Language, Diet, and Ethnicity in Mayo-Darlé, Adamaoua, Cameroon

Author(s): Anne Elise Keen and David Zeitlyn

Source: Anthropos, Bd. 102, H. 1. (2007), pp. 213-219

Published by: Anthropos Institut

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40466800

Introduction: Mayo-Darlé, is located near the escarpment of the Adamaoua Plateau (it is also near the international border with Nigeria). The escarpment is a natural boundary of several different kinds: between working languages (English or French vs. Fulfulde as lingua franca), religion (Christian vs. Muslim), ecology, and social/political geography (north vs. south). Located in the Mayo-Banyo district of Cameroon's Adamaoua Province, Mayo-Darlé is the largest town between Banyo and Bankim with a population of approximately 10,680 in 1,335 compounds.1 The town contains many ethnic groups speaking a variety of languages. As well as the numerous indigenous languages2 spoken, Pidgin English3 and/ or French4 are widely used. However, the language which dominates Mayo-Darlé and the surrounding areas is Fulfulde,5 spoken originally by the Mboro- ro and Fulbe people and now the standard lingua franca. Unusually for the area, the population of Mayo- Darlé is ethnically extremely heterogeneous. (The heterogeneity is also religious: the population of Mayo-Darlé is largely Muslim with a significant ignificant Christian minority.) This diversity is largely attributable to the Mayo-Darlé tin mine, which bgan operations in 1933 (Dolley 1989: 39). Individuais from different ethnic backgrounds travelled,in some cases considerable distances (see Gausset1999), to work at the mine. They settled at the mine, some 10 km from Mayo-Darlé town. Such migration in search of employment parallels, on a smaller scale, events in the African Copperbelt(described, e.g., by Mitchell 1956), which underwent an astonishing transformation with regards to the o the ethnic configuration6 in a relatively short period of time, as did Mayo-Darlé.