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Shields are among the most distinctive parts of Mambila material
culture, and since they have been collected since the first Europeans
passed through the area late in the Nineteenth century I was on
the look out for them from the beginning of my first field work.
I soon saw a few examples in a room in the chiefs palace. They
were exactly (to my naive eye) as illustrated in Meek, and turn
out to have been made on the Mambila Plateau in what is now Nigeria
not so far from where Meek took his photograph. In contemporary
Mambila society shields are historical curios and are preserved
as such. They have a role to play as accoutrement in the biannual
Nggwun festival in which a war dance has a prominent place. Old
shields such as the one I saw in the palace, such as are in the
museums, are brought out and are used during Nggwun. But since
they are no longer woven other shields are made from raffia palms
for use during the dance. The dance over, they are abandoned,
and left to disintegrate. Perhaps the young boys will play with
them for a few days after the main dance then as they fall to
pieces they are burnt or just thrown onto rubbish heaps, and left
to rot. The first few shields that I collected I rescued from
this fate after the Nggwun festival of December 1986 (the shields
are now in the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology).
I have not been able to collect any 'old style' shields - the
current ones are too cherished, and even were I to want to have
one as heirlooms I would not be allowed to export them from Cameroon.
I have made enquires about having a new one woven in Nigeria
- where according to some informants there are still a few people
with the weaving skills - but my enquires have come to nothing.
In 1994 I collected some shields for the Pitt Rivers Museum.
I was in the village to observe the Nggwun rites again, and wanted
to document the process of making raffia pith shields. Since
the shields I had collected in 1986 had been damaged before I
had collected them, and being full-sized had proved difficult
and expensive to transport, I found someone I knew who was making
a shield for use in the dance and asked them to make a smaller
replica for me to take back to Europe. As the photos show, the
model shield is a reproduction of the full sized original which
I have also documented in use. Since it was made on my request
there was no problem about photographing its manufacture nor about
exporting it since it was brand new. The maker had previously
done other jobs for me, such as making cases for transporting
pots back to Europe, so was used to my unusual requests, such
as making tiny shields! During subsequent performances of Ngguwn
I have been able to video both the war dance and the manufacturing
process of the raffia shields so the documentation of the new
style shields is fairly complete, and much better than the 'traditional'
shields that were used in warfare and whose use and manufacture
has declined over the last fifty years. I note that the most
recent example to be collected - given to the Pitt Rivers Museum
in the 1960s by Mrs Charlesworth - was of recent manufacture when
it was collected. The only examples I have seen in Nigeria (see
photo from Dorofi) were not of new, so production appears to be
ceased soon after independence. Nggwun is not danced in all Mambila
villages, but versions of it have been documented in Warwar village
by Farnham Rehfisch in 1953 as well as by Meek in 1929 on the
far side of the Mambila Plateau (he reached xxxx village but did
not go further onto the Plateau due to illness).
Dr David Zeitlyn,
Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology,
Centre for Social Anthropology and Computing,
Department of Anthropology,
Eliot College, The University of Kent,
Canterbury,
CT2 7NS, UK.
Tel. (44) 1227 764000 -Ext. 3360 (or 823360 direct)
Fax (44) 1227 827289
http://lucy.ukc.ac.uk/dz/
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