Widowhood Rituals and Widow Inheritance in the Balikumbat, Cameroon
Nyongkah Rachel Tati
Citation : Nyongkah Rachel Tati, Widowhood Rituals and Widow Inheritance in the Balikumbat, Cameroon International Journal of History and Cultural Studies 2018 , 4(1) : 56-64
In Balikumbat of Cameroon, just as in other parts of the world, widowhood rituals were an important aspect of indigenous culture which was commune. It was rather a means of giving the dead a befitting funeral which ushered them into the land of the spirit which was characterized by rituals and sacrifices to appease the gods and ancestors. In the traditional period, widowhood was not viewed as marginal or an ordeal melted upon widows. These rituals were officiated by elderly widows who identified themselves as the custodian of their culture. This paper seeks to examine widowhood among the Balikumbat Fondom of the Bamenda Grassfields of Cameroon. It highlights the reasons for its practice and the rationale and indigenous nature of widowhood and widow inheritance in the pre-colonial Balikumbat society. It also examines the norms associated to widowhood which were particularly applicable to Balikumbat widows. It further argues that, the institution of widowhood had experienced some evolutionary dynamics since the inception of modernity. Based on the data acquired mostly through orality, the paper concludes by stating that, widowhood was an inherent cultural practice of the Balikumbat people which has resisted cultural extinction and has moved into a revolutionary dimension to transcend the various historical periods.