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Dance Exchange In Western Equatorial Africa*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 July 2014

James W. Fernandez
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Extract

In a now classic study Mitchell demonstrated that dances quite beside their aesthetic interest offer important insight into social structural processes. Dances characteristic of the transitional period in Africa frequently offer valuable insights into patterns of changing social organization and into the cultural perspectives of the participants. I am going to scrutinize here some features of dances now being exchanged in Western Equatorial Africa—in particular among the Pahouin peoples or Yaounde-Fang speakers of northern Gabon, Southern Cameroons and Equatorial Guinea. These peoples traditionally had simple non-market economies. In recent years they have been brought rapidly into a modern economy through the introduction of cash crops and migrant labor. The question arises: what is being exchanged in the distribution of these dances and what is the consequence of this exchange? In a transitional economy there are almost surely other values in transaction than those measurable in modern currency.

Type
Articles
Information
Dance Research Journal , Volume 8 , Issue 1 , Fall/Winter 1976 , pp. 1 - 7
Copyright
Copyright © Congress on Research in Dance 1976

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References

FOOTNOTES

1. Mitchell, J. Clyde, The Kalela Dance: Aspects of Social Relationships Among Urban Africans in Northern Rhodesia, The Rhodes Livingston Papers, No. 27 (Manchester, 1959).Google Scholar

2. Classified as Group A70 in Guthrie, Malcolm, The Bantu Languages of Western Equatorial Africa (Oxford, 1953), pp. 40–44.Google Scholar

3. Malinowski, B., Crime and Custom in Savage Society (New York, 1926Google Scholar; Mauss, Marcel, The Gift (London, 1954).Google Scholar

4. Balandier, Georges, “Phenomenes Sociaux Totaux et Dynamique Sociale,” Cahiers Internationaux de Sociologie, Vol. 30, No. 4 (Jan.-June, 1961), pp. 23–24.Google Scholar

5. Alexandre, P. and Binet, J., Le Groupe dit Pahouin (Presses Universitaires de France, 1958), pp. 46–48.Google Scholar

6. We find the element of competitive gift exchange also in the funeral, ntoawu, of the head or important male member of an ndebot in which the various sons-in-law, husbands of the daughters of that ndebot, come forward and compete in gift giving, afa's abong, against each other and to their father-in-law's satisfaction.

7. We note in several areas of transtitional Fang life this highly mimetic emphasis upon bureaurcatic forms. In the clan regroup-ment movement which sprung up in the late 1940's among the northern Ntumu, the clan reunions—esulan ayong—were highly bureaucratized almost to the point of mockery. Cf. Fernandez, J.W., “The Affirmation of Things Past: Alar Ayong and Bwiti as Movements of Protest in Central and Northern Gabon,” in Protest and Power in Black Africa, Rotberg, R.I. and Mazrui, A.M., eds., N.Y. 1970, pp. 427–457.Google Scholar

8. Bohannan, P.J., “The Impact of Money on an African Subsistence Economy,” The Journal of Economic History, Vol. XIX, No. 4, p. 500.Google Scholar Bohannan suggests the different spheres of exchange in traditional African life and the special purpose currency appropriate to each sphere. He points out the difficulty involved in converting the values in one sphere—say the value of women in the sphere of kinship relations—to the values in another; foodstuffs in the subsistence sphere by means of general purpose money.

9. It should be remarked that some of the dance leaders are much more profit minded than others and getting an adequate return of their investment is of dominating importance to them. The commercial mindedness of the Fang has been long remarked by observers. Balandier, among others—in Sociologie Actuelle de l'Afrique Noire (Paris, 1962)Google Scholar—sees it as one of the principal drives of their behavior. The data we report here modifies this emphasis, however.

10. Balandier, “Changements Sociaux,” p. 30.

11. Trilles, Pere Henri, Totemism Chez les Fang (Munster, 1912)Google Scholar makes extensive reference to the various myths of the pursuing supernaturals.

12. This version differs slightly but not challengingly from that given by Alexandre and Balandier (southwest female, northwest male). Their version may be that of the Cameroons where trade and struggle with the Germans proceeded from the northwest. It is not the symbolic orientation of the southern Pahouin.

13. In dance exchange as in bilaba we find directional-historical symbolism closely approximating that noted by Alexandre and Balandier. Thus we may be dealing with a shift in this symbolic organization of the world in response to the European presence.

14. Our discussion here refers mainly to the most popular genre of dances in which there is a female dance team organized by males who provide direction and accompaniment. Manzang, Mangan, Enyenge and Ozila are examples of this.