Essay On Bangwa People

1480 Words6 Pages

The Marriage of Bangwa people According to Travis Arda states that Bangwa people are ancient group of people whose origins are lost in the dim past (2012; pg. 1). The BANGWA Tribal Area is situated in the north east of the Mamfe Division, and the watershed which extends alone the side of this tribe forms the existing international boundary with the French sphere of the Cameroons. According to Cadman, in 1922 when he did his assessment on the Bangwa people, the population was thirteen thousand nine hundred and sixty-one. Robert Brain notes that amongst Bangwa people, Women as mothers, grandmothers and sisters, are the focus of the kinship system of alliances engendered by marriage, between patri-groups and individuals; wives, daughters and marriage wards are the capital items in the Bangwa political and economic system (1972; pg. 114). Robert also states that one of the interesting aspects about the Bangwa people is how the marriage is able to link the Bangwa kinship system. Betrothal According to Robert Brain, a baby girl is betrothed at birth. Infant betrothal is the formal engagement to marry- it is also a cultural norm which is fast changing and the ethnographic present us somewhat out of place (1972; 115). The Betrothal ceremonies must involve the …show more content…

The couple are told to remove any clothing they are wearing above the waist, and water is brought together with a bundle of firewood, a large calabash and the pad women place under head-loads (Brain 1972; pg. 134). The husband places his right toe over his wife’s left toe; their foreheads touch and water is poured over their heads to trickle down to their feet, and then the wife is told to obey the husband in everything at all times. This is the process of the ceremony that Robert Brain witnessed in his time with the Bangwa people and they called this process the ‘joining of the husband and

More about Essay On Bangwa People

Open Document