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(nyu fhnyu fh), and this accentuates the notion of a physical connection between the intestines of a mother and child via the umbilical cord (nkye), itself categorised as a type of “intestine” (nyu).

Patrilineal descent is the principle upon which the Tikar descent groups, or clans, are

based.  This paper is chiefly concerned with the place of clans in Tikar society and, in particular, the connection between them and the territorial organization of the chiefdom. Map 1: The capitals of the ten Tikar chiefdoms east of the Mapé and the Mbam rivers in relation to the neighbouring urban centres.

Matrilineal descent is important in the inheritance of a woman’s moveable possessions,

in reckoning whom one may marry in ego-focused systems of kindred, in the rule of incest and in providing a substantial identity between an individual and his mother’s brother. Furthermore, there is a belief in a substance called nlã which is parasitically attached to the intestines of certain people; a woman possessing it transmits it to her sons and daughters, but only her daughters can pass it on to their children.  Covert and transmitted matrilineally, it appears in many ways as the structural counterpart of the political power wielded by men in this male-dominated society.  For this reason, and because it suggests that there were matrilineal descent groups amongst the Tikar in the past, I shall briefly describe the beliefs associated with it.

By adopting an idiom of witchcraft to describe aspects of this phenomenon, I

distinguish it, as do the Tikar, from other forms of sorcery which are ultimately learned techniques rather than innate powers.  A woman with this substance insider her, i.e. a witch, is referred to by the same term, nlã, but a man is not: lacking a vagina, the witchcraft substance cannot leave his body, so he is denied the extraordinary powers that it confers upon a woman. Nevertheless, within an individual of either sex, it produces obsessive cravings for blood, fresh

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