful in commercial ventures, and exceptionally devoted to their traditions, qualities captured popularly in the phrase "le dynamisme bamiléké." Given that music is commonly regarded as an entertainment and pastime and thus perhaps as distracting from discipline and hard work, it comes as something of a surprise that traditional musical performance permeates village and urban life of a subgroup of the Bamiléké, the Ngiembɔɔn. In this study, I argue that musical performance in fact contributes to and is consistent with Bamiléké dynamism rather than detracting from it. To make this argument, I develop a model of reciprocal communication, which I apply to rural and urban contexts of musical performance. Through this exploration of the physical, musical, and social infrastructures undergirding Ngiembɔɔn communicative strategies, I show that musical performance does indeed invigorate Bamiléké culture, not only in affective arenas, but in economic and material areas as well. In particular, I argue that music powerfully mediates and energizes reciprocal communication with givers, enforcers, and protectors of traditional Ngiembɔɔn values and social structures, both living and dead. I further suggest that this musically invigorated communication creates physical and symbolic feedback resonance, thereby helping to perpetuate, strengthen, and extend le dynamisme bamiléké. Information on how to obtain a DVD containing the audio and video clips referred to in the dissertation is available by request: brian_schrag@sil.org
Traditional Arts and Socio-Cultural Changes: The Case of Bags in the Bamenda Grassfields of Cameroon
IJIRMPS, 2020
The bag like any other aspect of art is an important cultural heritage of every society. As Frank Boas puts it arts and man are inseparable, and that no society can exist without arts. In the Bamenda Grassfields, bag production is done by a few cultures and such activity performed absolutely by the men has been handed down from one generation to another with very little modification. In the pre-colonial days, traditional bags were produced with three major raw materials namely animal skin, fibre and a special fabric called ndop. But today, with the challenges of modernity, the traditional bags of the Bamenda Grassfieds is undergoing gradual modifications both in materials used in production and function. Despite these changes noticed in the manufacture as well as use of the traditional bag, this receptacle still fulfils its functions some of which are to store and carry objects. They are also used to provide healing to patients. Bags can also be used to portray the socio-political organisation of the Bamenda Grassfielders. They are elements of social stratification and cultural identity; they therefore have roles in politics, social, religion, economics and healing. Data for this research was carried using the qualitative as well as the quantitative methods and the information was analysed soon after the data collection was over.
Dances across the boundary: Banande and Bakonzo in the twentieth century
Journal of Eastern African Studies, 2009
Dances, songs and instrumental music are a meaningful element in the construction of identity and cultural boundaries. In many cases, and above all in situations of conflict, a specific repertory, or a song, a dance, an instrument can become the symbol of a nation or a region (just think of the Irish harp, the Catalan sardana, the Sardinian canti a tenores). On the other hand, music, which is a 'volatile' art, is more susceptible and open to crossfertilisation than other forms of expression. Through contact with the musics of other groups, social classes or people, far and near, musicians from every part of the world see opportunities to enrich and renew their art. In music, the concept of boundary is therefore questionable to say the least. As with many other experiences, music in this case reveals its functional and apparently contradictory duplicity. It is a communicative system that is able to favour both the isolation of individuals and peoples, and the sharing or even collectivisation of experiences. There may be countless reasons for moving forcefully in one direction or the other, and all of them can be located within the complex interstices of historic dynamics. For some decades now, in a period that is today defined even in cultural terms as post-colonial, ethno-anthropological studies have abandoned some assumptions that were characteristic of such disciplines at the outset. Amongst these was the idea that societies, particularly pre-industrial ones, with which contact was made during research activity, could be perceived and described as stable and immobile entities. Concepts such as cultural fluidity, "originary syncretism" 1 , continual renegotiation of identities, etc, have gradually become more pertinent and useful in understanding what happens in various parts of the world, together with a rediscovery of a diachronic approach to events. In this article, and using this perspective, a particular research experience, which has been carried out in the Rwenzori area since 1980s, will be analysed. The populations referred to, the Banande and Bakonzo, are settled around a boundary: first geographical (the two sides of the massif, the two shores of Lake Edward); and then political (the colonial and post-colonial border between Uganda and Congo). John Blacking in 'A Commonsense view of all Music' writes: Dance and song can be understood as primary adaptations to environment, with them, mankind can feel towards a new order of things and feel across boundaries, while with speech, decisions are made about boundaries. This is why, even in industrialized societies, the changing forms of music may express the true nature of the predicament of people before they have begun to express it in words and political action 2. formations, will all be useful clues in reconstructing a hypothetical history. This will, of course, be the history of the dances, of how they are considered, set within their system of customs and values, and of how they have evolved, indicating the differentiation between these two peoples, separated by the colonial border. At the same time, however, it aims to be the story of how groups of people define themselves through their dances and how, with these dances, they have come into contact with each other, with neighbouring peoples, with the colonial forces, and with the modernity that has been diffused by the media. As Curt Sachs said, among the various forms of art expression, dance is perhaps the most complete: it lives in the time and in the space. 3 Between musical expressions, dance is the most immediate. Song, in fact, in its logogenic forms, is mediated by verbal language which is semantically unequivocal; instrumental music is mediated by the technology of the instrument which forces one to build a relationship with an object; in dance, we are in the front line, revealing ourselves in our bodily dimension. Corporeal expressiveness is exalted in dance, but at the same time it is structured in organised and stereotyped ways, particularly in the socially shared dances, as is largely the case with the Banande and Bakonzo people whose songs and dances I will analyse. Studies in Anthropology and Sociology of dance claim that dance is undoubtedly the most culturally determined of the various ways that people demonstrate their bodily presence in the world. The natural limits of corporeity seem to be most severely tested particularly when dancing, and the gestural differences between one experience and another become more sophisticated at that level. 4 Dance, inasmuch as it is gestural expressiveness of a collective, organised and public sort, thus becomes one of the most direct means that a population or a group has of portraying itself. In studies on Africa, correct emphasis has very often been laid on the relationship between traditional dance and life experiences, both ordinary and extraordinary. Maurice Sonar Senghor, the founder and long-time director of the Theatre National "Daniel Serano" in Dakar, stated in a 1971 interview reported by Doris Green, that "before a dance can be created, an event or happening must occur". 5 In order for these events or gestures of everyday life to become dance, someone has to create original patterns of movement that come to be part of a new perception and portrayal of self. This process should be understood first and foremost from the point of view of its aesthetic motivations. The new dimension, the artistic one, can then proceed along autonomous paths of development, and give birth to different relationships with new facts and events, in a constantly renewable circuit. 6 These processes are, I believe, recognisable in the dances of every group of people, including the Banande and Bakonzo. The Ba-nande and the Ba-konzo speak the same language, have the same clans, and the same economic and family organisation. The two groups appear to stem from a single population, the 3 Sachs, Eine Welgeschichte des Tanzes: 21(Italian Edition) 4 See Hanna. To Dance is Human, Peterson Royce, Anthropology of dance, for the anthropological approach and Thomas, Dance, Modernity and Culture, for the sociological. We should also remember an aspect which will not be tackled in this essay: the codification of gestures makes dance one of the possible therapeutic paths for confronting psychic disorders. Its use is wellestablished in many traditional therapeutic practices throughout the world, including Africa, through dance therapy. There is also a reference in Lowen, The Language of the Body, with regard to how schizoid patients seek a response to their personality disorders in the rules of movement imposed by dance. 5 Green, Traditional dance:14. 6 For a (post-colonial) aesthetic perspective in approaching the history of African dance and its Afro-American offshoots, see Welch-Asante (ed), African Dance. 11 Czekanowski, Carnet de route au coeur de l'Afrique : 154. 12 "In their tales, became a true paradise." Id.. 13 Kambale Wilson, head of the Kasese school district (Uganda), interviewed in August 2007. 14 The need for a monarchy to be recognised intensified after the republican government of Uganda decided, in 1993, to reinstate the ancient kingdoms, attributing to them even some prerogatives regarding the administration of the territory and, above all, the management of their cultural heritage. The kingdoms recognised were the four main ones: ganda, nyoro, toro, ankole. For information on the Rwenzururu Movement rebellion, see Stacey, Tribe, and Cooke, Doornbos, Rwenzururu Protest Songs. 15 Charles Mumbere was in exile for many years in the USA. 16 Katya Aganatya, interviewed in August 2007.
African Musicology Online, 2021
In most cultures of the world, indigenous cultural dances do communicate non-discursively. The meanings thereof are usually culture bound hence need an individual with the cultural background knowledge of the dance in question to be able to understand the communication behind the dance. With a focus on kamabeka dance, the main objective of this study was to interpret the meanings embedded in the non-discursive communication of kamabeka cultural dance of Babukusu community of Bungoma County, Kenya. This is a step towards dissemination of African knowledge to the global village since currently is saturated with western knowledge. The study was guided by the theory of semiotics and communication by Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz (1993). The target population comprised 25 kamabeka dance troupes and 25 kamabeka dance troupe leaders who were purposively selected pursuant to the data obtained from the register in the ministry of culture and sports in Bungoma County. However only 8 out of 25 dance troupes which accounts for 30% were selected for logistical convenience. Only 11 out of 25 leaders were sampled owing to a point of saturation which was reached by the 11 th respondent. This accounted for 44% of the total population. Data collection methods comprised interviews, participant and non-participant observation. Data collection instruments and tools comprised interview schedules for dance troupe leaders and observation schedules for dance live performances, field notebook and a tape/video recorder and still photographs. Recorded videos of kamabeka dances were also obtained for analysis. Qualitative data obtained was organized in topics of discussions analyzed descriptively and presented in prose and photographs. It is hoped that the findings of this study shall, provide resource material for reference and beef up the existing pool of knowledge as well as stimulate further research in the area of ethnomusicology and related disciplines.
SARARI JOURNAL, 2021
This study will examine the multifaceted essence of dance in Africa using the Berom dance of Plateau State as a case study. Every culture all over the world has its own traditional dance form, thereby occupying a central place in all cultures globally. Traditional African dances not only serve as signifiers of cultural identity but also as a means of healing and dance is very important to African culture. In this paper the Berom dance will be used majorly to portray the position of dance in the African Society. This study has its major source of data collation from the descriptive, interview, and Analysis methods. The descriptive talking about the total way of life of the Berom people which includes their occupations, their environment, their costumes, their Musical instruments, and dances as culture reflector. The analytical method will be used for the articles and materials for this study. The interview method involves an interview with a dancer in Arts and Culture Plateau State while other sources include literary works including; books, journals from general library, the internet coupled with photographs.