The Awae people, also known as Mvele, are members of a bigger clan known as the Beti-Fang. The Beti-Fang are to be found in the Centre region of Yaoundé, the political capital of Cameroon. But they are also found in several countries in Central Africa including Gabon, Central Africa Republic, Congo DRC etc. Before the introduction of Christianity, many of these people were animists, precisely because they were surrounded by forests and they believed that the gods lived in the trees and in caves. Although Christianity has radically transformed these local beliefs, many are still deeply animist. The practice of ancestral worship is also still very present especially in villages, but less so in big cosmopolitan towns such as Yaoundé, Ebolowa, Sangmalima. There are a lot of minor cultural differences between the various tribes within this bigger clan, but they all share a common belief that the spirits of their ancestors live on and guide them in this world. And that through certain rituals, these spirits can be invoked so that they provide clues how certain problems facing the society. Some elders in these communities claim that they can even speak directly to the spirit of the dead upon recital of certain prayers. This is, however, done only in very special circumstances of difficulties or impasse in the community or family where the dead person once lived, for example, when someone of the family or community is not making progress in his material life or when a child is not succeeding in his/her studies.

Source: Plan Communal du Développement d’Awae, pndp.org (accessed: August 16, 2021).

Work in progress

Work in progress

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Bekale, Marc Mvé, "Memories and Mechanisms of Resistance to the Atlantic slave trade: the Ekang Saga in West Central Africa’s epic tale the Mvet", African Cultural Studies 32.1 (2018): 99—113.

Long, Essuma, “Don intergénérationnel de la parole: le cas du mvet en Afrique centrale” in Caroline Andriot-Saillant, ed., Paroles, langues et silences en héritage, Presses Universitaires Blaise Pascal, 2009, 21—31.

Ndoutoume, Tsira Ndong, Le Mvett: l'homme, la mort et l'immortalité, Paris: L’Harmattan, 1993.

Sprout, Barbara, Primal Myths: Creation around the World, San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1979.

Von Franz, Marie-Louise, Creation Myths, Boston: Shambhala, 1995.

Occasion: staged

Method of data collection: recording and note taking 

Researcher: Divine Che Neba

Assistant researcher: Oleme Christine Larissa