Wimbum is a tribe in the North West Region of the Republic of Cameroon.
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| Patient with rotten leg receiving traditional healing in Wimbum area |
What
happens to someone when he dies? In Wimbum
area, most people believe that if a person dies it is the will of god. That is
what they will say. When someone after drinking a lot of palm wine falls into a
stream through his carelessness and dies, Wimbum
people will still say that if god didn’t want him to die he wouldn’t have taken
some much palm wine to get drunk. Wimbum
people say it was the time god wanted him to die that way. And again, there are
different ways of dying – bad and good deaths. The bad death is one that you
die yourself. Nobody has an idea how you started before dying. In this case it
will look like witchcraft. People will say that it was someone in your family
or that the person dying a bad death was demanding something from somebody or
wanted something, then the opponent being some witch man pushed him that way.
Now they say like this but when you follow it deeply
they will say it is god who directed the other wizard or witch to get him. If god
wants you to die you don’t just die directly, he will send someone to push you
or get you by the neck. So if god doesn’t want you to die witchcraft can’t kill
you. They say it is the will of god, but it comes through somebody so you die
that way. Again people believe if a man dies at the correct time taken by god,
it should be a man of age. If you die at an old age, they will say it is your
time, that god has called you.
Originally before Christianity all Wimbum were pagans and believed that
ancestors were gods. Nowadays even Wimbum
Christians still deal with ancestors except a few believers who know well about
God. There is the belief in gods of a certain area. Now for example when you commit
a crime in the farm by killing a crab or faceless snake you have to bring a
chicken to the man who owns the land so that he talks to the god of the
compound that you made a mistake by killing the animal. There is also god of
the stream, forest, land etc. The god of the land is the god of the whole area
like a village.
The Wimbum
believe that sickness is caused by carelessness or by your enemies. Your enemy
if he has no means to kill you he will make poison that will work gradually. They
believe carelessness or faults cause illness. When you are at fault, your mind is
not steady and you are always fearful. If someone steals your thing and later
become sick he will think it is caused by you. Each time someone is seriously
ill they ask him “what have you done”? Some sickness they say is caused by
somebody is caused by guilt and conscience. Also they say someone is a witch
because he is never sick but this is not true they again affirm this is a
straight forward person who has no fault. They may want to harm that person
because of envy by putting harmful medicine in the ground for him to cross but
it will not work because he has no fault. In Wimbum belief system, most sicknesses come because people invite
through their own faults.
Now we will fail to see how death is the result of
witchcraft and God. To round up good and bad death both are the will of God and
the will of people because god can’t kill directly but send witches or wizards
to kill. Most do not affirm this today because of their self images as Christians.
Wimbum traditional religion is
polytheistic. They have several gods and ancestors mixing these with catholic
concepts of God and saints make them still polytheistic today. Guilt is the
most cause of sickness even harmful medicine will have no effect on a person
with a clear conscience they hold.
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