Religious Poetry as a Vehicle for Social Control in Africa: The Case of Bakossi Incantatory Poetry

Title: Religious Poetry as a Vehicle for Social Control in Africa: The Case of Bakossi Incantatory Poetry
Creator: Enongene Mirabeau Sone
Description: Religious poetry is generally considered the fruit of a people’s long reflection on their relationship with their gods, with the ancestors, and with the partly seen and unseen universe. It is used to celebrate events in the life of the individual and the community, to express fellowship, and as a powerful means of communication. Thus, religious poetry is an integral element of a people’s heritage. In this paper, I intend to present some forms of religious poetry, which are found among the Bakossi people of Cameroon, in order to show how magically-oriented formulaic expressions are used in order to maintain adherence to the normative order of society. The point I intend to make is that the incantatory form of religious poetry, was, and still is, used among the Bakossi people of Cameroon, as well as in other parts of rural Africa in terms of individual and communal education.
Date: 2011
Type: Journal Article
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/11260/2624
Identifier: vital:42301
Format: Pdf
Publisher: Routledge
Language: English

Collections

Faculty of Humanities, Social Sciences and Law

		Thumbnail	File	Description	Size	Format
View Details Download			SOURCE1	My paper (Folklore).pdf	208 KB	Adobe Acrobat PDF	View Details Download