Welcome back to our blog series Celebrating Cameroon where we continue our journey through the country’s key cultural regions. Next up is Bafut, an agricultural town and fondom (kingdom) in Cameroon's Northwest province. Each year, Bafut celebrates two major festivals: Mandeleh and Abine For.
Bafut Palace and the Fon
The Mandeleh and Abine For festivals both take place at Bafut Place, the royal residence of the Fon (king) and the heart of Bafut Kingdom. Hidden in a sacred forest, the Palace consists of over 50 houses that surround the Achum Shrine, a spiritual centre and the Fon’s private dwelling made from wood and bamboo. For the people of Bafut, the Fon is considered the highest religious and social figure of the community.
Bafut Palace is one of the most culturally significant architectural sites in Cameroon and has been the centre of the region’s politics and religious rites for over 400 years. In 2006, The Palace was registered as one of UNESCO’s World Heritage Sites and is also safeguarded by the New York-based NGO World Monuments Fund.
The Palace Courtyard The Achum Shrine
Mandeleh Festival
Every June, Bafut town celebrates Mandeleh, a festival where the people of Bafut reconnect with their land, food and ancestry. This celebration marks the beginning of harvest and the end of the hunger period, a time where the local population experience seasonal food shortages. This festival is characterised by a cultural dance and song referred to as the Mandeleh dance, and is usually accompanied by flutes and drums.
It is said that the second Fon of Bafut, Mfor Nebasisu, was given the sounds and song of the Mandeleh dance by ancestral spirits that took the form of birds. Check out the video clip below from last year’s Mandeleh festival and see if you notice how the birdsong and sound of beating wings are replicated by the melodic flute-playing and rhythmic drumming.
Mandele Dance Video, Bafut Palace Official
As well as music performances, a communal meal of Achu, a popular savoury dish, is eaten in celebration of community nourishment. Achu is typically eaten with yellow or black soup served on banana leaves and is eaten using your hands as well as the licking of fingers. This embodies their connection to nature and the spirit of togetherness.
Connecting to the town’s natural resources and the land they are reaped from is an important core value of Bafut’s community. Every year, the town endures seasonal food shortages and so ensuring a beneficial harvest through the sustainable cultivation of crops is key to daily life.
Permaculture Farming
Bafut Farmers strongly believe in permaculture farming, a philosophy and an approach to land that works with nature, not against it. By replicating the patterns observed in nature, regenerative ecosystems can be created to yield a fruitful harvest. Younger generations have a duty to inherit these agricultural skills which they can then apply later in life to prepare for food scarcities and to nourish their community.
Bafut Ecovillage
The Mandeleh festival has become part of the Conscious Food System Alliance (COFSA) that empowers permaculture farming communities across Colombia, the Philippines and Africa. Bafut’s traditional and indigenous farming began receiving widespread international attention and support since 2012 when broker Joshua Konkankoh founded Bafut Ecovillage through the NGO Better World Cameroon. Bafut Ecovillage, one of the Global Ecovillage Networks (GEN), is a local eco-farm and training hub to educate and better equip community leaders, youth and women and enhance sustainable development in Africa. With the support from the Palace, local council and partnerships with international NGOs, Bafut Ecovillage has been able to:
create schools and community gardens
expand areas for food growing, maintain healthy ecosystems and plant tens of thousands of trees
develop water catchments, build wells and improve landscape design
Sponsor a Child
Unfortunately, the outbreak of a separatist civil crisis in 2017 has devastated many farms and plantations including the Ecovillage in 2021 causing severe food shortages and lack of necessary education for Bafut children. Not far from Bafut, in the city of Bamenda, many children are desperately seeking sponsorship to afford education and school resources.
At Children of Cameroon, you can change a child’s life today for as little as £20 a month which will pay for school fees, books and uniforms, and other essentials. See our list of children here and learn more about sponsoring a child.
Gifted (age 3) Richmond (age 8) Victory (age 7)
Abine For (the Fon dance)
The second annual festival of the Bafut calendar is Abine For also known as the ‘Fon Dance’. This festival was first introduced by the very first Fon of Bafut to commemorate the ancestors and spirits through sacrifices and dancing and remains a celebration of ancestry as well as a way of preserving the patrimony of the tribe. Like the Ngondo Festival, the Fon Dance is celebrated every December and has been held every year since 1516.
Bafut children attending Abin For
At the Palace, this celebration is hosted by the Fon who leads the festival attendees through a series of rituals to honour their ancestors and cultural traditions. This includes a ceremony of sacrificial offering, libation and traditional gift-giving. It is believed that the Fon can communicate between the living and the dead and so bestows the people of Bafut with blessings from the spirits.
The Abin For celebration is also characterised by a variety of festivities and jubilation including cultural dancing, feasts, the Miss Abine beauty pageant and a colourful parade by the manjong warrior societies. The primary dance of this festival, the Fon dance, is an honour to the Fon and is usually accompanied by an ensemble of singers, drums, flutes and elephant tusk trumpets. During the dance, the Bafut people perform traditional rituals to honour the ancestral spirits. This is an important reflection of Bafut’s religious and political beliefs.
In both festivals, cultural dancing is a crucial element and is not only a display of celebration but is also instrumental in maintaining harmony in the political sphere.
Photograph of the Bafut Manjong Cultural Association Poster of the Miss Abine Contest 2014
We hope you enjoyed learning all about the rural town of Bafut, its kingdom and the two major annual festivals, Mandeleh and Abine For!
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