| men to have invoked when they have applied to farm on the estates of other clans. Nevertheless, these figures demonstrate that it is not uncommon for men to farm the estates of other clans, and they tend to corroborate what experience suggests, that if a man is not using the land of his own clan, he is most likely to have resorted to that of his mother’s brother’s clan. |
| Before a man can start to farm the land of another clan, he must join the clan head for a |
| rite when the estate is “opened” to him and the other members of his household. This takes place at dawn at a point where a footpath enters the estate. With his right hand, the clan head mixes maize-flour and cold water in a bowl held in his left hand in the manner described for the rite called the “speech of the maize-four”. Having chewed several grains of alligator pepper and blown a spray of his saliva into the air three times, he pours the paste on either side of the footpath whilst uttering formulae. His words are addressed to Ngwã, a spirit-animal, and they are intended to secure the safety of the individual and his dependants in their enterprises on this land. It is not necessary for this rite to be repeated for other members of the household should they wish to farm on this estate when they have established households of their own.17 |
| Having been adopted in this manner into the group of people dependent on a clan estate, |
| an individual is liable to pay tax and tribute to the chief of Ngambe through this clan head. He will almost certainly associate with these people socially and participate in their collective activities, such as house-building and work parties, and also, those directed towards the ancestors of the clan whose estate it is. As has been mentioned, such a man is often related to a clansman and so, among this clan’s ancestors, there are likely to be some of whom he is a descendant, though not an agnatic descendant. He might even accept the authority of this clan’s head in disputes with others of this group. |
| With regard to exogamy, he remains firmly a member of the clan into which he was |
| born and he can marry a woman of the clan whose estate he is using, provided she is not prohibited kin. He should pay a portion of any bride-welth he receives to his own clan head, he should continue to recognize the authority of the latter in disputes with fellow clansmen, and he should attend their funerary ceremonies. The extent to which he meets these obligtions depends partly on the physical distance separating him from his clan hed, but of more importance is whether or not he has remained on good terms with him and other clansfolk. Clans heads and villages |
| As most of my fieldwork was conducted within the capital, my knowledge of social life |
| in the outlying villages is limited. consequently, I am only able to make some general comments about them, mainly concerning the position of village heads in the government of the chiefdom as mediators between their people and the chief of Ngambe, and the nature of their 17The same rite is performed for non-clan members who wish to use the estates for occasional hunting expeditions. It is customary for hunters to present their right forelimb of any large game they kill - the large antelope, buffalo and baboon - to the clan head on whose land they have been hunting. |