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FEATURE costumes I had admired in the King’s court. Some had fine leopard skins stretching stiffly across their backs.”23 New dancers that joined them had “old scarlet military tunics, worn back to front, with the original braid still on them. A few rows of cowries had been added for further ornamentation” (fig. 13).24 This wearing of European uniforms is a mimetic appropriation, 114 transforming something that had been acquired through exchange of goods into an insignia of prestige. In the pidgin English of the Grasslands, such items were called “king things,” since it was the prerogative of the fon to use them as well as to grant his subordinates the right to use them. An earlier photo taken in Fumban shows a similar scene more clearly (fig. 14). The cowries and beads that adorn these costumes were currency items in the prestige economy of the Grasslands and also represented trade: Cowries were obtained from the Indian Ocean and brought by traders to West Africa,25 while glass beads originated in Bohemia, Venice, and Amsterdam. The kuosi were considered to be part of the warrior category within the stratified Bamileke society even though its members were often important merchants, and the fact that their outfits prominently incorporate such imported prestige items emphasizes their relationship with finance and wealth.26 Pierre Harter, a medical doctor and researcher who lived in Cameroon, mentions that in 1980 he saw a kuosi member wearing an animal skin covered with bead embroidery27 in the region of Bafoussam during the funerary celebrations for the Mafo Mbialeu’s great-grandson. More than this, he solidifies the record by noting the local terminology associated with such beaded leopard skins: guop n’gwi koko.28 Not only leopard but also python skins are known to have been beaded, the latter lined with buff leather,29 and they can be placed into the same ceremonial context among the kuosi. As such, it is probable that not just leopards but all animal skins that were covered with glass beads in checkered or lozenge designs, patterns involving spider/wisdom symbols, and/or curves that describe the animal’s body could have been worn by high-ranking kuosi members during the performance of the “cry-die,” the funeral ceremony for chiefs or peers. Were-Animals Leadership regalia often incorporates “the ambivalent and dangerous qualities of the wilderness into symbols of power,” notably through the use of animal skin and body parts.30 In the Bamileke chiefdoms, which are renowned for their masquerades as much as for their elaborate hierarchies headed by kings, the leopard as prey and the leopard as a symbol—the animal’s fur and the abstracted artistic representations thereof—were exclusively reserved for royalty.31 Far more than a totemistic symbol, the leopard was perceived as the spirit animal of the fon. The relation between a chief and his spirit animal was fragile and complex, and the reasons for such belief lie in a particularly unusual quality of Grasslands cosmology. With regional variants, wild animals all over the Grasslands symbolized authority and their names were used as noble titles. A chief would be called leopard, elephant, buffalo (bush cow), or big snake (python) by subordinates. Until the extinction of the last remaining large forest dwellers in the 1970s, any such royal game killed in the forest was brought to the palace after the hunt so that the fon could participate (fig. 15) since the relationship between the fon and these royal animals was far more than just an honorific association. The peoples of the Grasslands believed in a transcendent and dynamic force, ke, which was diffuse and hidden but approachable by kings, royal associations, and their cult agencies.32 Royal enigmas, including secret knowledge about metamorphoses, were transmitted to the heir apparent during rites of passage, and popular epistemology reveals the capability of the king to change his form.33 By means of powers shared with witches, the king was believed by some to change conceptually— or quite literally—into a leopard at night and in that guise roam throughout his kingdom while his subjects slept. By leading this duel existence through his spirit animal, the king can acquire the attributes of that particular animal to become more powerful in the human community. It was further believed that the animal and human bodies are so closely linked that if the animal in the bush is injured, the human counterpart also suffers. Indeed, most people were forbidden from looking at the face of a dead leopard because it was believed that its human visage could be discerned. 34 As such, an object like this beaded leopard skin must have possessed many-layered meanings for those who got a glimpse of it, not in the least because it is a dead and vanquished king. In the Bamileke region this metamorphosis of king into leopard and vice versa (fig. 16) was considered a perfectly comprehensible variant of familiar witchcraft since every individual, royal FIG. 11: The wala nka of Bana with a beaded leopard object said to have belonged to the Mafo Mbialeu. Photo: Pierre Harter, 1957. From Harter, 1987, p. 37, pl. IX. FIG. 12 (below): Elephant masker with leopard pelt on back, Bamileke, Cameroon. Photo: Michel Huet, c.1965. © Michel Huet/Hoa-Qui/Gamma- Rapho. FIG. 13 (top right): “Dance at Bazou—The Elephant Man.” Photo: F. C. C. Egerton, 1936. From Egerton, African Majesty, pl. 64. FIG. 14 (bottom right): Elephant society maskers from Babessi at the funeral of the Queen Mother Njapandunke in Fumban. Photo: Anna Wuhrmann, 1913. University of Southern California, Libraries: Basel Mission Archives/ Basel Mission Holdings E-30.29.077.


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