Illness or other bad events are not held to be the results of ancestralintervention, although it is allowed as a possibility (see above). A corollary of this is that sacrifices are not made to the dead inorder to avert their malign influence. Nor are they approached tointercede with or to supervent the actions of other deities. Thedead are not individuated nor are there shrines dedicated to particulargroups of ancestors. Beer when spilt is said to be given to the thedead but it is not routinely poured on the ground at the beginningof a beer drink as occurs elsewhere in Africa (see eg Karp 1980) andin Cameroon.

This contrasts with Bamiléké explanations of illnessas described by Pradelles (1986). According to him ancestors areconsidered as the causes of illness, and are often diagnosed as suchin divination. However, this does not give rise to specific actsto remove/appease the diagnosed causes. Pradelles takes this to bea counter-example of Horton's CPE model of African TraditionalReligion.

Rehfisch also noted (1972:118) that "near this central point[of the courtyard] one often finds small shrines composed of threestones: it is one these that medicines are cooked. ... Meek reportsthat these stones are said to represent the ancestors. I found nosubstantial ground for this. My informants said that the stones wereneither symbols of the dead nor of anything else."

The first food of a meal should be thrown to the ground. A lump offufu (maize porridge) is broken off by the eldest present, touchedto the sauce and thrown to the ground (by men). Women do the samething but throw it onto the firestones or behind the hearth. Thiswas only done by seniors, never by juniors, even if they are eatingalone. It is rarely, if ever, done nowadays. I never saw it doneunprompted during any meal except during certain ritual meals wherethe practise was somewhat different: two pieces of food were taken,one thrown over the shoulder and the other thrown into the fire. I am uncertain whether this relates to the dead or whether it shouldbe more related directly to ritual eating. Perhaps, like eating fromboth hands, it serves to mark ritual food as being different frommundane nourishment. I suspect that it is a ritual elaboration ofthe unmarked everyday offering which, as has been said, is no longerpractised. When asked about these practices Mambila people told methat it was given to càng. When I askedwhich sort of càng I was told càngbò tèlè, the dead.

The problem with any discussion of the Mambila dead is how to correctly,accurately characterise their unimportance. How can I concentrateupon and discuss them and still be able to emphasise their marginality?

It is very likely that in the last thirty years they have become lessimportant but I do not believe they were ever more than of secondaryimportance. They may have been referred to as a possible source ofillness when siblings were known to have quarrelled or invoked anonymouslyto bring the Good to the village.Further to this, when beer is pouredon parental graves blessings are invoked for everyone not just forthe immediate sibling set. Blessings are seen to come from MgbeCàng rather from càngbò tèlè (in so far as one can maintainthe distinction), although dameh with its orientationto càng bò tèlèmay refute this. It is a question of emphasis: which is more important,to repulse the bad, or to attract the good?

Tentative conclusion

The set of practices in Somié is consistent with an elaborateand important ancestor cult. This possibility has not been exploitedby Mambila in seeking to lead and manage their lives. The resultis that ancestors appear as peripheral entities which may be appealedto or invoked in oaths, but do not play a major part in peoples lives.

Illness is treated, and may give rise to rituals to remove witchcraftor the malign influence of the dead. All I can do is to repeat thatwhile witchcraft is held to cause much illness ancestral influenceis rarely given as the explanation of an illness (I know of no cases). While this state of affairs prevails I persist in saying that theMambila dead lack a cult.

The question at issue becomes one of how to accurately represent anexus of belief and action which is largely potential, but one whosepossibility has scarcely been realised.

If, as is possible, the contemporary situation results from a demisein importance of the Mambila dead then one must attempt to find possibleagents of change. None of the changes which can be documented areparticularly relevant to a demise in an ancestor complex. This isparticularly so in the regional context in which the dead play a moreprominent role among the immediate neighbours of Mambila. Hence Iam led to assume that the Mambila dead were never of great importance.

What I have done here is to collect together a set of observationto do with death and ancestors. In concluding we must remember thatMambila are not wont to reflect in an abstract fashion upon such generalisationsas may be made about their lives. What then are we, as analysts securein our armchairs, to make of this? A one sentence summary may bethat Mambila have ancestors but no ancestor cult, but some of thepractices outlined above probably constitute a (weak) reverence ofthe dead. Perhaps it may be better to attribute an ancestor cultwith no ancestors!

Discussing change we have to remember the context in which this hasoccurred. The last 100 years have seen the Mambila raided for slaves,the installation of a puppet chief and the FulBe domination replacedby colonial regimes which sanctioned the continued giving of tributein kind and in humankind almost until the time of Independence.

During this time the Christianity Church began to be adopted by somepeople. Islam has only become an important factor since independenceas memories of the FulBe slave raids fades and the identificationof Islam with FulBe becomes less opprobrious. Indeed the importanceof Islam among Cameroonian Mambila on the Tikar Plain has greatlyincreased in the last five years since large numbers of Nigerian Mambilahave moved into Cameroon. Islam appears to be more widespread amongNigerian Mambila which may be an effect of the large numbers of cattleowning FulBe who have been more or less permanently on the MambilaPlateau since the late 1950's.

I have found it particularly hard to get good data about how the relativeimportance of different rites has changed. The subsequent questionof how any such changes may have led to changes in the rites themselvesis correspondingly harder still. As I proposed in my doctoral thesis(1990) my impression is that Mambila Traditional Religion has becomesomewhat simplified, and in so doing suàgàhas come into a position of dominance which it may not have once held. Suàgà names a complex combinationof masquerades and ritual oath. It is noteworthy that this particularcombination appears to be distinctive to the Mambila. Neighbouringgroups have masquerades with cognate names but lack the tie with ritualoath taking which is found in Mambila.

The Mambila masquerade (in Cameroon at least) has itself simplified:where once there were many different sorts of suàgàmasquerades there is now only one type in use. I should also stressthe Somi-centric view which is being presented. Since every villagedisparages their neighbours as being incorrect and as I have not participatedin enough rites in other villages I refrain from comparisons at thispoint.

Suàgà has assumed centrality at the expenseof at least one other masquerade society (lom). Medicine societies have also been reported in Warwar village (Nigeria)in the early 1950's. It seems plausible to suppose that as wellas these ancestors have suffered at suàgà'sexpense. It may well have once been more common to attribute illnessto the actions of càng bòtèlè. Dreams of the dead may have been morecommon than they are now.

So what I suggest is that the weakness, unimportance, peripheralityof the Mambila dead does not fully result from 100 years of changeof Mambila Religion which has seen both the total incorporation ofa chief with a skull cult and the lessening the power of both chiefand other village level authorities at the expense of precolonialpolitical and independent external authorities. Even in the lastcentury, although the dead may have been more prominent than theyare at present, comparison with other groups to the north and to thesouth leaves me convinced of the continued unimportance of the Mambiladead.

Ancestors, elders and literature

I have found more relevance in a paper by Jack Glazier describingMbeere changes in belief and action due both to prohibitions in traditionalfunerary practices (exposure of the corpse in the bush) and changesin land tenure (the introduction of individual titles to land). Intriguingly,Glazier is describing a set of changes in which the importance ofancestors is increasing. It seems appropriate on the strength ofhis account to say that Mbeere lacked ancestors at the beginning ofthis century and that they now have them. On the Nigerian side ofthe border land titles have been introduced and Mambila appear tohave been systematically excluded from landholding¹⁴. However, peopleare not buried in the bush and the existence of graves is not a partof the process of demonstrating a legitimate claim to title as occursamong the Mbeere (qv Glazier). Glazier discusses the developing importanceof Mbeere ancestors. The issue which must be tackled when discussingMambila ancestors is the problem of peripherality.

When analysing the Mambila suàgà complex(which is central to Mambila thought and ritual life) I stressed thevagueness of the concept. Such inchoate concepts may by virtue oftheir lack of precision be powerful and important elements in a conceptualscheme, appearing to unify and simplify. Their use as explanatoryand organising principles does not raise questions of definition. The notion of essentially contested concepts (Gallie, 1956; Alison,1984) may be helpful here.

Vagueness at the centre is different in kind from peripherality. A peripheral notion may itself be clear and precise. The importance,the salience or the centrality of a concept is independent of theprecision with which that concept is defined. And let me here remarkthat occasional performance does not in itself imply that the rites(and their related concepts) are unimportant. Mambila rites are infrequent,and I believe, unimportant. My unease at making such a claim motivatesthis paper.

Gombrich (1971) discussing Sri Lankan Buddhism makes a distinctionbetween cognitive and affective beliefs. For Gombrich cognitive beliefsare those which are stated by the actors, whereas affective ones maybe read as implicit in action. Gombrich uses the example of a lapsedCatholic crossing themself in a moment of crisis or an Anglican refusingto sleep in a haunted house to illustrate affective beliefs (respectivelyin Christianity and the existence of ghosts).

Is this the best way of seeing it? Once again we come back to thecentral problem of characterising Mambila thought... Were we to adoptGombrich's distinction we would have to assign Mambila religiousbelief as being affective. Unlike Sri Lankan Buddhists Mambila lacktheologians and scriptures.

Southwold's discussion of Buddhism tackles the same issue. Southwoldproposes to separate instrumental from "sapiental" thought. Instrumental action is the familiar goal-means-action approach inwhich a degree rationality is assumed in that actions are presumedto be intended and goal orientated. We tend to think of a problemof some sort. How can it be overcome? Action results from the answersto that question. The sapiental alternative is to act on oneselfrather than the world, moving the goalposts rather than achievingone's goal. Southwold argues that for this type of thought ritualis prior to belief (as Robertson-Smith held). What is misleadingabout the rituals is that they may be justified or explained in an"instrumentalist idiom". He does not, however, succeedin explaining how we can distinguish actual instrumentalism from mereidiom. Once again, however, the concern is to explain something whichis of central importance. Gombrich's example of the lapsed Catholiccrossing themself in a moment of crisis is a good example. Imaginesomeone who, for the sake of argument, leaves the catholic churchand becomes a Buddhist. Their explicit statements to friend and anthropologistsclearly imply that they "believe" in Buddhism (see Southwoldand Gombrich for the problems entailed by this). Faced by some unexpecteddisaster or threat of crisis they are observed to cross themselves. Gombrich takes this to mean that they still "affectively"believe in Christianity (whatever that is). A cynic may say thatthe legacy of Catholic schooling runs deep and that this may reallybe a conditioned reflex and no more. That aside, the problems raisedby this are, I think, comparable to those of Mambila ancestors.

Beliefs/attitudes or lesser rituals which lie on the periphery areof interest as such. They provide clues to directions of change bothforward (qv Horton on water spirits and the coming of oil) and back(reconstructions of earlier forms of a religion). In the Mambilacase we are left with tantalising signs in the mention made of thelom rite and the treatment of skulls¹⁵. The dead were oncemore prominent than they are now. Their graves were treated by thepouring of beer more often then now, and their spirits were summonedto help resolve crises within a family group. Yet, for all this Iremain convinced that it would be inappropriate to characterise Mambilapractice towards the dead as constituting an ancestor cult.

Càng tandalu is far in the bushand best left there.

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