Funerailles vs. Dueils

While I may not have the busiest work schedule right now, there sure are a lot of memorial services to attend to in the dry season. This is one aspect of Cameroonian culture in which the differences are incongruous with my own country’s coping style.
A Dueil happens, like in the states, a week or so after someone dies. There body is, however, transported from the morgue to their ancestral village. Sometimes this can be several hours away. In that case, the appropriate number of private vehicles are rented to transport funeral processions from relative metropolis’ down rickety, dusty roads to the family house. A eulogy is given by several to many mourners, often in a native dialect and always incomprehensible. Afterwards several young men, of strapping disposition, lift and carry the casket to a pre-dug hole in the vicinity of the house. Weeping and sometimes a marching band commence and persist until the earth is full again. The marching band may continue to play, often jubilant guests dance and money is waved and collected, presumably to help the family with expenses. The women make sure each guest has something to eat, even if it is just a baguette with one piece of meat inside. Everyone returns home the same day, but the family will continue to receive grieving guests for at least a week following the burial. Women in the family shave their heads and don the same mourning outfits, though often vibrantly colored, for at least a month, and widows resign to sleeping on the cold, frequently dirt floor for the following week. Cameroon is diverse enough and traditions surely differ between ethnic groups, but these are the situations of which, I have so far been a part.
I went to a dueil last sunday, it was for the sister of one of the farmers I work with, in a village 6km from chez moi. While there, I was fed two servings of koki (a spicy, spongy bean cake), with sides of boiled plaintains, one heaping pile of rice and fish, and a saucer of chicken covered in an oily tomato based sauce with a side of baton de manioc (a gelatinous stick of transformed cassava), not to mention numerous glasses of palm wine to wash it all down. As I am somewhat an anomaly, I do get special treatment at celebrations, but generally, Cameroonians are extremely generous when it comes to food, and it is such bad form to refuse. Sometimes eating here feels like a sport, luckily there are usually enough kids around to help, if you really can’t manage. On my walk home I was solicited by the wife of the chef of my cartier, she presented me with another plate of koki and boiled plaintains, and demanded I eat every last bite. She also proposed that I accept the position of the chefs second wife, after I refused the hands of two present and willing bachelors. I don’t know what she is thinking; I have no idea how to cook Cameroonian food.

A Funeraille, however is in the tradition of the Bamileke people, who inhabit the West Province, but as previously mentioned, many Bamilekes have migrated to the Littoral Province. The funerialle happens some time after an individual’s death. It is a final goodbye and celebration of the deceased. I attended a funeraille planned by my host father in November. It memorialized the lives of his mother, father and first wife, all of who had died at least ten years previously. It took him this long to accumulate the funds to fufill this obligation, which was necessary if my host mother, Sophie, was to be recognized as a legitimate spouse in the Bamileke tradition. Sophie, was responsible for the preparations of the majority of consumable amenities, including the transformation of eleven chickens, one goat and a sheep into something edible by Cameroonian standards.
I arrived the night before the official ceremony, and while the more invested guests stayed up all night drinking palm wine and splitting kola nuts, I shared the only available bed with two other women.
The next day consisted of matching outfits, outrageous headgear, banquet feasts, warm beer, circular dance formations and a marching band reminiscent of homecoming parade pride in middle America.
In the end it felt a little anti-climatic, as I was a witness to the months of planning and preparations that led up to a ceremony lasting less than one hour. It seems I will have to wait until next year to see how a funeraille looks from the outside, as the season is officially pinned to the month of November. As for dueils, it seems the infirm pass appropriately in the midst of the dry season. Once the rain starts, transportation of large processions will be a dangerous affair, on unpaved roads leading to surprisingly complex villages.
While mourning of the deceased does include weeping, wailing, and other deprecatory practices, the conglomeration of distant relatives and friends, drinking and feasting breeds a more festive atmosphere. I have yet to master the wailing and I often forget to be somber.