From Denigrating Violence against African Beliefs to the Construction of Cultural Values: A Postcolonial Study of Religious Cults in the Bamiléké Country (West Region of Cameroon)

Abstract

In the context of globalisation, African religions are marginalised because they are poorly understood and have to compete with the so-called revealed religions of the West. As a result, certain African beliefs are subjected to denigrating violence. This is the case of the Bamiléké cults in West Cameroon, which are characterised by specific rites, ceremonies and places. Based on a corpus of cults observed in the Bamiléké country (2021/2022), this article aims to rehabilitate them in order to place them in the context of a poorly understood monotheistic religion, hence the following problem: how is religious worship characterised in the Bamiléké country in a context of globalisation where certain African cultural values are marginalised? To carry out this research, we will use social and cultural anthropology and discursive memory as two approaches to postcolonial theory. Our findings are as follows: first, the problem of naming African religions is characterised by stereotypes and cultural memory. Secondly, religious cults in Bamiléké country have cultural specificities that may either be authentic to the Bamiléké or resemble cults practised in so-called monotheistic religions. Finally, these undervalued religious cults have various symbolic stakes for the Bamiléké that deserve to be taken into account in a context of unidirectional globalisation.