As the current anglophone crisis continue to escalate, more and more facets of the society are increasingly being negatively affected. Insecurity coupled with the dusk to dawn curfew imposed by the North West Regional Governor has drastically reduced the celebration part of funerals. Nowadays, there's often no time to carry out all the funeral rights that were performed in the past when normalcy reigned.
According to Mr. Ndakwa James, a custodian of the Meta culture, in the the past, deaths in Meta were celebrated for about three days or one week but today because of the crisis, celebrations no longer take up to a day. "Now we burry some of the people these days, we don't even celebrate because of fear and insecurity." he said.
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| Masquerades Dancing |
Many of the funeral rites have now been either modified or abandoned. As a result of the crisis, many persons including family heads and successors have died and been buried in far off areas and foreign lands due to no means of transporting their mortal remains to where their navels were planted. Unfortunate ones have died in the bushes and their corpses fed on by birds and animals. Can a spell befall a family because its member wasn't given a befitting burial? A question I posed to Mr. Ndakwa James. "We cannot say there'll be any effects because we haven't seen and buried the corpse. Unless you bury some body before all those traditional rites can be performed." He responded. He added that it was believed in those days something terrible will happen because burials were done according to ancestral lineage. But today since the corpses killed by any means are not seen or brought back to the family compound, there'll be no effects because they've not been buried the normal way during which such rites would've been performed.
It is now common these days to see mourners at funerals dispersing immediately after burial especially those from afar. The interest in food and drinks has reduced. Priority is now given to safety. No one dares to bare the risk of not being home before 6pm. A lot has changed culturally. Traditional dance groups that used to demand crates of beer before performing at funerals are now adapting to changing times. In the absence of the crocodile, they have no choice than to manage the lizard. Le Brasseries du Cameroun drinks have been banned by separatist fighters in the two English speaking regions.
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| Children Who Should be Going to School Now Dancing at Funerals |
Mr. Ngu Emmanuel Meneme is of the Sang Mukonge Dance Group. To him, since beers like Export, Mutzïg (without any publicity) etc are no longer in circulation, their new condition is that the bereaved reserves palm wine otherwise known as "Matango", " Mbuh", "Fuchuh" for their dance group as one of the conditions to perform.
Interestingly though pathetic, children who should be going to school are now forming their own dance groups to perform at funerals so as to entertain the crowd, make some money and learn their culture. Not only did the separatist fighters prohibit the selling and consumption of Brasseries drinks which they now classify as contraband goods, they also prohibited the functioning of schools.
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| Young "Juju" Dance |
The decision of closing down schools for over two years now has been highly condemned both nationally and internationally. The government of Cameroon has been fighting hard to see into it that schools effectively resume all over the two restive English speaking regions yet, little successes has since been recorded only in the urban towns. In the rural areas, school campuses are now hunting grounds. Teachers have diverted to other sources of livelihood while pupils and students are increasingly getting duller as days go by. Only few fortunate ones are able to relocate to areas where classes are effectively on going.
Brilliant
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