Place et pouvoir de la femme dans les montagnes mofu (Nord-Cameroun).

Résumé En

J.-F. Vincent—Woman's Place and Power in the Mofu Hills. A twinfold approach to the study of women's position among the Mofu: through an analysis of myths and symbols, and through direct observation of actual behaviour. Myths relating to origins and myths relative to settlement give opposite images: according to the former, women, as destroyers of the Golden Age, are responsible for ail the ills of human condition. The latter, conversely, show them as useful and much appreciated partners of men. As for the symbolic System it draws a clearcut separation between a maie (left and odd) and a female (right and even) uni verse which leads to a subordination of female characters. Behavioural reality is equally ambiguous. While women behave as apparently inferior to men, wives enjoy a degree of independence. They own fields and their produce, are sole initiators of divorce, maintain altars for their ancestors, etc. Yet they wield little influence in their Society (no initiation ceremony for girls, no participation in poli-tics, no women's association) except in the field of divination, recently open to them and allowing them a role in communal life. [pp. 225-251]