Beschreibung
The sacred forest is a concrete place with a rich symbolic
meaning. For the Laimbwe ethnic group of the North West
Region of Cameroon, it is the centre of the social life,
around which the people organize their matrilineal system.
Henry Kam Kah describes the origin, development and the
changes in matriliny as a gender construction from an
insider point of view. Using written material and interviews
with 150 persons, he shows how the system overcame all the various challenges
since the 18th century, especially the rejection of
matriliny by the colonial powers and Christian missionaries.
With this study, Henry Kam Kah calls into question different
prejudices of a Eurocentric gender research which believes
in the dominance of patriarchal structures and the decline
of other gender systems under the impact of global influence
and pressure.
Henry Kam Kah is Senior Lecturer at the
Department of History of the University of Buea (Cameroon).
