Culture And Customs Of Cameroon

Cameroon, in Central Africa, has been called "Africa in miniature." This volume is the first to encapsulate Cameroon's rich indigenous and modern customs and traditions in depth.

Cameroon, in Central Africa, has been called Africa in miniature. It is characterized by exceptional social and ethnic diversity, with more than 250 ethnicities now forming five major regional-culture groupings. This volume is the first to encapsulate Cameroon's rich indigenous and modern customs and traditions in depth. The narrative emphasizes those aspects that define its modern nation, its peoples, the unique societies, their institutions, and various lifestyles. The origins of Cameroon's diverse culture are traced back to the various ethnic groups and languages as well as the influence of European colonialism, Christianity, Islam, and other external factors, including globalization. In each topical chapter, examples from ethnic groups are presented to give some sense of the variety of experiences. Cameroon has had a turbulent and eventful modern history with German, English, and French incursions, and students and general readers will be able to understand the current struggle for democracy post independence. The history colors the substantial coverage of the many topics examined, from education, to marriage and women's roles, sports, and holidays, daily life, the arts, and much more. This volume will stand as the definitive, accessible introduction to Cameroon and will be essential for building a well-rounded Africa collection.

Cameroon Art and Culture. Cameroon Art and Culture. Information on Cameroon is provided for your touristic use, education, holiday purposes and self-awareness and knowledge on Cameroon. Find out about Cameroon culture, history government, education, ethnic group, tradition, tourism, art and more, you can't do more to discover the inside out of Cameroon than the book on Cameroon art and culture

This book was first published as a two-part essay in 1965 and 1967 in ABBIA Cameroon Cultural Review under the title Idea of Culture. Its main argument is that indigenous Africans cultures must be the foundation on which the modern African cultural structure should be raised; the soil into which the new seed should be sown; the stem into which the new scion should be grafted; the sap that should enliven the entire organism. This culture, the object of imperialist mockery and rejected, needs rehabilitation. However, such rehabilitation of African culture cannot be a mere archaeological enterprise. It will not answer to dig up the past and live it as it was. Not only is African culture not without its imperfections, times change and African culture must adapt itself, at every turn, to the changing times. In restoring African culture, it is imperative to steer clear of two extremes: on the one hand, the imperialist arrogance which declared everything African as only fit for the scrap-heap and the dust-bin, and, on the other hand, the overly enthusiastic and rather naive tendency to laud every aspect of African culture as if it were the quintessence of human achievement.

Cameroon is characterized by an extraordinary geographical, cultural, and linguistic diversity. This collection of essays by eminent historians and anthropologists summarizes three generations of research in Cameroon that began with the collaboration of Phyllis Kaberry and E. M. Chilver soon after the Second World War and continues to this day. The idea for this book arose from a concern to recognize the continuing influence of E. M. Chilver on a wide variety of social, historical, political and economic studies. The result is a volume with a broad historical scope yet one that also focuses on major contemporary theoretical issues such as the meaning and construction of ethnic identities and the anthropological study of historical processes. For more information on this title and related publications, go to http: //lucy.ukc.ac.uk/Chilver/index.html

Chieftaincy in Africa has displayed remarkable dynamics and adaptability to new socio-economic and political developments, without becoming totally transformed in the process. Almost everywhere on the continent, chiefdoms and chiefs have become active agents in the quest for ethnic, cultural symbols as a way of maximising opportunities at the centre of bureaucratic and state power, and at the home village where control over land and labour often require both financial and symbolic capital. Chieftaincy remains central to ongoing efforts at developing democracy and accountability in line with the expectations of Africans as individual citizens and also as subjects of various cultural communities. This book uses Cameroon and Botswana as case studies, to argue that the rigidity and prescriptiveness of modernist partial theories have left a major gap in scholarship on chiefs and chieftaincy in Africa. It stresses that studies of domesticated agency in Africa are sorely needed to capture the creative ongoing processes and to avoid overemphasising structures and essentialist perceptions on chieftaincy and the cultural communities that claim and are claimed by it.