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Drugs and Mysticism: The Bwiti Cult of the Fang

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

Jacques Binet

Extract

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The Fang, a conquering people, overran the southern Cameroons and northern Gabon during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Their conquest followed a rather curious pattern: without a deliberated tribal organization, one family after another picked up and descended to the sea. Their conquering past has deeply influenced the Fang; they do not hesitate to appropriate new techniques and ideas, confident that they are strong enough to assimilate almost anything into their culture. Eager for innovations and change, the Fang are convinced that progress never rests, and they are not hindered by nostalgia which they feel is sterile and unjustified. It was natural for them to seek out Western civilization and try to assimilate it. As a result there was a massive conversion to Christianity among the Fang.

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 22 , Issue 86 , June 1974 , pp. 31 - 54
Copyright
Copyright © 1974 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

References

1 The original text is in Fang, translated into French and here into English. The translation into French, made by a Fang, uses words which rendered into English become "vampirous," "vampirizing." In French, these are not correct terms. However, since they show an aptitude to create words in the best tradi tion of popular phonology, it seems useful to keep them.