The mountains are as a rule a world apart from civilizations, which are an urban and lowland achievement. Their history is to have none, to remain almost always on the fringe of the great waves of civilization, even the longest and most persistent, which may be spread over great distances in the horizontal plane but are powerless to move vertically when faced with an obstacle of a few hundred meters. To these hilltop worlds, out of touch with the towns, even Rome itself, in all its years of power, can have meant very little..
-Fernand Braudel
The extreme north of Cameroon, nestled among the Mandera mountains, is a world entirely different from southern Cameroon. Different cultures, languages, foods, and general way of life slowly begin to emerge as one journeys up into this region, replacing the more mainstream, progressive, and gentrified South (relatively, of course).
Sitting in a bus nestled between two people of an immense girth, I watched the landscape begin to flatten out under the setting sun. With steep imposing mountains irregularly lining the horizon, it seems as though you are traveling towards an open mouth gaping wide, whose bare rock teeth jut upwards out of lush green gums. Buildings and shanties are replaced by Bukaroos, the traditional house, which is comprised of a cluster of small circular mud huts with conical straw thatched roofs. Suits, ties, and the motorcycles upon which they heave forth are replaced here with withered and wise faces on rickety bicycles donning bright gowns (galabiyya) of the Muslim faith.
Islam is the predominant faith here yet, like most of rural Cameroon, sorcery and witchcraft remain the foundation upon which these newer traditions persist. Each town has their own belief system dating back thousands of years, which is born from the sacred rock their village resides beside. Looking out over the landscape from one of these villages, it is easily grasped how mysticism is able to find its seat beside truth.
To live amongst these mythic stones, where one’s daily activities range from tending one’s crops, foraging food for yourself and your animals, sitting in the shade of the village’s sacred tree that covets eternity, and drinking beer you made from your maize crop make the mysticism and animism that is so alive in their faith not only possible, but necessary.
As if all these strands of life weave into one another to produce a faith which is wholly supported by the earth and the forces of nature which you are constantly swayed by. They are here a product of their environment, and their faith must complement this fact.
In the West we are not products of our environment, but self-proclaimed kings who reign over it with industry and air-conditioning.
