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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Myth and Political Economy in Bafut (Cameroon): The Structured History of an African Kingdom of Bafut
Author:Engard, Ronald K.
Year:1988
Periodical:Paideuma
Volume:34
Pages:49-89
Language:English
Geographic term:Cameroon
Subjects:history
Bafut polity
myths (form)
Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups)
History and Exploration
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/23076470
Abstract:Drawing on recent critical reformulations of the structuralist approach to myth, in particular T.S. Turner's concept of 'diachronic structure' (1977), this paper analyses the founding myth of the Bafut of the Cameroon Grassfields. In particular, it relates the structural transformations in the myth to the historical transformations in the Bafut political economy. It argues that, at one level, the myth stands as a model of successive political transformations in Bafut: from a group of scattered chiefdoms into a confederacy, and from a confederacy of more or less autonomous and equal chiefdoms into a centralized kingdom. At another level, the social relationships between characters in the myth may be seen as models for relations among those thought to be their descendants today. Finally the author tentatively suggests a third level, at which the mythical characters personify cosmological forces and events. Bibliogr., notes.
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