in the large markets of Kimbaw, Bamessing, Bali and Bamenda Station.¹ A more recent development is for traders to take Irish potatoes and cabbages to the coast.

For other items of diet - game, beef, fish, sheep, goats, pigs and fowls, condiments, oil, tobacco, kolas, beer and wine - Bamenda is self-supporting, though nowadays most people prefer European salt to the locally-made potash.² But, as noted earlier, oil palm has a very limited distribution with the result that some 70% of the population are dependent on middlemen for their supply of oil. Moreover, while purchases of food are made only occasionally, most householders buy a little oil every week or fortnight. Again, groundnuts and tobacco only thrive in certain villages, so that the purchase of small quantities, of these - the one a sweetmeat for children, the other a solace for adults - is a recurrent item in most family budgets.

Bamenda, regarded as a unit, possesses all the materials it requires for housing, tools, utensils and furniture. But many of these things are manufactured by specialists in certain tribes or sometimes only in certain villages in a tribe. Bamessi pots are exported as far north as Nsungli and west to Bali: Bamessing pipes are smoked in Ngie; and women of Mfumte wield hoes made in Oku. The main imports (excluding European articles) from outside Bamenda are camwood (from Mamfe forests); a little tobacco from the French Cameroons and Nigeria; kamwa or rock salt from Nigeria; and, especially important, Hausa cloth, some of which is sold by Hausa traders, but much by local Africans who make journeys to Adamawa and Northern Nigeria, taking with them oil or kolas. A more recent development is the enterprise shown by some men in purchasing a few head of cattle from the Fulani and driving them to Nigeria.

Finally, there is the general trade in European articles - cloth, kerosene, soap, salt, lamps, matches, thread, needles, ornaments, buckets, and a wide range of miscellaneous goods. Some of these are obtained from the U.A.C. at Abakpwa and Mamfe, but most come from Calabar. Besides the traffic in kola, oil, livestock, potatoes and cabbages across the Provincial borders, there is also the export of coffee, castor seed and palm kernels.³

In nearly all branches of trade, the people of the uplands and plains display particular initiative, a fact which is linked possibly with more intensive culture contact and their accessibility to the main motor roads; but also, to a great extent, with a lower degree of economic self-sufficiency as compared with the peoples of the forest. The latter, on their side, are usually self-supporting for foodstuffs, oil, supplies of fish and game. Many of the tribes have no markets at all; in others only one or two villages have small markets where a limited range of articles is disposed of. Attempts to establish markets in such villages as Kamini (Misaje), Jevi (Mbembe), and Fungom have met with no success. It is significant, however, that Ngie forms a notable exception in having a

¹ On the 28th May, 1946, I made a rough count of the number of female and male traders in the Kimbaw market. There were 228 adult women and 160 adolescent and small girls - total 388 (exclusive of 15 Fulani women). In the main market place there were about 1,375 male traders (exclusive of some 50 Hausa). The largest number of those dealing in any one commodity were 138 for shelled groundnuts, 119 for bags of corn, 110 for palm oil, and 93 for kolas. There were 305 engaged in general trade.

² In Nsaw there has been, for many years, a law forbidding the keeping of pigs, but an exception has been made in the case of a mixed farmer and one or two other individuals, who have built styes. It is mainly men of the central and western groups who breed pigs, more especially in Meta, Ngie, Esimbi, and Aghem. In Ngie pigs are kept in stone-pens, and fed on cocoyam and the waste from the oil pits.

³ In 1947 some 575 tons of palm kernels were exported from Bamenda, and some 120 tons of castor seed. Rice is disposed of locally and consumed mainly by strangers from Nigeria and by Europeans.

market attended by large numbers of people, particularly women. In this tribe food is often scarce, handicrafts are poor, and such things as pots, pipes and iron tools must be obtained from outside. Elsewhere in the forest, most household necessaries are obtained by the women through private barter with friends and neighbours; and only rarely by competitive barter in a market. The men, as a group, are reluctant to venture far afield, though two or three days' journey would enable them to sell their fowls or oil at a much larger profit. There is still very little desire for European goods; and, in fact, were it not for the need to accumulate goods for marriage payments it is doubtful whether they would bother to produce as large a surplus of oil as they do now, despite the keen demand for it in the rest of Bamenda.

MARRIAGE PAYMENTS

And this brings us to the custom of marriage payment and its importance for the development of trade. Its bearing on the status of women and rights to custody of children will be discussed in a later article. Here I wish to emphasize its function in stimulating production. Too often it has been condemned as a custom which imposes a heavy burden on the enterprising young man who wishes to secure a wife and set up a household and family of his own. The handing over of large numbers of livestock, which may be used again by the recipient as a marriage payment on his new wives or those of his dependants, has frequently been regarded as a profitless and perpetual exchange of goods which might otherwise be directed to improving the standard of living of the donors. It is true that in some tribes the payment is exceptionally high; that everywhere it has increased over the last 15 years; and that isolated individuals have difficulty in obtaining a wife. But, if the subject is viewed in broad economic terms, it would seem that, so far from cramping individual initiative, it is on the contrary often one of the main incentives to economic activity on the part of men, always bearing in mind that it is the women who carry out most of the agriculture and thus contribute to the subsistence of the household. To accumulate the necessary goods or cash a man must either act as middleman or else produce articles which he can sell. Even when he has obtained one wife, he will probably cast his eye about for another since prestige depends to a great extent on the possession of a large compound filled with wives and children. In this respect it is significant that those who enjoy a regular wage as mission or government employees or who follow a lucrative trade such as butchering, once they have built a better style of house and acquired a few European clothes and other articles, are tempted to secure more wives, even though they may be Christians. But even when men are content with one wife, they must often assist their younger brothers and especially their sons to secure brides.

A regular marriage payment is customary in all the Bamenda tribes with the exception of Nsaw, where a series of gifts and services is made to the wife's kin throughout her lifetime and even after her death if she has borne children. The cash value of the articles handed over elsewhere varies considerably from some £5 or £6 in Bamessi and Esimbi, to £10 or £15 in most other tribes. In Ngie it is much higher and constitutes a serious problem. Usually it is reckoned in one unit of value - goats, "shovels", the so-called "Bikom" cloth, or drums of oil. But while the greater part of the marriage payment consists of a certain quantity of one of these things, the balance is made up of salt, cloth, daneguns, iron rings, fowls, cowries, pigs, sheep, goats, cash and even - as recorded in one matrimonial case -" ladies' underwear "! Besides these items, there are also the subsidiary gifts of meat, oil, and salt made at the request of female relatives and junior kinsmen of the bride. Sometimes there are two categories of payment (a) the marriage payment proper; and (b) the small marriage payment or what is known as "expenses" in Pidgin-English.

In other tribes again, there is (c) a third category of gifts made specifically to the bride's mother who distributes a portion among her own brothers and sisters. As a rule it is only the value of the gifts in the first category which is refunded in divorce.¹

Nowadays in such areas as Bali, Ndop, Bafut and Meta, marriage payment is frequently made in cash and only a small balance in oil, livestock, salt, and so forth. Regular wage-earners or relatively wealthy traders are spoken of as "gentlemen of the town" and, in keeping with their status, are expected to disburse more. In Bamungo (Ndop), for example, I was told that an "ordinary man" would pay about £6, a "gentleman" about £10! In Nsaw, where a series of gifts of no set value is handed over during many years of marriage, increasing demands for cash and cloth are made on men in the higher income bracket. They may be sought after as prospective sons-in-law, as illustrated by one case which I have in mind. The man concerned is an ex-servant of the Føn and, in the old days, would probably have possessed two wives at most. He is, however, a successful butcher and has acquired fourteen. He is a pagan, and does not provide them with clothes; but his expenditure on salt and oil, as well as grain in times of scarcity, is a by-word in the village and gives him the stamp of the ideal husband in the eyes of many Nsaw women and their parents. Some of the younger men are becoming disgruntled by the importunacy of their affines, and many are beginning to keep a record of gifts and services with a view to producing it as evidence in the event of divorce. One man whom I knew was taught to write by an African schoolmaster, and the first use to which he put his new accomplishment was to make such a list. His wife had left him a few months previously and he had decided to divorce her.

The time taken to accumulate the marriage payment varies, much depending on the age at which betrothal takes place, the number of sisters for whom marriage payment has been obtained, the energy of the fiancé as producer and trader and, finally, the resources of the group of male kin who assist him. As I have mentioned earlier, the majority of oil-producers in the forest are content to wait the arrival of middlemen from adjoining tribes on the uplands and plains such as Aghem, Nsungli and Bali. With his earnings from oil, a Ngie or Esimbi man buys livestock (sheep, goats or pigs) which he either keeps for breeding or hands over immediately to his fiancée's relatives. In Mfumte, where specially wrought shovels are the main article of marriage payment, a man may buy these direct from a smith; or else he may collect scrap iron and take it to the latter who smiths it into shovels for a small fee. As a rule, a few articles (goats, sheep, or fowls, or small quantities of oil or cash) are handed over from time to time over a period of severa years. In some cases the payment is not completed until the birth of the first child. Those who immediately benefit from the transaction are the father and senior male kin of the bride; but, more important for our discussion here, is the resulting expansion of trade.

This may be more fully realized if we consider a man's annual commitments apart from the accumulation of marriage payment. An Esimbi man, for example, probably spends no more than 3s. or 4s. on tools and utensils; some 5s. on cloth; and another 10s. for miscellaneous expenses, including a head tax of 4s. All told, the cash outlay is in the vicinity of some 20s. to 25s. per annum for a man with a wife and child. An estimate of income is difficult

¹ In the old days, marriage exchange was practised widely throughout the Province. Sometimes slaves were given in exchange for wives, or a female slave might be bought and retained as a wife.
It should be mentioned here that in all tribes there are preliminary gifts before and immediately after betrothal which take the form of palmwine, camwood, firewood, meat, and so forth. In nearly all areas men are expected to do some work at housebuilding, farm clearing and harvest for their wives' relatives.

to compute since the last assessment was made in 1932; but, on the basis of this and comparative data from other oil-producing tribes of Bamenda as well as my own material, it seems likely that from 30 to 40 gallons of oil are produced in a year.¹ Of this, about 10 gallons would be consumed by the household, leaving some 20 to 30 gallons for sale at 2s. to 3s. 6d. a gallon according to the season. In short, it yields an income between £2.10.0 and £3.10.0 This may be supplemented by occasional sales of fowls and baskets. It should be noted here that on the uplands, where oil costs from twopence to fourpence a cigarettecup (about a 1/4 pint) most households can only afford this quantity a week; whereas, in Esimbi, a woman may use 3 pints a week, and in Ngie about 1 1/2 to 2 pints. Besides the heavier consumption of oil in a forest household a certain proportion is used by the women to barter for necessaries - a little tobacco, salt, and extra food.

The income from oil may be pitifully small; nevertheless it is in excess of a man's needs, as traditionally conceived, and provides the small surplus which may be set aside as a contribution to marriage payment for another wife for himself or for a younger brother or adolescent son. Without the incentive to accumulate wealth for this purpose both before and after marriage, the temptation for the average male to sink back into a state of bibulous lethargy would, I think, prove overwhelming, particularly in view of the fact that the women provide most of the food and, as yet, there is little demand for European articles. In fact, the ideal existence, as sketched by the Chinese poet, Wang Chi, in the seventh century A.D., would strike a responsive chord in the breast of the Esimbi or Ngie man:

" 'Tell me now, what should a man want
But to sit alone, sipping his cup of wine?'
I should like to have visitors come and discuss philosophy
And not to have the tax-collector coming to collect taxes;
My three sons married into good families
And my five daughters wedded to steady husbands.
Then I could jog through a happy five-score years
And, at the end, need no Paradise."

As it is, the Ngie or Esimbi man contrives to spend a good deal of time over his cup of palmwine, cracking kernels in the village-shelter, recounting the erstwhile glories of his tribe, bemoaning the tribulations of the present - in particular, the payment of tax, the disrespect shown by the younger generation, and the increasing stubbornness of womenfolk. Of course, in time, the demand for European articles such as clothes, tools, utensils and furniture, will intensify as it has done on the uplands and plains near the main roads; but, for the present, the majority are content with what they can earn by local trade. Very few think it worth while to headload palm kernels into the U.A.C.; and very few take their oil and fowls to the big markets, a few days' journey distant. Even some of the returned soldiers, whom I met in Ngie and Esimbi, showed the same lack of enterprise. Having used much of their savings to procure a bride at inflation rates, they seemed content to sit back, crack kernels, drink wine and wait for something to turn up.

DIVISION OF LABOUR

In the preceding discussion I have endeavoured to indicate the general distribution of resources, types of production, the need to accumulate marriage payment, and the bearing of all these factors on the development of trade. It should be already clear that it is primarily the men who require a cash income, for in Bamenda the women do not traditionally wear cloth, and their

¹ Oil becomes scarce from about August to November, when heavy rains make it difficult to climb the slippery trees.

needs do not extend beyond the provision of farm tools, house utensils, a few ornaments, and the occasional supplementing of food-supplies. In the forest areas, men purchase the more expensive items such as hoes, leaving the women to obtain the other necessaries by bartering a little oil, pots, baskets, or food, as the case may be. 0n the uplands and plains, many men also assume responsibility for these, as providing the more costly items. Consonant with the financial commitments of the men is the general tendency for them to concern themselves with those crafts, or with the management and control of those resources, which yield a cash income. Notable exceptions are firstly, pottery (except in Mbem and Munkap) which is in the hands of the women; and, secondly, the expression of palm oil in Ngie and to some extent also in Mogamaw. But, even in these regions, any surplus over and above what is required for household needs and petty barter is disposed of by the men and the profits retained by them. Moreover an important supplement to income in Ngie is the breeding of fowls, a task to which the men devote considerable time, carrying the birds in small coops to the farms where the women turn up insects and grubs as they hoe.

Likewise, the lucrative trade is the hands of the men. Women may sell small quantities of foodstuffs, pots, or baskets in their own village; but there are obviously difficulties and disadvantages in the married women leaving their homes and children to carry heavy headloads of pots, kerosene tins of oil, bags of grain, and crates of kola nuts to other villages, and even to Adamawa or the French Cameroons. I am of course referring chiefly to the uplands and plains. In the forest areas, where most men are reluctant to undertake long trading journeys, the present division of labour whereby the women carry out most of the farming is less consistent with the pattern of economic needs. But, outside the forest belt, there is some validity in the argument of the men that if they were to do more farming they would not have the time to earn money for the household, as well as to perform the heavy and strenuous tasks such as housebuilding, hunting, clearing of high bush, cutting of thatching grass and big firewood. This is not to deny that the men have more leisure than the women, in the sense that they work less consistently; but it is doubtful whether any additional assistance they might give to the women in their slack periods would make an appreciable difference to the size of farm yields, granted present methods of cultivation.

I stress this point since the European observer, confronted by the spectacle of women bending over their hoes through the day while a number of men may be seen lounging in the compounds, are apt to regard the division of labour as not only inequitable but as an exploitation of the female sex. Such an attitude, however, fails to take into account the contribution made by the men in the heavier tasks, more especially in the dry season; and, secondly, the onus on them to earn money for household necessaries. Often this latter responsibility entails the making of long trading journeys,¹ and it is only within the last few years that new avenues have opened for earning a steady income - tailoring, bricklaying, carpentry, coffee-growing, as well as increased opportunities for employment in public works. In addition to their main occupation, most men do a small trade in various articles as opportunity offers, - thatching grass, firewood, honey, tobacco, game, plantains and fowls. It is worth noting here that, while the women are responsible for most crops, many men look after plantains and tobacco. When the women perform this task they usually

¹ In 1933 in Nsaw, it was estimated that of 2,339 men dealing in kolas some 75 per cent made journeys to distant markets, the remaining, 25 per cent confining their buying and selling to local markets. Vide, W. M. Bridges, Banso Re-Assessment Report, 1934, para. 197. The division of labour is discussed more fully in Ch. VI. Some comparative figures on the men engaged in their occupations are given in Appendix B.

have the right to any small profits which may accrue. The existing division of labour will, however, require more detailed treatment in terms of particular problems affecting the status, position and welfare of women. But, for the present, I have avoided as far as possible making any judgments as to whether the lot of the women is a hard one. Instead I have concentrated on attempting to relate the existing division of labour to ecological conditions; on placing it, in short, within an economic framework. Such a background will, I trust, provide the perspective for the detailed analysis of agriculture which is to follow. But, before we consider methods of cultivation, labour, leisure, farm yields, and general standard of living, it will be necessary to discuss the system of land tenure. I make no apologies for describing it in detail, for it is basic to the agricultural economy in which the women perform so important a role.