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Title: | Ideologies of Women's Names among the Nso' of Cameroon: A Contribution to the Philosophy of Naming, Decolonization and Gender |
Author: | Kishani, Bongasu Tanla |
Year: | 2004 |
Periodical: | Quest: An International African Journal of Philosophy |
Volume: | 18 |
Issue: | 1-2 |
Pages: | 57-81 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Cameroon |
Subjects: | personal names Nso women colonialism Cultural Roles Historical/Biographical |
Abstract: | This article deals with the impact of colonialism on culture, as exemplified by women's names among the Nso' of Cameroon, a strongly hierarchical society with a complex pattern of social organization. The affirmation of local identity and the defiance of cultural erosion through colonialism is brought out by the author's insistence on including an abstract and keywords in the Nso' language. The mechanisms of this erosion are studied in the first part of the article, which includes an inventory of items of material culture and the associated lexical items. A contradictory effect of Western (neo)colonialism has been that European and mission-derived names have been greatly in vogue among the Nso'. The author examines the church-related dynamics of this phenomenon, with special emphasis on women's names, and contrasts this with the intricacies of the historic Nso' system of personal names. Bibliogr., note, ref., sum. in English and Nso'. [Journal abstract, edited] |