Academic literature on the topic 'Mandara Mountains region-Northern Cameroon'

Les Loranthaceae constituent des ressources précieuses pour les populations locales africaines. Cependant, peu d’ethnies connaissent l’importance socio-économique des Loranthaceae de par le manque d’études ethnobotaniques sur ces espèces. Afin de contribuer à la valorisation et à la gestion durable des Loranthaceae parasites des plantes ligneuses, une approche associant deux méthodes a été adoptée. L’une, basée sur des relevés de surface et l’autre sur une enquête ethnobotanique relative aux connaissances locales des Loranthaceae dans 9 Arrondissements de la Région de l’Extrême-Nord du Cameroun. Au total, 4 genres (Agelanthus, Globimetula, Phragmanthera et Tapinanthus) et 7 espèces parasites (Agelanthus dodoneifolius, Globimetula braunii, Phragmanthera capitata, Tapinanthus bangwensis, T. belvisii, T. globiferus et T. ophiodes) ont été inventoriés et identifiés dans les Monts Mandara. Il ressort aussi que ces espèces parasites sont utilisées en pharmacopée dans des recettes médicinales et magico-religieuses (45,56%), pour traiter des infertilités (32,70%) et des troubles mentaux (32,36%). Les résultats ont aussi montré que Mangifera indica (35,74%) et Senna singueana (34,41%) sont les hôtes des parasites les plus sollicités. Aussi ont-ils révélé que la commercialisation des Loranthaceae constitue une source de revenu économique et une ressource importante en pharmacopée pour les populations locales des Monts Mandara. Ces résultats pourraient servir de référence pour la recherche de stratégies d’exploitation et de conservation durable de cette diversité végétale.Mots clés : Loranthaceae, Espèces parasites, pharmacopée, Monts Mandara, Cameroun. English Title: Diversity and socio-economic importance of Loranthaceae parasites of woody plants of Mandara Mountains in the Far-North Region, Cameroon Loranthaceae are valuable resources for local African populations. However, few ethnic groups know the socio-economic importance of Loranthaceae due to the lack of ethnobotanical studies on these species. In order to contribute to the enhancement and sustainable management of Loranthaceae parasites of woody plants, an approach combining two methods was adopted. One, based on surface surveys and the other on an ethnobotanical survey relating to local knowledge of Loranthaceae in 9 Subdivisions of the Far North Region of Cameroon. In total, 4 genera (Agelanthus, Globimetula, Phragmanthera and Tapinanthus) and 7 parasitic species (Agelanthus dodoneifolius, Globimetula braunii, Phragmanthera capitata, Tapinanthus bangwensis, T. belvisii, T. globiferus and T. ophiodes) have been inventoried on the Mandara Mountains. It also appears that these parasitic species are used in pharmacopoeia in medicinal and magico-religious recipes (45.56%), to treat infertility (32.70%) and mental disorders (32.36%). The results also showed that Mangifera indica (35.74%) and Senna singueana (34.41%) are the hosts of most solicited parasites. They also revealed that the commercialisation of Loranthaceae constitutes a source of economic income and an important resource in pharmacopoeia for the local populations of the Mandara Mountains. These results could serve as a reference of strategies for the sustainable exploitation and conservation of this plant diversity.Keywords: Loranthaceae, parasitic species, pharmacopoeia, Mandara mountains, Cameroon.

ABSTRACTA rare document, the diary of a slave raider, offers a unique view into the sociopolitical situation at the turn of the nineteenth century in the colonial backwater of North Cameroon. The Fulbe chief in question, Hamman Yaji, not only kept a diary, but was by far the most notorious slave raider of the Mandara Mountains. This article supplements the data from his diary with oral histories and archival sources to follow the dynamics of the intense slave raiding he engaged in. This frenzy of slaving occurred in a ‘colonial interstice’ characterized by competition between three colonial powers – the British, the Germans and the French, resilient governing structures in a region poorly controlled by colonial powers, and the unclear boundaries of the Mandara Mountains. The dynamics of military technology and the economics of this ‘uncommon market’ in slaves form additional factors in this episode in the history of slavery in Africa. These factors account for the general situation of insecurity due to slave raiding in the area, to which Hamman Yaji was an exceptionally atrocious contributor. In the end a religious movement, Mahdism, stimulated the consolidation of colonial power, ending Yaji's regime, which in all its brutality provides surprising insight in the early colonial situation in this border region between Nigeria and Cameroon.

This article explores the different ways in which new houses built by migrants from the Mandara Mountains to bigger cities in Cameroon function as an important site for studying their relations within the cities and within their communities of origin. I argue that these new houses constitute both a powerful resource for addressing migrants’ stories about their migratory experiences and a constituent element of these experiences. In many circumstances, the migrants interviewed were unable to speak separately of their migratory experiences and their homes. Thus, the impact of their mobility to cities goes far beyond the mere ownership of the houses; they also manage to change their perceptions of themselves, to restructure their models of social interaction with other migrants, and to change the balance of their relations with the village. The article ends by proposing to connect the two sides of the village/city duality to find out how the local is a product of the global and how the local has reappropriated the global, giving it a meaning.

The Muslim Wandala state controlled large areas of the plains south of Lake Chad between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries a.d. The Wandala also engaged in an extremely complex, and often hostile, set of relations with the inhabitants of the Mandara Mountains, which bordered their state to the south and closely adjoined successive Wandala capitals. These Wandala – montagnard relationships had diverse economic, ritual, political and military aspects. Their complexity appears to be due in large part to the fact that the Wandala and many of the montagnard groups share ethnic origins, and to the violent processes by which differentiation took place and the Wandala gained hegemony on the plains. These processes probably began with a Wandala use of trading advantages to gain access to the Kanuri market system and the subsequent use of products so obtained to expand their dominion.

In 2008, a number of iron artefacts were recovered from an interior courtyard on the DGB-1 site during fieldwork in 2008. DGB-1 is a large multi-function site located in the northeastern Mandara Mountains of Cameroon, and dating to the mid-second millennium AD. The iron artefacts recovered included a cache of spear/arrow points found buried under a living floor, as well as a local hoe and a chain and a ‘barrette’ probably not of local provenance. This discovery has a number of points of interest: (1) ethnoarchaeological reenactments of iron smelts in the 1980s in the same region provide a rare opportunity for comparison of iron-working techniques over about five centuries in sub-Saharan Africa; (2) the variability in different forms of iron (including eutectoid steel) used in these artefacts; and (3) the welding of different forms of iron to produce composite artefacts.

The Mandara Mountain eco-region is one of the most important mountain areas of Cameroon. It is often considered as a refuge for several plant and wildlife species. This area is fragile and vulnerable, and faces severe threats from land use change, unsustainable exploitation of natural resources, desertification and climate change. Recent studies in sacred groves portrayed these land use types as indigenous strategies which can help to address these environmental problems. Understanding the plant diversity and carbon storage of these land use types in Mandara Mountain can be a good step towards their sustainable management for the delivery of diverse ecosystem services. In this perspective, we established a total of 10 nested circular plots of 1257 m2 each, in the sacred grove of the Mouhour village in Mandara Mountain, and all trees and shrubs with average diameter at breast height (dbh) ≥ 2.5 cm were counted. Tree biomass was estimated on the basis of DBH and understory biomass using destructive method. A total of 182 woody plants were measured, belonging to 21 species, 18 genera and 12 families. The richest family is Combretaceae with 5 species, followed by Caesalpiniaceae and Mimosaceae (3 species each). The analysis of species diversity indexes shows a relative important biodiversity and the vegetation structure showed a high occurrence of small-diameter of plant species. Mean aboveground carbon stock of 31.13 ± 10.8 tC/ha was obtained in the study area. Isoberlinia doka showed the greatest carbon stock (5.7 tC/ha) followed by Boswellia dalzielii (3.9 tC/ha), Acacia senegal (3.5 tC/ha), Anogeissus leiocarpus (3.3 tC/ha) and Terminalia laxiflora (3.1 tC/ha). These results suggest that the sacred groves of Cameroon dry lands need to be taken into account in national environment protection policies as an alternative to respond to international agreements related to biodiversity conservation, combatting desertification and climate change. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/ije.v4i2.12659 International Journal of Environment Vol.4(2) 2015: 308-318

ABSTRACTWhile from the sixteenth to the early twentieth century there was a lasting and elastic demand for slaves in Central Africa, the practices by which they were acquired had to be adapted to the physical and human terrain, the technologies available and the socio-cultural postures of the predator and prey societies. In this paper, I sketch the changing patterns of these variables in six slaving zones in and around the northern Mandara Mountains. Using historical sources, information from the diary of Hamman Yaji, a Fulani chief and active slaver, and data gathered in the course of ethnographic research in three of these zones by myself and colleagues, I show that in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the extraction of slaves from particular sub-regions within these zones was highly variable, as is evident in the interfaces between the decentralized prey societies and the predatory states. Besides providing fresh perspectives on slaving and evidence for evaluating the constructions of historians, such studies open the way for research on the mutual accommodations to slaving affecting the societies and cultures of both prey and predators.

Indigenous beers are very popular and widely consumed by people from northern Cameroon because of its low cost. Despite their appeal, microbial quality of these beverages remains a serious call for concern. This work was aimed to investigate microbial changes and hazards of contamination during the processing of two special sorghum beers brewed in northern Cameroon. Producers were observed during the production and samples were collected at different stages for analysis of microbiological parameters such as total count, fungi, spore-forming bacteria, Coliforms and E. coli using referenced methods. Total count ranged from 13.5 x 103 to 195 x 103 CFU/mL and 0.16 x 103 to 660 x 103 CFU/mL; fungi from 0.26 x 103 to 22 x 103 CFU/mL and 0.22 x 103 to 85 x 103 CFU/mL; E. coli from 0.69 x 102 to 13.6 x 102 CFU/mL and 0.65 x 102 to 3.8 x 102 CFU/mL during the production of the red “té” and white “mepdli” beers, respectively. Spore-forming bacteria and Coliforms (total and fecal) were detected in all the collected samples. Bacterial spores were also enumerated in red (38 x 103 CFU/g) and white (62.5 x 103 CFU/g) sorghum grains used as the main raw materials for the production of “té” and “mpedli” beers. The results suggest that the processing of both turbid beers using the traditional method are exposed to microbial contamination. Increase of microbial loads after soaking, adding of the supernatant (red beer only) and malted flour (white beer only) after the heating step means that control measures are needed to prevent contamination after these sensitive stages. Proper handling of raw materials, adequate implementation of heating and fermentation were found as effective critical control points. Training of producers on the hazards analysis and good manufacturing and hygiene practices have been suggested as strategies to improve the safety of indigenous beers.

Depuis au moins 500 ans, au sud du bassin du lac Tchad, la région des monts Mandara représente la rencontre géographique et culturelle entre deux mondes aux modes de pensée opposés : les populations des montagnes, égalitaires et non-islamisées, et celles des plaines environnantes, vivant sous le contrôle hiérarchique d’États islamiques, tels que Bornou et Wandala. Cette thèse s’inscrit dans une longue tradition de recherches archéologiques et ethnologiques entreprises depuis une quarantaine d’années dans cette région du monde afin de documenter le rapport ambigu qui existe entre ces deux systèmes sociopolitiques, au passé et au présent. Entre 1993 et 2012, les équipes d’archéologues du Projet Maya Wandala (PMW) et du Projet DGB (Diygyd- bay) ont mis sur pied l’une des plus grosses bases de données céramiques uniformisées de la région. Suivant une approche holistique, diachronique et régionale de la question des contacts culturels en zone frontalière, cette étude porte sur le décor céramique de 150 000 tessons issus de ce corpus. Provenant de huit sites clés du Nord-Cameroun et du Nord-Nigéria, ces petits objets racontent plus de 3000 ans d’histoire de cette région, du Néolithique jusqu’à la fin de l’Âge du Fer Final. Les méthodes d’analyses statistiques de classement (cluster analysis) par nuées dynamiques (k-moyennes) et d’agrégation Ward ont été mises à profit afin d’explorer les similarités et les différences de ces collections, à travers le temps et l’espace. Par la comparaison de mes résultats avec les données archéologiques, ethnologiques et historiques de notre région d’étude, une histoire chronologique de chacun des sites est proposée. Sur le site DGB-1/-2, plus important témoin à ce jour de l’occupation préhistorique des montagnes, les lieux de vie quotidienne, cooking area par exemple, se distinguent de ceux qui servent à l’aménagement physique, entre autres les remblais, malgré la similitude des décors céramique qu’on y retrouve. L’identification de quatre groupes aux décors céramiques particuliers met en exergue les différences qui apparaissent entre les populations des plaines et des montagnes, ainsi qu’entre les populations des plaines associées à l’élite étatique de Wandala, et les autres. Dans le contexte de la mise en place des premiers États centralisateurs dans la région, nous voyons donc comment ce phénomène historique d’importance a eu des répercussions non seulement sur l’occupation et la perception du paysage, mais également sur l’identité céramique.
For the last 500 years at least, in the southern area of Lake Tchad, the Mandara Mountains region represents the geographical and cultural meeting point of two contrasting ways of thinking: the egalitarian and non-Muslim populations of the mountains; and the populations of the surrounding plains—dominated by the hierarchical authority of Islamic states, including Bornou and Wandala states. This thesis is the continuation of a long tradition of archaeological and ethnological research completed during the last 40 years in this region. Its aim is to document the ambiguous relationship that exists between these two socio-political systems, in the past and the present. Between 1993 and 2012, teams of archaeologists working on both the Projet Maya Wandala (PMW) and the Projet DGB (Diy-gyd-bay) established one of the largest ceramic databases in the region. Following a holistic, diachronic and regional approach regarding the issue of cultural contacts in the border area, the present thesis focuses on the analysis on ceramic decoration from this dataset. These potsherds (n=150,000), originating from eight key archaeological sites located in Northern Cameroon and Northern Nigeria, tell the story of the region spanning more than 3000 years, dating from the Neolithic to the end of the Late Iron Age (LIA). Methods of statistical analysis, such as cluster analysis by dynamic clustering (K-Means) and Ward aggregation, have been used in order to explore both similarities and differences present in these collections, through time and space. After a comparison of my results with the archaeological, ethnological and historical data of the study area, a chronology of these sites is proposed based on the ceramic data. On the DGB- 1/-2 site, the most important evidence of prehistoric occupation of the mountains, the domestic spaces, such as the cooking area, are differentiated from those used for redeposited materials, despite the similarity of ceramic decorations found there. The identification of four groups of distinct ceramic decorations underlines the differences that arise between the lowland populations and those from the mountains, as well as between the lowland populations associated with the Wandala elite, and other groups. In the context of the emergence of the first centralised states in this region, we can see how this important historical phenomenon had consequences, not only on occupation and the use of the landscape, but also on ceramic identity.

The northern Mandara Mountains of Cameroon have been a focus of slave raiding for the past five centuries, according to historical sources. Some captives from the area were enslaved locally, primarily in Wandala and Fulbe communities, while others were exported to Sahelian polities or further abroad. This chapter examines ethnohistorical and archaeological data on nineteenth- and twentieth-century slave raiding, derived from research in montagnard communities along the north-eastern Mandara Mountains of Cameroon. Enslavement and slave raiding existed within larger structures of day-to-day practice in the region, and were closely tied to ideas about sociality, social proximity and violence. Through the mid-1980s at least, enslavement in the region was understood as a still-relevant political and economic process, with its chief material consequence the intensely domesticated Mandara landscape.