more detail in a later chapter, where we shall be concerned with distribution of food supplies and marketing. But before bringing this section to a close mention should be made of some of the other female occupations. Basketwork and the making of string girdles are usually done when the women are at home on a rest day. Pottery, however, is more time-consuming and, in most villages, is carried on during the dry season. In Bamessi clay is dug out with hoes, matchets, or pointed sticks at a pit some 15 minutes' walk from the centre of the village. It is carried home in bags or baskets and placed in small depressions in the courtyards. The day before pots are to be made, the clay is broken up with a hoe, covered with water and leaves, and then left. Early the next morning it is tempered with sand and mashed with the feet, before being divided into lumps. One of these is put on a sloping board, rolled into a band some 3 feet long, joined at the ends, shaped to form the upper part of a pot and left to stand for awhile. Scraping is done with the fingers, small pebbles, seed-pods and spatulas of raffia midrib some 6 inches long and 1/2 inch wide. Roulettes of wood or rope are made for the women by the men, and are used for incising a pattern on the outside of the pot. The women work quickly and with fascinating competence, completing a pot in about 30 minutes. The number made during a morning varies: eight if they are half a gallon in capacity; and more if they are only containers for relish. They are left for four or five days to dry, and during this time the women gather bundles of grass, four being required for firing some 30 pots. This last process is carried out at dusk on the eve of market day, and takes about 40 minutes, - a number of women co-operating for the work. In Mbembe and Meta, pots are modelled freely from a lump of clay, but on the whole are considered inferior to those of Bamessi manufacture.

Finally, there is palm oil production. In most of the forest areas this is in the hands of the men, though women sometimes assist in removing kernels from the stem, and later they extract kernel oil for unguents or medicinal purposes. But in Ngie (and also in Mogamaw) women make the pericarp oil. Men look after the palms, cut down the fruit, and carry it to the compound; but thenceforth the women are in charge of the process. Half a day may be devoted to removing the kernels and boiling them in large pots. A day or so before market, the bright vermilion kernels are brought in wooden troughs or dark cane baskets to the pits by the streams or in the swamps. Usually about five women work at a pit. One or two pound the kernels with their feet, and the oil runs off the stone ledge into a shallow depression filled with water. From there it is scooped up in handfuls and placed in containers. Several hours may be spent at this task, unless a woman has assistance, in which case she rewards the helper either with a small gift of oil or else permits her to crush the kernels a second time for her own use. Finally, the oil is boiled again and strained into calabashes. Oil production is considered by the women to be one of their heaviest duties but, fortunately for them, it is largely seasonal and does not occupy much of their time during the peak of the rains - that is, from mid-July until mid-October.

THE WORK OF THE MEN

So far the men have remained rather in the background as spectators and commentators on the industry of others; and it remains to consider briefly their contribution to the economy. While keeping the diaries of women I also attempted to record those of their menfolk, but the latter were much more elusive and were rarely engaged in any one task for more than a few hours. If I had missed a woman at the compound, her children or husband could generally tell me to which farm she had gone; but she, on her side, was often ignorant of the whereabouts of her husband, and regarded a display of curiosity

as almost unseemly. At most she might say that he was "busy" somewhere in the village. My own impression was that the average Nsaw man (and indeed the average Bamenda man)¹ rather resembled Chaucer's Man of Lawe:

"No-wher so bisy a man as lie ther nas,
And yet he semed bisier than he was."

Lineage heads, by virtue of their office, do not stoop to traffic their kolas, wine, or goats in the market place, but arrange for their sons or younger brothers to do this for them. However they look after some of the raffia bush and kola groves; visit the farms occasionally to keep an eye on who is actually working their land; and, if they have the skill, spend part of their leisure making baskets, raffia bins, or caps from raffia bast - all of which are a supplement to their income. House-building and repair are also of importance, and even men of the highest rank do not consider it beneath their dignity to cut raffia poles, and peg them into frames for walls and roof.

Men who are not lineage heads, busy themselves with a number of small tasks, in addition to their major occupation, - be it trade, tailoring, bricklaying, carpentry, smithing and so on. From time to time they sweep the compound, clear paths, wash clothes, set small traps for guinea-fowl, hunt, manufacture baskets for kolas or maize, journey to another village to buy wine for a club, take their goats to feed on the hill-slopes or stubble, or sometimes give assistance to a lineage head. A Nsaw man commonly looks after plantains and bananas, - setting, weeding, propping the trunks, and cutting the fruit. Among the Widekum tribes this is almost exclusively a male occupation and prerogative, and a woman may only cut the fruit with the express consent of her husband. The cultivation of tobacco for trade is also in the hands of the men, though women may grow a little for their own use.

It is only in Mbembe, Mbaw, and parts of Befang that the men engage regularly in agriculture. Elsewhere, their contribution is small and probably does not amount to more than about 10 days a year, and even less in some cases. A Nsaw man may devote 21 days at a maximum if, in addition to clearing and the harvest of guinea corn and maize, he also assists with the harvest of finger millet. Thus Mawo and Kibu helped their wives with this task for 7 and 12 days respectively in 1948.

Men entrusted with the care of raffia bush keep it weeded and go once or twice a day to tap wine. This alone, however, does not provide a sufficiently large cash income, and it must be supplemented by the practice of some other craft or by trade. Dealers in kola may headload 1,000 or 1,200 nuts north to Mayo Daga, - a journey which lasts about three weeks and is undertaken three or four times a year, particularly in the periods April to June, October, and again in December to January. It is onerous work and more than one man complained ruefully that he had become "bald" through carrying kolas to Yola, Banyo or Mambila. General traders sometimes take Irish potatoes to sell in Calabar, and return with buckets, cloth, kerosene, and soap after from three to five weeks' absence from the village.

The dry season is probably one in which the men work most consistently and for long hours.² The great majority, unless away from home, bring in loads of firewood and thatching grass from the end of November until the beginning of March. For example Mawo, a middle-aged man, carried

¹ When I commented on the heaviness of the women's work in Ngie, a Ngie man said "Yes! But the men look after the fowls!"

² In the forest areas, near the large streams, the men engage in a certain amount of fishing in the dry season; and, in addition, hunt on a larger scale than men on the uplands.

firewood for 27 days during the period; and his younger brother did the same for 17 days. The latter, together with Vincent Kwangha and Tanye, spent between 17 and 36 days headloading bundles of thatching grass. Two of the men concerned also made sun-dried mud bricks for three or four hours a day several times a week, as they intended building houses within the next year or so. Even the construction of a traditional style of hut is a lengthy process, entailing the gradual collection of poles; the cutting and pegging of these together to form walls, ceiling and roof; and, finally, the mudding of the walls. This last activity calls for the joint labour of about 20 men and is accomplished in a morning and rewarded with a feast of wine and substantial rounds of porridge, with a relish of goat or beef. Of course a man does not build a house for himself every year, but on a number of occasions he gives assistance to kin and neighbours. Children help to carry water for the plastering, while the women prepare the food. In Ngie, as might be expected, women are not even exempt from housebuilding. The men construct the timber walls and palm mats for the roof, and the women throw on the mud. In Aghem, Ngwo, Zhoaw, and Mashi there is a similar division of labour.

Tailors, smiths and tinkers usually ply their craft daily either at home or in the market, and as a rule give less help to their womenfolk in the compound and on the farm. Like most men, however, they have their set days for recreation. Most belong to one or two clubs (Pidgin-English - djanggi), which meet on specified afternoons to drink wine and arrange financial aid. The organization of these institutions will be described more fully in a later chapter. Lineage heads are apt to lead an even more convivial life; and, if they live in or near Kimbaw, make a point of attending the club at the palace (on a wailun) and those held under the auspices of some of the nobility and court officials. In Mbonyaar compound Christian men had formed a club which met on the sabbath unless it happened to be a market day, in which case it was postponed to Monday.

To a very great extent the industry displayed by the men is dependent on their rank, the size of the household for which they must provide, and their temperament. From an early age, boys begin to trade on a small scale in groundnuts, a few kolas, salt or a little game. During adolescence they, like their sisters, visit and attend dances, but are also driven by the necessity of not only earning money for clothes, but also for marriage payments. There is not this latter commitment in Nsaw, and some of the youths lazed about the village except on market day, and gave little assistance to their mothers in clearing of bush or harvest of finger rnillet. Some of the elderly men complained that the youths did far less now than formerly and that customs were changing. Nevertheless, they said marriage would probably bring a greater sense of responsibility and they would have agreed with Francis Bacon that "Certainly, wife and children are a kind of discipline for humanity". As my two friends, Vincent and Benedict, explained: "A youth begins to grow; he gets a wife, and then he acquires commonsense. If he has not a wife, he has no sense! If he has a wife and is asked to help (a neighbour) he then goes, because he thinks that later he will be able to send for help in his turn".