BUDGET 3

Francis Lole and Elizabeth-Kila

Francis Lole is a man in his late fifties and lives in Mbonyaar Compound with his
wife, Elizabeth-Kila. Both were Roman Catholics before they were married (see text).
One adolescent daughter, Scholastica, is a Health-Visitor at Bamenda Station; the other,
Emilia Woomila, was appointed to the same position in Kimbaw in October 1947
and she lived with her parents. The eldest and only son, Francis Kpuntir, recorded
Lole's budget for me while I was in the west of the Province from February to September
1947, after which I took over the weekly records myself. Kpuntir left for the secondary
school in Victoria just before Christmas. Lole had two other children, a girl attending
school and a second at home. He also gave food to, and received help from, Cletus
(son of a deceased sister), and from Everestus (son of a deceased brother). With these
two youths he made sun-dried bricks and constructed houses in Kimbaw. He had
also taken under his wing Elizabeth-Djingla and Tume - two daughters of a brother
who lived in Mvø hamlet. There were thus nine members in the household during
most of the year.
In addition to bricklaying Lole also tended plantain and other fruit trees, some
raffia which he had planted at Kingomen, and a small coffee plantation in Kimbaw.
His wife, with some assistance from Elizabeth-Djingla, farmed 1.7 acres. She also
brewed beer and sold it to djanggis.

NOTES
(a) Elizabeth had a good maize harvest in September 1947 but, even so, Lole occasionally
bought bags of maize, especially during the rains of 1947 when stores were low.
(b) Elizabeth was rather sickly and Lole bought flour, gari and beans to save her the chore
of grinding grain. Note the relatively high expenditure on relishes for soup.
(c) When Kpuntir left for school, Lole bought him a fine mat for 3s. The other, costing 1s.
was for the household.
(d) When Lole secured the contract for the Women's Centre he bought an alarm clock to
ensure waking early for the job!
(e) Firewood was purchased from the Government Plantation. Of this Elizabeth used
about 5s. worth for brewing beer.
(f) Cletus, the sister's son, assisted Lole and in return received food, clothes and a little pocket
money.
(g) Lole paid fees for Laurence but did not buy books or clothes because the boy was lazy
and did not work in his spare time. Lole feared he might set a bad example to his own
children if he received everything for nothing. Lole also paid fees for the youngest son
of Djingla (inherited wife of the fai). He said he did it out of pity because he himself
had just lost a child.
(h) The gunpowder was fired to celebrate the return of Lole's daughters from Nigeria. See
(x) and (y) below.
(i) Lole belonged to four djanggis: he "cooked" one at Mbonyaar for 67s. and provided
3s. 6d. worth of beer, which he purchased from his own wife. He "cooked" a weekly
djanggi at Ka for 29s. and provided wine (1s.) and beer (2s. 6d.). From a weekly djanggi
at Ndzendzef he obtained 100s. and gave wine (3s. 6d.), and from a monthly djanggi at
Ndzendzef he got 75s. and provided wine worth 3s. He gave 1s. l0d. of meat when the
"bank" met. His wife was also a member of the Mbonyaar djanggi and was to receive
about 40s. at the end of March.
(j) Lole had at one time 31s. 5d. in the "bank" but, by the beginning of 1947, he had only
27s. left. In April, and again in June, he withdrew 12s. and paid 1s. interest on each
amount later.
(k) The sum of 8s. 10 1/2d. represented the total cash outlay for a number of small gifts to
Elizabeth's kin. I cite them in detail because they illustrate the type of occasion when
gifts are made to affines. When a new fai was installed as head of the lineage of Elizabeth's

mother's father, Lole bought salt (1s. 6d.) and fish (1s. 9d.). He also provided a cock
(2s. 6d.) from his own poultry and sent these gifts to the new fai. When the Føn died in
April 1947 Lole bought a small goat (4s. 6d.) and sent it to the fai who, in his turn, took
it to the palace. The value of gifts in cash to the fai for the year was thus 7s. 9d.
The value of gifts in kind to affines is discussed in (x) below. During the year Lole and
his wife spent 5d. on groundnuts for Elizabeth's brother's son; 6d. for a pot for Elizabeth's
brother's wife. Total expenditure was 1s. l 1/2d., in addition to gifts from household supplies.
Elizabeth received 1s. 6d. in cash from her brother as a return for the care she had lavished
on his sick wife.
(l) Lole gave 1s. 9d. worth of salt and 3d. worth of flour to his sister who was a wiinto. When
the Føn died in April Lole sent to vikinto fish (9d.) and meat (1s.), in addition to the fufu
prepared by his wife. He gave a shilling to Cletus; and a hoe (4s.) to a wife of a deceased
brother, and 3d. to her son. At Christmas he distributed 14s. 6d. in cash among kin and
friends. I have allowed 8s. for kin. He also provided pork (3s.) for his daughter and
her friends; and later 6d. worth of wine for a working-bee which she had organized for the
clearing of her farm.
From his own kin gifts in cash were small. Elizabeth at the wedding of a girl at
Ndzendzef received 9d. Lole's mother was a kinswoman of Ndzendzef.
(m) During the year Lole gave small sums of cash to friends, and at Christmas he distributed
about 6s. 6d. in presents. He received two sums in cash from friends (4s. and 3s. 3d.).
See (i) below.
(o) Lole's coffee plantation was just under an acre. He obtained 40s. for the berries but paid
2s. for transport to Bamenda.
(p) Lole obtained 9s. for supervising the construction of a small house in Mbinkar; he was
also due to receive 22s. 6d. for another, but to date had been given only 12s. 6d.
(q) Lole received the contract to make bricks for the new Women's Centre on the outskirts
of Kimbaw. He was given 12s. 6d. a 1,000 bricks, but out of this he had to pay labourers
12s. which left him with a profit of 6d. His total profit from the bricks was 72s. 6d., plus
an extra 7s. 6d. as payment for rough shelters for the bricks.
(r) The apprentice agreed to pay Lole 60s. for instruction in bricklaying. The training was
completed but Lole had received only 30s.
(s) Lole bought 2 bags groundnuts for 9s. to retail but he made nothing on the transaction.
(t) Lole bought a bar of soap for 1s. l 1/2d. to sell in small quantities, but made only a halfpenny
on the deal.
(u) Meat was bought for 6s. and retailed for 8s.
(v) Two shirts cost 13s. 6d. and were sold by Lole for 17s.
(w) Every week Elizabeth bought one or two bags of maize and brewed beer for two djanggis.
Her outlay on maize for the year was £7-2-4 1/2, and her sales amounted to £10-3-2.
(x) I cite in detail gifts to Elizabeth's kin. When a new fai was installed as head of the
patrilineage of Elizabeth's mother (see (k) above), Lole sent one of his own cocks (2s. 6d.).
When the Føn died Elizabeth sent fufu and greens to the wives of the new fai who then
handed the food to the vikinto. The value of gifts in kind to the new fai were thus 3s. 6d.
At the time of the Føn's death Lole also sent one of his own cocks to Fai-o-Ki, father of
Elizabeth, who in turn handed it on to the palace. The brother of Elizabeth also received
a cock (2s. 6d.) and later pineapples and bananas (9d.) and salt (6d.). When her sister-
in-law was ill in hospital Elizabeth visited her daily, taking food to the value all told of
4s. Elizabeth's sister was given 3d. worth of salt.
But Lole's affines made some return for these gifts. When his daughters arrived from
Nigeria, he and wife received potatoes (6d.) and eggplant (2d.) from the wives of Fai-o-Do
(head of Elizabeth's mother's patrilineage). Elizabeth's own brother sent firewood (3d.)
and two fowls (3s.); while her brother's wife occasionally sent food, e.g. yams (1s. 6d.),
potatoes (9d.), corn (6d.), plantains (4d.) and fufu (1s.) ,total value being 4s. 1d. Eliza-
beth's brother's daughter at Ketiwum sent potatoes (3d.).
(y) I shall not itemize all gifts made to Lole's own kin. They consisted in the main of small
quantities of cooked food, beer, meat, and firewood. Late in the year he sent a large
cock (3s.) and egusi (7d.) to his daughter at Bamenda. He gave his adolescent son,
Kpuntir, 2 tin spoons (1s.), a fork (6d.), 2 basins and a cup (4s.), a pillow case (2s.), a blanket
(8s.) and a small suitcase (10s.) from among the household possessions to take to school in
Victoria.
(z) Lole and his wife received small quantities of food from his kin in the compound. When
the daughters returned from Nigeria both kin and friends came forward with gifts. Lole
said he could not remember all the individuals concerned, but the total cash value of

16 fowls, meat, wine, eggs, flour, groundnuts, salt, cocoyam and so on was about 32s. 8 1/2d.
My records of gifts in kind to friends are incomplete as Lole and wife were apt to be reticent
about acts of hospitality.
In the mass of detail the balance of gifts has been obscured. Gifts in cash and in kind
to Elizabeth's kin amounted to 22s. 10 1/2d. Gifts in cash and in kind received from her
kin amounted to 9s. 9d. Gifts in cash and kind to the kin and friends of Lole amounted
to 65s. 2 1/2d., while gifts received amounted to 45s. l0 1/2d.
(aa) Elizabeth harvested 17 vegati of maize in September 1947, and 3 3/4 vegati of finger millet
in January 1948.
(bb) Elizabeth, with the help of her husband's niece, cultivated a relatively large rizga plot and
obtained approximately 1,728 lbs. of roots; but she had only two small patches of sweet
potatoes and not many trifoliate yams.
(cc) Elizabeth sold 7d. worth of egusi which I have deducted from the value of relishes.
(dd) Lole did most of the weeding of the fruit plantations. I have estimated a crop of 760 lbs.
(worth 38 s.) of which about 125 lbs. were sold.
(ee) Lole and his wife liked coffee which they drank very weak and without sweetening. The
bulk of the crop was sold in Bamenda Station.