Analyse historique de la place des monuments dans la restitution de l’histoire du Cameroun. Get the full PDF
Paul Animbom N., Fidessou Sylvestre & Tele Djosseu Landry………………..1-27
Le récit du passé consiste à analyser les événements pour relater et contextualiser ce qui a été. Le présent travail se propose de reconstituer à travers les œuvres matérielles notamment les monuments, l’histoire du Cameroun. Les monuments sont destinés à graver dans la pierre, le bois, le béton et aujourd’hui l’acier et autres technologies nouvelles, les personnes et les événements qui ont façonné l’histoire commune d’une société. Cependant, ce qui tient lieu d’histoire n’est toujours ce qui constitue le passé, elle est une reconstruction toujours problématique et incomplete. Le passé est plus évasif et profond que les seules restitution et représentation ne peuvent le restaurer dans sa totalité. Cet article a pour but de situer la place des monuments dans la restitution de l’histoire du Cameroun. Il en ressort que les valeurs culturelles et sociopolitiques que le monument représente aujourd’hui dans notre société est en perpétuelle métamorphose.
Mots-clés : Cameroun, monument, histoire, lieux de mémoire, traces, restitution.
Je suis Bamenda, Je suis Dockta: Accounting for the popularity of Bamenda Grassfields Traditional Medicine men in Cameroon since precolonial times. Get the full PDF
Joseph Lon NFI ………………………………………………………………….29-41
Les Bamenda as they are called in Cameroon today, are the people of the Bamenda Grassfields or the Bamenda Province, North West Province and North West Region as the areas was referred to at various moments of Cameroon history. These people are known to be robust, hardworking, enduring, exploitable, serviceable, respectful of constituted traditional authority but very opposed to unfair government authority. This account for their presence in household, firms and plantations in the urban and rural areas of the Southern Cameroon. This paper is interested in another aspect of their dynamism. It investigates the survival of their traditional medical practices despite colonial and missionary influences and the presences of Bamenda Dockta all over the economically advanced Southern Cameroon in towns like Buea, Victoria, Kumba, Douala, Yaounde, Edea, Nkongsamba, Ebolowa, Tiko and Kribi. Based on oral interviews, secondary
sources and the observations of the author, the paper reveals that the contact between Western or Scientific Medicines and Indigenous Medicines in the Bamenda Grassfields did not destroy the indigenous heritage like elsewhere and that the migratory character of the populations, the economic value of their medicines and liberty laws of the 1990s opened the wider Cameroon market to Bamenda Dockta. Les Bamenda are therefore also known and distinguished because of their real or imagined indigenous medicinal prowess.
Key Words: Indigenous, Medicines, Herbalists, Bamenda Grassfields, Cameroon.
Alienating Grassfields cultural objects to Western museums: who cares?. Get the full PDF
Ngitir Victor Bayena (PHD) ……………………………………………………..43-59
One of the recurrent phenomena that have plundered Africa’s rural communities for centuries has been the
ferrying of cultural heritage from village treasures and palaces towards museums in the cities and
metropolis. Despite their standard definition as permanent, non-profit institutions at the service of man and
society, museums of today have become enterprises and transit points for the trafficking of material heritage
from local communities to urban galleries and even overseas museums through covert and overt means.
Born from the ashes of colonialism in the 1930s, Cameroon’s museum institution displays a typology of
private and public museums littered on both sides of the linguistic and cultural divide. Based on collection
policies that mattered only to British and French collectors, art agents systematically plundered palaces and
community collections through looting, extortion and illicit traffic to feed metropolitan galleries and
museums far off in Europe and America. By the 1980s, thousands of artefacts, masterpieces and antiquities
– masks, thrones, royal paraphernalia and even worship objects – had been whisked off, throwing Alpha
Oumar Konare’s theory of functional conservation overboard. This paper traces the genesis and motivation
for this traffic, examines the typology and functions of artefacts ferried out, and finally, proposes a plan to
reverse the trend. Three key questions beg for answers: why the huge appetite for local cultural objects in
cities and overseas? What are the categories and functions of the displaced objects? How can this outflow
be stopped? A blend of oral tradition and qualitative data analyzed on a chronological-cum-thematic–cum
content basis reveals among other things that local agents played the go-between, facilitating illicit art deals;
that masterpieces, worship items and antiquities continue to be the most solicited by overseas museums;
and finally that a holistic African master-plan is required to reverse the trend.
Keywords: rural, heritage, traffic, museums, conservation.
Couleur et dessin : une ontologie de la matière et de la forme dans l’objet esthétique contemporain. Get the full PDF
Essono Jean Donald ……………………………………………………………..61-81
À chaque époque, telles les expressions d’une épistémè, correspondent une tradition
artistique et un mode de perception de l’art sur fond d’idéal de vie. L’homme
contemporain exige des objets qu’il perçoit ou manie que leur forme adhère à la
constitution psychophysique et biomorphologique du sujet humain. La culture
postmoderne consacre la consommation de masse, qui se veut être de tous les artefacts.
Toutes les productions humaines réalisées sous forme d’image plastique seraient dès
lors promues au rang d’œuvre d’art, quand bien même quelques-unes conservaient leur
fonction initiale d’utilité. C’est sur fond de ce besoin qu’il faudrait regarder
l’affrontement auquel continuent de se livrer le dessin et la couleur sur l’immense terrain
des arts de l’espace, mode, décoration et design industriel compris. La couleur et le
dessin rivalisent de perfection avec pour but ultime de ravir la suprématie en création.
Le dessin montre plus de chance de l’emporter sur la couleur pour son affinité avec la
géométrie et pour la commodité qu’il permet de procurer aux artefacts.
Mots-clés : artefact, commodité, couleur, dessin, forme, géométrie, matière.
Music, aesthetics and culture in Femi Osofisan’s selected plays.Get the full PDF
Adeleke, E. B. …………………………………………….……………………82-100
Most of Femi Osofisan’s plays can be described as plays pleasant. This is so because of the judicious use of music in the plays. Culture is the totality of way of life evolved by a people in their attempts to meet the challenge of living in their environment which give order and meaning to their social, political, economic, aesthetic, and religious norms and modes of organisation. Using the aesthetic theory, this essay investigates patterns of music (vocal and instrumental) in Osofisan’s selected plays against the backdrop of the culture the plays dramatize. The essay finds that music encapsulates two rites of passage (marriage and burial), abuse, and ancestral worship of the Yoruba culture represented in these plays. We conclude that music is a means of creating beauty and a veritable tool of culture expression in the dramaturgy of Osofisan.
Keywords : Osofisan, Music, Aesthetics, Culture, Rites.
The socio-cultural impact of music education in conflict resolution in Nigeria. Get the full PDF
Julius Oluwayomi OLUWADAMILARE Ph.D……………………..………101-110
The current state of insecurity in the country is a major concern to all and sundry. Hardly can there be a week without the news of kidnapping, gruesome killings/murder, rape, armed robbery, e.t.c, being reported in the Nigerian daily papers. Indeed, things are falling
apart, the centre no longer holds and people are no longer at ease as far as security of lives and property is concerned. The issue of national security is multidimensional and multifaceted, hence, the need for multidisciplinary approaches. This paper therefore examines the socio-cultural impact of Music Education on conflict resolution and management in Nigeria. Songs that teach patriotism, unity, peace and progress are emphasised in this paper since music influences human behaviour in one way or the other.
Keywords : National Security, Music Education, Conflict Resolution.
Ethnomusicologie de la contrapunctique dans la chanson Baka de Ndélélé à la lumière de l’étude de Simha Arom sur les Pygmées Centrafricains. Get the full PDF
Aristide Sanama Nguillé………………………………………………………111-129
Les chansons baka sont fonctionnelles. Elles sont exécutées lors des scènes de début de chasse, de pêche, de collecte ou pour accueillir une naissance. C’est dire que la musique chez les Pygmées baka est essentielle à l’harmonie du groupe. Pas étonnant alors que les Pygmées connaissent leur corpus musical dans son exhaustivité, indépendamment des statuts d’acteurs ou de spectateurs. Le présent article décrit l’enregistrement et l’analyse du contrechant dans une formation orchestrale pygmée à Ndélélé dans la Kadéy. L’objectif est de démontrer par l’utilisation d’outils technologiques adaptés et la Méthodologie de la Théorisation Enracinée (MTE), l’exception musicale baka. Dans une perspective ethnomusicologique, l’étude observe la technique de chant et l’orchestre. Il s’agit de théoriser leurs interactions contrapunctiques, car ce sont les musiciens, les chanteurs et les spectateurs eux-mêmes qui en déterminent les conditionnalités.
Baka songs are functional. They are performed at the beginning of hunting, fishing, and gathering or to welcome a birth. This means that, music for the Baka Pygmies is essential to the harmony of the group. It is not surprising that Pygmies know their musical corpus in its entirety, regardless of whether they are actors or spectators. The present article describes the recording and analysis of the counterpoint in a pygmy orchestral formation in Ndélélé in Kadey’s subdivision. The objective is to demonstrate using adapted technological tools and the Methodology of Rooted Theorising (MTE), the Baka musical exception. From an ethnomusicological perspective, the study observes the singing technique and the orchestra and deduce that the musicians, singers and spectators themselves determine the interaction conditions.
Mots-clés : musique, communautarisme, baka, contrapunctique, ethnomusicologie.
Keywords: music, communitarianism, baka, contrapunctic, ethnomusicology.
Dress and subculture identification in Cameroon. Get the full PDF
Ibrahim Aliloulay Moungande & BIKME Rick Constant………………….130-147
Culture and cultural identity are predominant elements which mould the customs and beliefs of a group of people. Everyone identifies to a subcommunity respective or irrespective of the wider community in which they are. Different groups of people develop different norms and values regarding cultural, political and sexual matters. The sartorial trendiness is not at rest for that matter especially in Cameroon which is an amalgamation of many cultures. This brings up the problematic, which is the cultural clash in the sartorial fashion in Cameroon nowadays. In addition to this, how does dressing identify a subcultural group? The objective in this study is to ascertain the reasons how subcultural groups identify with the dress code in Cameroon. To attain this, a cultural studies approach using an ethnographic perspective will be used. We made use documentation, interviews, observation and filmography to support our arguments with the result that, the Cameroonian subculture dress codes emanate from societal leverage
Keywords: Fashion, sartorial, subculture, cultural studies, ethnography.
