Christianity and the proliferation of ancestors: Changes in hierarchy and mortuary ritual in the Cameroon grassfields

Africa

Volumn 75, Issue 3, 2005, Pages 356-377

  Jindra, Michael ^a  

^a SPRING ARBOR UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CULTURE; MORTALITY; RELIGION; TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE; TWENTIETH CENTURY;

AFRICA; CAMEROON; EASTERN HEMISPHERE; SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA; WEST AFRICA; WORLD;

EID: 27544474261     PISSN: 00019720     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.3366/afr.2005.75.3.356     Document Type: Article

References (81)

1. Argenti, Nicolas. 1996. 'The Material Culture of Power in Oku, Northwest Province, Cameroon'. Ph.D. dissertation in Social Anthropology. University College, London.
2. Ateh, J. M. 1992. 'Family Burial Ground in Kom and Judeo-Christian Traditions'. Thesis. St Thomas Aquinas Major Seminary, Bambui.
3. Baeke, Viviane. 1987. 'Sur les berges de la rivière: le monde d'où viennent les hommes', Civilisations 37 (2): 215-27.
4. Baeke, Viviane. 1995. 'Wuli Witchcraft', Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford 26 (1): 21-41.
5. Banadzem, Joseph Lukong. 1996a. 'Death, afterlife, and funerary rituals in Nso': practice and belief in a changing society', in Bongfen Chem-Langhëë, V. Fanso, Miriam Goheen and E. Chilver (eds), Nso' and Its Neighbors: readings in social history. Amherst MA: Amherst College; Yaounde: Department of History, University of Yaounde.
6. Banadzem, Joseph Lukong. 1996b. 'Catholicism and Nso' traditional beliefs', in Ian Fowler and David Zeitlyn (eds), African Crossroads: intersections between history and anthropology in Cameroon. Providence RI and Oxford: Berghahn Books.
7. Baumann, H., and L. Vajda (eds). 1959. 'Bernhard Ankermanns Völkerkundliche Aufzeichnungen im Grasland von Kamerun, 1907-1909', Baessler-Archiv NF 7 (2): 217-307.
8. Blakely, Thomas D., Walter E. A. van Beek, and Dennis L. Thomson (eds). 1994. Religion in Africa: experience and expression. Portsmouth NH: Heinemann; London: J. Currey.
9. Bloch, Maurice, and Jonathan Parry (eds). 1982. Death and the Regeneration of Life. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.
10. Boon, James A. 1987. 'Anthropology, ethnology and religion', in Micrea Eliade (ed.), Encyclopedia of Religion. New York: Macmillan.
11. Bradshaw, Bruce. 2002. Change Across Cultures: a narrative approach to social transformation. Grand Rapids MI: Baker Academic.
12. Carpenter, F. W. 1933. 'Intelligence report on the Mbaw, Mbem and Mfumte areas, hitherto jointly known as the Kaka-Ntem area of the Bamenda Division of the Cameroons Province, by Mr F. W. Carpenter, Asst. District Officer'. Cameroon National Archives, Buea.
13. Chilver, E. M. 1988. 'Some notes on alternative therapies and thaumaturgies in Bali Nyonga in the "sixties"'. Paper presented at the conference on Ethnomedical Systems in Sub-Saharan Africa, 1-4 June, Leiden.
14. Chilver, E. M. 1990. 'Thaumaturgy in contemporary traditional religion: the case of Nso' in mid-century', Journal of Religion in Africa 20 (3): 226-247.
15. Chilver, E. M. 1992. 'Bali-Nyonga: brief notes on spirits, divinity and occult powers (1960, 1963)'. Unpublished manuscript.
16. Chilver, E. M., and P. M. Kaberry. 1968. Traditional Bamenda: the precolonial history and ethnography of the Bamenda Grassfields. Buea: Ministry of Education and Social Welfare and West Cameroon Antiquities Commission.
17. De Vries, Jacqueline. 1998. Catholic Mission, Colonial Government and Indigenous Response in Kom (Cameroon). Leiden: African Studies Centre.
18. De Witte, Marleen. 2001. Long Live the Dead! Changing funeral celebrations in Asante, Ghana. Amsterdam: Aksant Academic Publishers.
19. De Witte, Marleen. 2003. 'Money and death: funeral business in Asante, Ghana', Africa 73 (4): 531-59.
20. Diduk, Susan. 1987. 'The Paradox of Secrets'. Ph.D. dissertation. Department of Anthropology, Indiana University.
21. Diduk, Susan. 1993. 'Twins, ancestors and socio-economic change in Kedjom society', Man NS 28: 551-71.
22. Dillon, Richard G. 1990. Ranking and Resistance: a precolonial Cameroonian polity in regional perspective. Stanford CA: Stanford University Press.
23. Doh, Emmanuel Fru. 1990. 'Funeral Poetry in the Bamenda Grassfields (Cameroon)'. Ph.D. dissertation. Department of English, University of Ibadan.
24. Emonts, Johannes. 1927. Ins Steppen- und Bergland Innerkameruns. Aus dem Leben und Wirken deutscher Afrikamissionare. Aachen: Xaveriusverlag.
25. Engard, Ronald K. 1986. 'Bringing the Outside In: commensality and incorporation in Bafut myth, ritual, art and social organization'. Ph.D. dissertation. Department of Anthropology, Indiana University.
26. Fardon, Richard. 1990. Between God, the Dead and the Wild: Chamba interpretations of religion and ritual. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press; Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.
27. Fomuso, H. B.-F. n.d. 'Sacrifice Among the Bali-Nyonga in Mezam Division'. Thesis. Protestant Theological College, Yaounde.
28. Fortes, Meyer. 1965. 'III. Ancestor worship' (in 'Part one: general review of the discussions') and 'V. Some reflections on ancestor worship in Africa' (in 'Part two: special studies'), in Meyer Fortes and Germaine Dieterlen (eds), African Systems of Thought. London: Oxford University Press.
29. Gabbert, Wolfgang. 2001. 'Social and cultural conditions of religious conversion in colonial southwest Tanzania, 1891-1939', Ethnology 40 (4): 291-308.
30. Geary, Christraud. 1986. 'Burying "mothers of crops": funerals of prominent women in Weh (Cameroon Grassfields)'. Paper presented at African Studies Association meetings.
31. Goheen, Miriam. 1996. Men Own the Fields, Women Own the Crops: gender and power in the Cameroon Grassfields. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
32. Gray, Richard. 1990. Black Christians and White Missionaries. New Haven CT: Yale University Press.
33. Greenfield, Sidney M., and André Droogers (eds). 2001. Reinventing Religion: syncretism and transformation in Africa and the Americas. Lanham MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
34. Gufler, Hermann. 2000. '"Crying the death": rituals of death among the Yamba', Anthropos 95: 349-61.
35. Hastings, Adrian. 1994. The Church in Africa: 1450-1950. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
36. Hawkesworth, E. G. 1922. 'Assessment report on the Banso District, Bamenda Division'. Cameroon National Archives, Buea.
37. Hawkesworth, E. G. 1926. 'Assessment report on the Bafut Area of the Bamenda Division'. Cameroon National Archives, Buea.
38. Hefner, Robert W. (ed.). 1993. Conversion to Christianity: historical and anthropological perspectives on a great transformation. Berkeley: University of California Press.
39. Hertz, Robert. 1960. 'A study of the collective representation of death', in Death and the Right Hand. Trans. by Rodney and Claudia Needham. Glencoe IL: Free Press; Aberdeen and London: Cohen & West. (1907. 'Contribution à une étude sur la représentation collective de la mort', Année sociologique [1ère sér.] 10: 48-137. Reprinted 1970 in Robert Hertz et al., Sociologie religieuse et folklore. 2nd edn. Paris: PUF.)
40. Ittmann, Johannes. 1931. 'Eine Heidnische Totenfeier im Kameruner Grasland'. Basel Mission Archives, Basel.
41. Jindra, Michael. 1997. 'The Proliferation of Ancestors: death celebrations in the Cameroon Grassfields'. Ph.D. dissertation. Department of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
42. Kan, Sergei. 1989. Symbolic Immortality: the Tlingit potlatch of the nineteenth century. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.
43. Kan, Sergei. 1992. 'Anthropology of death in the late 1980s', Reviews in Anthropology 20: 283-300.
44. Koloss, Hans-Joachim. 1987. 'Feyin und die Lehre vom Keyus. Zum religiösen Weltbild in Oku (Kameruner Grasland)', Baessler-Archiv NF 35: 383-453.
45. Koloss, Hans-Joachim. 2000. World-View and Society in Oku (Cameroon). Berlin: Dietrich Reimer.
46. Kopytoff, Igor. 1981. 'Aghem ethnogenesis and the Grassfields ecumene', in Claude Tardits (ed.), Contribution de la recherche ethnologique à l'histoire des civilisations du Cameroun. The Contribution of Ethnological Research to the History of Cameroon Cultures. Paris: CNRS (Centre nationale de la recherche scientifique).
47. McKenzie, P. R. 1982. 'Death in early Nigerian Christianity', Africana Marburgensia 15 (2): 3-16.
48. Masquelier, Bertrand. 1993. 'Descent, organizational strategy, and polity formation in the Cameroon highlands (Bamenda Grassfields)', Anthropos 88: 443-58.
49. Mbiti, John S. 1971. New Testament Eschatology in an African Background: a study of the encounter between New Testament theology and African traditional concepts. London: Oxford University Press.
50. Mbuy, Tatah Humphrey. 1994. African Traditional Religion as Anonymous Christianity: the case of the Tikars of the Bamenda Grassfields. Bamenda: s.n. (Unique Printers).
51. Mebenga, Tamba Luc. 1990. 'Les Funérailles chez les Ewondo'. Doctorat de 3e cycle en anthropologie. Université de Yaoundé.
52. Metcalf, Peter, and Richard Huntington. 1991. Celebrations of Death: the anthropology of mortuary ritual. 2nd edn. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.
53. Meyer, Birgit. 1999. Translating the Devil: religion and modernity among the Ewe in Ghana. Trenton NJ: Africa World Press.
54. Ngwainmbi, July M. 2000. 'The persistence of the family farm and the economy of affection: the Cameroonian case', Journal of Social Development in Africa 15 (1): 93-108.
55. Nkwi, Paul Nchoji, and Jean-Pierre Warnier. 1982. Elements for a History of the Western Grassfields. Yaounde: Department of Sociology, University of Yaounde.
56. Ohnuki-Tierney, Emiko (ed.). 1990. Culture Through Time: anthropological approaches. Stanford CA: Stanford University Press.
57. Partain, Jack. 1986. 'Christians and their ancestors: a dilemma of African theology', Christian Century, November 26: 1066-9.
58. Peel, J. D. Y. 2000. Religious Encounter and the Making of the Yoruba. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
59. Pool, Robert. 1994. Dialogue and the Interpretation of Illness: conversations in a Cameroon village. Oxford and Providence RI: Berg Press.
60. Pradelles de Latour, Charles-Henry. 1991. Ethnopsychanalyse en pays Bamiléké. Paris: EPEL (Editions et publications de l'école lacanienne).
61. Quale, G. Robina. 1988. A History of Marriage Systems. New York: Greenwood Press.
62. Rambo, Lewis R. 1993. Understanding Religious Conversion. New Haven CT: Yale University Press.
63. Rein-Wuhrmann, Anna. 1925. Mein Bamumvolk im Grasland von Kamerun. Stuttgart and Basel: Evangelischer Missionsverlag and Basler Missionsbuchhandlung.
64. Ritzenthaler, Robert Eugene, and Pat Ritzenthaler. 1962. Cameroons Village: an ethnography of the Bafut. Milwaukee WI: Public Museum.
65. Rowlands, Mike. 1985. 'Notes on the material symbolism of Grassfields palaces', Paideuma 31: 203-13.
66. Rowlands, Mike. 1993. 'Accumulation and the cultural politics of identity in the Grassfields', in Peter Geschiere and Piet Konings (eds), Itinéraires d'accumulation au Cameroun. Paris: Karthala; Leiden: Afrika-Studiecentrum.
67. Rowlands, Mike. 1995. 'Inconsistent temporalities in a nation-space', in Daniel Miller (ed.), Worlds Apart: modernity through the prism of the local. London and New York: Routledge.
68. Sahlins, Marshall. 1985. Islands of History. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press.
69. Schmidt, Agathe. 1943. 'Totengebräuche in Nsei (Bez. Bamenda) im Grasland von Kamerun', Wiener Beiträge zur Kulturgeschichte und Linguistik 5: 125-63.
70. Schneider, W. n.d. (193?). 'Sterben und Begrabenwerden im Grasland von Kamerun'. Unpublished notes, courtesy of G. Mühle and C. Geary.
71. Shanklin, Eugenia. 1994. 'Missionaries and witchcraft beliefs in Kom, Cameroon', in Elizabeth Brusco and Laura F. Klein (eds), The Message in the Missionary: local interpretations of religious ideology and missionary personality. Studies in Third World Societies, no. 50. Williamsburg VA: Department of Anthropology, College of William and Mary.
72. Sharwood-Smith, Bryan Evers. 1923. 'Assessment report on the Menka District, Mamfe Division'. Cameroon National Archives, Buea.
73. Sharwood-Smith, Bryan Evers. 1925. 'Assessment report on the Mogamaw and Ngemba speaking families of the Widekum tribe of Bamenda Division'. Cameroon National Archives, Buea.
74. Spear, Thomas, and Isaria N. Kimambo (eds). 1999. East African Expressions of Christianity. Oxford: James Currey; Athens: Ohio University Press.
75. Tardits, Claude. 1980. Le Royaume bamoum. Paris: Armand Colin.
76. Tinder, Glenn. 1995. Political Thinking: the perennial questions. 6th edn. New York: HarperCollins College Publishers.
77. Verdzekov, Archbishop Paul. 1992. 'Message to the Christian people on the rite of funerals'. Archdiocese of Bamenda, 29 February.
78. Walls, Andrew F. 2002. The Gross Cultural Process in Christian History: studies in the transmission and appropriation of faith. Maryknoll NY: Orbis.
79. Warnier, Jean-Pierre. 1993a. 'The king as a container in the Cameroon Grassfields', Paideuma 39: 303-19.
80. Warnier, Jean-Pierre. 1993b. L'Esprit d'entreprise au Cameroun. Paris: Karthala.
81. Zeitlyn, David. 1994. Sua in Somié. Aspects of Mambila traditional religion. Sankt Augustin: Academia Verlag.