Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T16:25:34.624Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Toward a Hermeneutic of Wimbum Tfu

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2014

Elias K. Bongmba
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

In this essay I offer an interpretation of Wimbum tfu by analyzing Wimbum terms to distinguish it from the English term “witchcraft.” I argue that Wimbum terms bfui, brii, and tfu have multiple meanings, are dynamic, and are often employed to discuss and critique lived experience. I argue that postmodern perspectives help us interpret tfu as power, economic, and religious discourse thus making it possible for us to attempt an ethical critique of the negative aspects of Wimbum tfu.

Résumé:

Résumé:

Dans ces pages, j'offre une interprétation du tfu de Wimbum par une analyse de la terminologie Wimbum, tout en le distinguant du terme anglais “sorcellerie. Je maintiens que les expressions Wimbum bfui, brii, et tfu ont des significations multiplex, qu'elles sont dynamiques et servent suivant à discuter et critiquer l'expérience vécue. Je soumets que les perspectives post-modernes nous aident a interpréter tfu en tant que pouvoir.

Type
Articles
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 41 , Issue 3 , December 1998 , pp. 165 - 191
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adeney, Miriam Ann. 1974. “What is ‘Natural’ About Witchcraft and Sorcery?” Missiology 2(3): 377–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Appiah, Kwame Anthony. 1992. In My Father's House: Africa in the Philosophy of Culture. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Apter, Andrew. 1993. “Atinga Revisited: Yoruba Witchcraft and the Cocoa Economy. In Modernity and its Malcontents: Ritual and Power in Postcolonia Africa, ed. Comaroff, Jean and Comaroff, John. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Apter, Andrew. 1993. Black Critics and Kings: The Hermeneutics of Power in Yoruba Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Ardener, Edwin. 1970. “Witchcraft, Economics, and the Continuity of Belief.” In Witchcraft Confessions and Accusations, ed. Douglas, Mary, 141–60. London: Tavistock Publications.Google Scholar
Arens, E., and Karp, Ivan, eds. 1989. Creativity of Power: Cosmology and Action in African Societies. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press.Google Scholar
Auslander, Mark. 1993. “‘Open the Wombs!’: The Symbolic Politics of Modem Ngoni Witchfinding.” In Modernity and its Malcontents: Ritual and Power in Post-colonial Africa, ed. Comaroff, Jean and Comaroff, John. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 167–92.Google Scholar
Austen, Ralph A. 1993. “The Moral Economy of Witchcraft: An Essay in Comparative History.” In Modernity and its Malcontents: Ritual and Power in Postcolonial Africa, ed. Comaroff, Jean and Comaroff, John. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 89–110.Google Scholar
Chilver, E. M., and Kaberry, P. M. 1967. Traditional Bamenda:The Pre-colonial History and Ethnography of the Bamenda Grassfields. Buea: Government Printing Press.Google Scholar
Ciekawy, Diane Marie. 1992. “Witchcraft Eradication as Political Process in Kilifi District, Kenya, 1955–1988.” Ph.D. diss., Columbia University.Google Scholar
Comaroff, Jean, and Comaroff, John, eds. 1993. Modernity and its Malcontents: Ritual and Power in Postcolonial Africa. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Crick, Malcolm. 1970. “Recasting Witchcraft.” In Witchcraft and Sorcery, ed. Marwick, Max, 343–64. London: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Debrunner, H. 1959. Witchcraft in Ghana: A Study of the Belief in the Destructive Witches and Its Effect on the Akan Tribes. Kumasi, Ghana: Presbyterian Book Depot.Google Scholar
Ela, Jean-Marc. African Cry. 1986. Translated by Barr, Robert. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books.Google Scholar
Ela, Jean-Marc. My Faith As an African. 1988. Translated by Pairman, John and Perry, Susan. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books.Google Scholar
Evans-Pritchard, E. E. Nuer Religion. London: Oxford University Press, 1956.Google Scholar
Evans-Pritchard, E. E. 1937. Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic Among the Azande. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Eze, Emmanuel. 1997. Postcolonial African Philosophy: A Critical Reader. London: Blackwell Publishers.Google Scholar
Fisiy, C. F. 1990. “Palm Tree Justice in Bertoua Court of Appeal: The Witchcraft Cases.” Proceedings of the African Studies Center. Leiden: African Studies Center.Google Scholar
Fisiy, C. F., and Geschiere, P. 1990. “Judges and Witches, or How is the State to Deal with Witchcraft? Examples from Southeastern Cameroon.” Cahiers d'Etudes Africaines 118: 135–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fisiy, C. F., and Geschiere, P. 1991. “Sorcery, Witchcraft and Accumulation-Regional Variation in South West Cameroon.” Critique of Anthropology 11(3): 251–78.Google Scholar
Geschiere, P. 1982. Village Communities and the State: Changing Relations among the Maka of Southeastern Cameroon. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Geschiere, P. The Modernity of Witchcraft. 1997. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press.Google Scholar
Goheen, M. 1993. “Gender and Accumulation in Nso.” In Les Iteneraires de l'accumulation au Cameroun/Pathways to Accumulation in Cameroon, ed. Geschiere, P. and Konings, P., 241–72. Paris: Karthala/Leiden: African Studies Centre.Google Scholar
Goheen, M. 1993a. Men Own the Fields, Women Own the Crops: Gender and Power in the Cameroon Highlands. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Jackson, Michael. 1990. “The Man who could Turn into an Elephant: Shape-Shifting Among the Kuranko of Sierra Leone.” In Personhood and Agency, eds. Jackson, M. and Karp, I, 59–78. Washington D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press.Google Scholar
Jackson, Michael. 1989. Paths Toward a Clearing: Radical Empiricism and Ethnographic Inquiry. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Jackson, Michael and Karp, Ivan, eds. 1990. Person and Agency: The Experience of Self and Other in African Cultures. Washington D.C.: Smithsonian Institution.Google Scholar
Janzen, John. 1978. The Quest for Therapy in Lower Zaire. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Jeffreys, M. D. W. 1969. “The Wiya Tribe.” African Studies 21: 83–104.Google Scholar
Kaberry, Phyllis M. “Witchcraft of the Sun.” In Man in Africa, eds. Douglas, Mary and Kaberry, Phyllis, 177–97. Garden City, New York: Anchor Books, 1971.Google Scholar
Kaberry, Phyllis M. 1952. Women of the Grassfields: A Study of the Economic Position of Women in Bamenda, British Cameroons. London: Her Majesty's Stationary Office.Google Scholar
Jon, Kerkhofs, ed. 1980. “Who is Who in African Witchcraft.” Pro Mundi Vita: Dossiers, (02): 1–41.Google Scholar
MacFarlane, Alan. 1989. “Definitions of Witchcraft.” In Witchcraft and Sorcery, ed. Marwick, Max, 44–48. London: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
MacFarlane, Alan. 1982. “Murray's Theory: Exposition and Comment.” In Witchcraft and Sorcery, ed. by Marwick, Max, 233–35. London: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
MacGaffey, Wyatt. “African History, Anthropology, and the Rationality of Natives.” History in Africa 5:101–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacGaffey, Wyatt. 1977. “Cultural Roots of Kongo Prophetism.” History of Religions 17(2):177–93.Google Scholar
MacGaffey, Wyatt. 1981. “Ideology and Belief.” African Studies Review 24(2–3): 227–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacGaffey, Wyatt. 1983. Modern Kongo Prophets: Religion in a Plural Society. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Mair, Lucy. 1960. Witchcraft. New York: McGraw Hill.Google Scholar
Marwick, Max. 1963. “The Sociology of Sorcery in a Central African Tribe.” African Studies 22(1): 1–21.Google Scholar
Marwick, Max. 1965. Sorcery in its Social Setting: A Study of the Northern Rhodesia Cewa. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Marwick, Max ed. 1970. Witchcraft and Sorcery: Selected Readings. London: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Masamba Ma Mpolo, Jean. 1976. La Liberation des Envoutes. Yaounde: Editions Cle.Google Scholar
Masamba Ma Mpolo, Jean. 1975. “Psychotherapeutic Dynamics in African Bewitched Patients: Towards a Multi-Dimensional Therapy in Social Psychiatry.” Th.D. diss., The School of Theology at Claremont.Google Scholar
Mpolo, Masamba Ma, and De Sweemer, Cecile, eds. 1987. Families in Transition: The Case for Counseling in Context. Geneva: World Council of Churches.Google Scholar
Mpolo, Masamba Ma, and Nwachuku, Daisy, eds. 1991. Pastoral Care and Counseling in Africa Today. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Mpolo, Masamba Ma, and Kalu, Wilhelmina, eds. 1985. The Risks of Growth: Counseling and Pastoral Theology in the African Context. Geneva: World Council of Churches.Google Scholar
Mbunwe-Samba, P. 1989. Witchcrafi, Magic and Divination: A Personal Testimony. Bamenda, Cameroon: Archives Edition.Google Scholar
Mburu, John. “Witchcraft Among the Wimbum.” 1979. B. A. thesis, Regional Major Seminary, Bambui, Cameroon.Google Scholar
Mbuva, James Muli. 1993. “Witchcraft Among the Akamba and Africa Inland Church.” M.A. thesis, Fuller Theological Seminary.Google Scholar
Mbuy, Tatah H. 1994. African Traditional Religion as Anonymous Christianity: The Case of the Tikars of the Bamenda Grassfields. Bamenda. Cameroon: Unique Printers.Google Scholar
Mbuy, Tatah H. 1992. Understanding Witchcraft Problems in The Life of an African: Case Studies From Cameroon. Owerri, Imo State Nigeria: High Speed Printers.Google Scholar
Middleton, John, and Winter, E. H., eds. 1963. Witchcraft and Sorcery in East Africa. New York: Frederick Praeger.Google Scholar
Milingo, E. 1984. The World in Between: Christian Healing and the Struggle for Spiritual Survival, ed. by Macmillan, Mona. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books.Google Scholar
Mudimbe, V. Y. 1988. The Invention of Africa: Gnosis, Philosophy and the Order of Knowledge. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Mudimbe, V. Y. 1991. Parables and Fables: Exegesis, Textuality, and Politics in Central Africa. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Peek, Philip M, ed. 1991. African Divination Systems: Ways of Knowing. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Pool, Robert. 1994. Dialogue and Interpretation of Illness: Conversations in a Cameroonian Village. Oxford: Berg.Google Scholar
Pool, Robert. 1989. “There Must Have Been Something: Interpretations of Illness and Misfortune in a Cameroonian Village.” Ph.D. diss., University of Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Probst, Peter. 1992. Schrift, Staat und Symbolisches Kapital bei den Wimbum: Ein Ethnographischer Bericht aus dem Grasland von Kamerun. Münster: LIT Verlag.Google Scholar
Probst, Peter, and Bühler, Brigitte. 1990. “Patterns of Control on Medicine, Politics and Social Change among the Wimbum, Cameroon Grassfields.” Anthropos 85: 447–54.Google Scholar
Rawlands, Michael, and Warnier, J. P. 1988. “Sorcery, Power and the Modern State in Cameroon.” Man 23: 118–32.Google Scholar
Reynolds, Barrie. 1963. Magic, Divination and Witchcraft among the Barotse of Northern Rhodesia. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Ritzenthaler, Pat. 1962. Cameroon Village: An Ethnography of the Bafut. Milwaukee: Milwaukee Public Museum.Google Scholar
Rosny, E. de. 1985. Healers in the Night. Translated by Barr, Robert. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books.Google Scholar
Rosny, E. de. 1981. Les Yeux de ma Chevre, Sur les pas des Mâitres de la Nuit en Pays Douala. Paris: Plon.Google Scholar
Rosny, E. de. 1992. L'Afrique des Guerisons. Paris: Karthala.Google Scholar
Singer, Andre, and Street, Brian, eds. 1972. Zande Themes: Essays Presented to Sir Edward Evans-Pritchard. London: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Tambiah, Stanley J. 1990. Magic, Science, Religion, and the Scope of Rationality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tanto, R. 1996. “Witchcraft Among the Wimbum of Tabenken.” Bambui, Cameroon: Regional Major Seminary.Google Scholar
Thomas, Keith. 1982. “The Meaning of the Term Witchcraft.” In Witchcraft and Sorcery, ed. Marwick, Max, 41–43. London: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Thomas, Keith. 1971. Religion and the Decline of Magic. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.Google Scholar
Wilson, Monica. 1982. “Witch Beliefs and Social Structure.” In Witchcraft and Sorcery, ed. Marwick, M. G., 276–85. London: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Wylie, R. W. 1970. “Introspective Witchcraft Among the Effutu.” In Witchcraft and Sorcery, ed. Marwick, M. G., 132–39. London: Penguin.Google Scholar