Section 1

In what follows I attempt to give a fair and accurate answer to thequestion "do the Mambila have ancestors?" My initial responceis a proposition which borders on sophistry: that Mambila have andhad ancestors but not an ancestor cult. In the text which followsI try to explain why I have arrived at this conclusion, and I exploresome of the problems of historical reconstruction. When dealing witha system which lacks a clearly defined centre there is a not inconsiderableproblem of how to characterise peripheral beliefs. This is relatedto the problem, in these situations, of distinguishing between thefrequency of events and their salience or importance. Rarely performedrituals may be of the utmost importance (the Dogon having some ofthe most extreme examples of this), and frequent, mundane observancesmay not be of great significance to the actors. This raises problemsof hermeneutics, which, of course, are never far from the anthropologicalstudy of religion. The question is how we are to assess the significanceof actions, how to present a set of beliefs and claim that some aremore important or salient than others. So, to take a Mambila example,most Mambila are regular churchgoers and make Christian prayers beforemeetings of rotating credit societies as well as sometimes beforeeating. For all this, my research has left me convinced that therites and practices concerned with suàgಠare of far greater importancethan Christianity, despite the greater frequency and regularity ofChristian practice. The methodological challenge is to make explicitthe basis for this assessment, and with this we must confront someof the classic problems of hermeneutics.

Returning to the problem of ancestors Fortes (1965:124) draws on Gluckman(1937) to distinguish between ancestor worship and 'mere'cults of the dead. "In many countries there is a cult of thedead which is not a cult of the ancestors, since no tendence is paidto a line of ancestors." (Gluckman 1937:129) According to theseanthropological avatars Mambila may be said to have no ancestors,but a cult of the dead. However, Gluckman also gives this definitionof an ancestral cult: "If an ancestral cult may be defined asthe belief in the continued interference of ancestral ghosts in theaffairs of their living kin and continual ritual behaviour by thelatter to the former." (125 ) This seems to imply that Mambilacould be held to have ancestors but no ancestor cult. Indeed, itmay be best to avoid the term ancestor and simply talk of the dead. However, this does not help with the problem of peripherality.

Rather than discussing analytic definitions³ I wish to present theavailable evidence for Mambila ancestors and their attitude to thedead. Questions of definition may arise in the discussion of thisevidence.

Mambila

The Mambila live on both sides of the Nigeria-Cameroon border, mostof them on the Mambila Plateau in Nigeria. A smaller number (c. 12,000)live in Cameroon, especially at the foot of the Mambila Plateau escarpment,on the Tikar Plain. My fieldwork has been conducted mostly in Cameroon,and in particular in the village of Somié in Adamawa Province. Somié had a population of approximately one thousand (basedon the official 1986 tax census) at the time of my fieldwork. Self-sufficientin food, the villagers have grown coffee as a cash crop since theearly 1960s. The main language spoken in the village is Mambila,a Mambiloid language of the Benue-Congo family. Many people underthe age of forty have had a primary education and speak some French. Fulfulde, a local lingua franca, is also widely spoken. Marriageis viripatrilocal, and is increasingly on the basis of courtship,although the provision of bridewealth is still a major factor.

Cameroonian Mambila on the Tikar Plain have adopted the Tikar institutionof the chiefship, yet their social structure otherwise closely resemblesthat described for the Nigerian village of Warwar by Rehfisch (1972)based on fieldwork in 1953. Nigerian Mambila did not have the sametype of institutionalized chiefship as is found in Cameroon. In Nigeriavillages were organised on gerontocratic principles, and largely lackedpolitical offices. The system of exchange marriage described by Rehfisch(1960) has now vanished, and with it the two sorts of named groupwhich recruited through different combinations of descent, marriagetype (exchange or bridewealth) and residence. Most people in thevillage are members of either the Catholic or Protestant church. However both men's and women's masquerades are still performed,and cases heard at the Chief's palace are regularly concluded witha ritual oath (suàgà, see below).

Summary

A hunter shot an antelope. He shot a poisoned arrow intoits back. It fled into the bush. He took a spider⁴ and put it in his hatso it could show him the way.
"Look! There's a hoof print. Go this way."
The antelope entered the ground. The spider told the hunter to goto a clump of elephant grass and to open it up. He did, and saw abig road going down into the ground. He entered and followed thepath to a big village. He entered the village and was greeted bysome people sitting under a granary.
"Welcome"
"How are you?"
"Fine."
"Why have you come?"
"I'm looking for my antelope."
He came to the chief's palace, where again he was asked whathe was doing.
"I'm looking for an animal which I shot."
"Is this the arrow?" he was asked, pulling an arrow fromthe roof.
"Yes, that is it."
"You have shot my sheep."
Then he was asked "How did you get here?" "Who showedyou the road?" "Are you alone?"
"Yes."
"Are you alone?"
"Yes."
"Lies! Take off your hat!"
And there was the spider.
"Did the spider show you the road?"
"Yes."
"From now on the spider will not talk. For the antelope is thesheep of the ancestors. It will live in the ground and it will communicateonly with divination cards through divination. Now go."
The hunter followed the road back out, shut the clump of grass andcame back home. The spider talked no more.

Tuning next to linguistic evidence, there appears to be no word forancestor in Mambila. The word used for personal spirit is càng. The principal focus of this word as the creator of the world andeverything in it. (The word generally used for creation (meè)is the verb for house building and potting). It is commonly heldthat Càng decides what will happen, andthat people cannot avoid this⁵. For example, the standardresponse on hearing of a death is to say Càng néten (Càng PRES. exists). Theword "Càng" has been adoptedby the Christians as the translation of "God" and this hasbeen continued both by M. Perrin, a S.I.L. linguist, and by the localCatholic clergy.

There seems to have been no way of interceding with Càngprior to contact with world religions. Although the incorporationof the Mambila into a modern state has widened their perspective theyhave not developed any indigenous cult of Càngbut have adopted world religions⁶.

The other focus of Càng is as personalspirit, usually occurring in the expression càngmò (càng mine), meantin a similar sense to the Christian notion of spirit⁷. ⁸On death the spirit (càng)leaves the body and is then banished from the house into the bush. In the bush is Càng tandalu. Some people hold that this comprises the spirits of all the dead,others understand by it the spirits of dead witches and other malefactorsalone. In the latter case there follows the question of what happensto the spirits (càng) of good people. It is unclear whether illness when it is (was) attributed to theeffect of the dead was seen as being caused by good or bad dead people. The question seems germane since the resulting ritual action wasto drive the spirit away into the bush, just as occurs after death(see below).

The dead may be referred to with the phrase càngbò tèlè beèh. This is tantalisinglyambiguous in that it can mean either the (one) spirit of our fathers,or it may be taken to have an omitted initial plural and hence tomean the spirits of our fathers.

Names and Talking about the dead.

One of the problems in doing genealogical research among the Mambilais that names are recycled. Many people, particularly firstborn arenamed for grandparents. A child born soon after the death of a seniorkinsperson is likely to be given their name. There are no firm rulesfor this, many people have "new names" invented by a parentor other kin to fit particular circumstances surrounding their birth(see Zeitlyn 1990c). Mambila do not say that anything more than thename is recycled. Personal spirits (càng)are individual and are not reborn in different bodies.

A further problem in doing genealogical research is that people,particularly older people are reluctant to name the dead. No reasonsare given for this reserve and it is far from a strictly observedprohibition. For example, while it is impolite to ask someone thename of their dead parent, there is no problem about asking a bystander,or of uttering the name oneself. Moreover, these very names may beused as oaths, on a model with "In the name of God" whichis a popular (common) Mambila expletive.

For an example, in the short text below, Sarah tells off her neighbourJack (the names have been changed) whose dog had once again raidingSarah's kitchen. This was tape-recorded in my absence one eveningwhen Sarah, like most of the population of the village had been drinkingin the course of a funeral. The names of her parents are in bold.

Sarah; Jack, mì sum bú ka la sâ sum.	Sarah; Jack I threw it out
Bor bú hen mì sum bú sum,	This dog, I threw it out
mì gwan nggweh.	I don't want it.
Genyi bò Ma	Genyi and Ma
Wò makam hen nâ,	You, with this old woman,
wò nde, wò yuo gùò, wò so man, wò cher,	you go, you leave the house, you pass the day, you sleep
wò nde jumu ko, bò húán mani	you go behind with small children.
Wò yeh sér.	You eat fufu.
More good humoured sexual insult followed (Extract from Transcript book 5, p 42/3).

Rites

Apart from funerals the most important rituals which I wish to considerare the pouring of beer on a parent's grave and the summoningof dead spirits to address a family group.

By contrast to many other groups in Cameroon Mambila do not have askull cult. The principle exceptions to this statement are that theskulls of dead chiefs are removed and kept in a special skull house. This, however, like the institution of the chieftaincy, is a borrowingfrom the neighbouring Tikar, dating from the end of the last century.

It should also be noted that the skulls of some men who were prominentin the lom cult were removed and placed in tree forksin the forest. I have not succeeded in, discovering whether theseskulls received any ritual treatment, nor much about the lomcult itself. This was a masquerading association since it is saidto have had an enclosure like that of the men's suàgàmasquerade which is still active. I could find no one who had participatedor even witnessed the lom rites. However, I suspectit to have been a witchcraft eradication society. Such societiesdid exist in the area: I have documented the existence of two suchmovements one in about 1916 and the other immediately preceding theSecond World War. In particular it should be noted that lomis cognate with the word for witch in some Grassfield languages (e.g.Bali, and Mbili see Chilver and Kaberry 1974:12 &63).

Furthermore, in Atta village there was a rite called cok,in which the skulls of people owning particular treatments (nuarleh) are removed within two years. If it is not performedmen of the family were held to suffer impotence (bùyeh tare nggweh suú). This appears to have beena rite done by women for men. Other informants held that it shouldbe done for all senior people (nuar kuú).

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