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chief of Ngambe, he performs a greeting peculiar  to this clan headship.  He kneels before the

chief with his left knee on the ground and proofs his right arm with a clenched fist facing

downwards.  The chief reaches forward and, with his right hand, he plucks at the hairs on the

back of Munkamble’s wrist.  This greeting is said to mark the outstanding courage of the

Mèmble who are reputed to be the most fearsome warriors of all the Tikar.  Munkamble controls

the cult called Ngali whose meetings are open to adult members of this clan and the royal clan.

They are supposed to take place at the death of important members of these two clans, including

that of the chief of Ngambe, but while I was at Ngambe, they failed to be held.

  That a clan enjoys a certain renown, or performs exclusive services, adds to the prestige

of its leader.  Other important factors by which his social standing relative to other clan heads is

liable to be judged are his personal qualities, especially those suited to leadership, and the

number of people he commands.  The former are likely to influence the latter because, in this

context, when people judge the size of his following, they take into account not just his clan,

but also the territorial groupings he represents; with regard to them the Tikar have a degree of

choice and thus of the clan head who can claim their allegiance.


Clans heads and the clan estates

  Clanship is intimately associated with the territorial organization of the chiefdom, being

the ideological basis on which the leadership of its major units is founded.  These are of two

kinds, corresponding to the Tikar dual classification of the horizontal world into “bush”
(mbç’   ç’) and “village” (   ~çns   ~ç  ).  I refer to them, respectively, as “clan estates” and

“villages”.  They belong to two parallel, though interrelated, systems of government, both of

which bring everyone within the chiefdom, at least everyone conforming to Tikar norms, under

the authority of the chief of Ngambe.  The system of clan estates, which will be discussed first,

fundamentally belongs to the economic, whereas that of villages belongs more to the socio-

political sphere of social life.

  The chief of Ngambe is regarded as ultimately owning all the land within his chiefdom
and in this context  he is referred to as tindjç’ tindjç’ (lit. “possessor of the ground”).  Rights to

defined stretches of land classified as bush as opposed to village, the clan estates, are vested in
clan heads who, with regard to these rights, are known as metimbç’   metimbç’  (s. timbç’

timbç’, lit. “possessor of bush”).  The chief of Ngambe retains rights to all the “royal animals”

killed, and a share of all wine tapped from standing palmtrees throughout his chiefdom, while a

clan head is responsible for ensuring that these items are rendered to him when they originate
from his clan estate.14

14The leopard (nwa’), the lion (gbale), the crowned eagle (mbi), the python (lèsè) and a large
fish which I have neither seen nor identified but which is called ndwçnga’, constitute the “royal
animals”.  They are known collectively or individually as nyQ-mbè, where nyQmeans animal
or animals and mbè’, the chief’s share, or tribute.  It is believed that only royals and
SimQmgbe, the leopard-skin bag priest (Price, 1979), can eat their flesh without dying.  For


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