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holder under a moral spell, but are so to speak 
“free-floating,” i.e., obtainable by everybody and 
free from formal restrictions. 
4. Changes 
History means change. This applies equally to the 
history of the Wimbum. Beginning with the early 
migration from their mythical homestead Kimi to 
their present habitat, over the gruesome raids of 
the Fulani followed by the time of colonial dom 
ination until the period of national independence, 
the Wimbum have witnessed a great number of 
changes taking place not only around them but 
also within Wimbum society itself. From a hand 
ful of scattered hamlets at the beginning of this 
century, Ndu, the capital of the Wiya-Wimbum, 
for example, has become the commercial centre 
of the whole administrative division. Bush taxis to 
and from the provincial capital Bamenda drive fre 
quently. They stop at the main road, a dusty piste 
of some 500 meters in length, with a considerable 
number of off-licences hidden behind mountains of 
empty beer crates and rusty car wrecks. A bit apart 
is the market. Its relatively small size conceals its 
importance, for every week it attracts customers 
and sellers from far as Bamenda and Foumban. 
There is quite a lot of capital around, thus making 
the Ndu marketday a bustling and hectic event for 
everybody participating. 
Ndu owns this position to the “Ndu Tea Es 
tate.” A large plantation right at the border between 
the Wiya and their powerful neighbours, the Nso, 
gives work to about 1,500 men and women all 
living in the vicinity of the estate. The plantation 
was established in 1957, a date which, in the eyes 
of the Wiya, marks a milestone in their modem 
history (see Njilah 1984). Today, there are schools, 
churches, industries, cars, motorcycles, coldstores, 
hotels, discothecs, healthposts, and numerous other 
signs of “development.” Yet, there is still a palace, 
still a fon, still a ya, still a fai, still a nformi, 
and many other titles denoting the hierarchical 
structure of traditional authority. At first sight then, 
one might get the impression that modernity did 
not affect the traditional power relations all too 
much; but the situation is more complex than it 
appears from only a superficial glance. 
Today, the actual policy makers among the 
Wimbum are the members of the local “Devel 
opment Committee,” an informal body of people 
who have made a successful career as teachers, 
business-men, party-officials, soldiers, and so on. 
With their wealth and influence they act as ad 
visors to the fon, who himself is not seldom a 
former teacher or university graduate. Compared 
with their position, the members of the traditional 
elite, i.e., the state councillors, the lineageheads, 
and the leading men of the secret societies, still 
play only a minor role. Even though they formally 
participate in the decisions of the council, illiterate 
as most of them are, their role in the decision 
making process remains marginal. The strategy 
to resolve this discrepancy within the indigenous 
definition of power and prestige as outlined above 
lies in the incorporation of the modem elite into the 
traditional authority structures. By conferring titles 
to the modem parvenus their existence is brought 
back in line with the cultural axiom according to 
which status and power are intrinsically connected 
with the holding of an office and the thereby 
implied access to secret medicines which again 
forces the office holders to fulfill their acquired po 
sitions for the benefit of the community in general. 
Evidently, this strategy works in favour of both 
sides. Not to mention the economic effects in terms 
of distributing wealth within the society by the 
periodical providing ceremony mlaa, the members 
of the traditional elite are keen to maintain the 
institutions on which the whole system is based, 
while the members of the modem elite are equally 
keen to counteract the suspicion that they owe 
their position to witchcraft - a conjecture which is 
not devoid of logic for power without title is not 
socially legitimated and its existence hence allows 
no explanation other than situating its presumed 
cause in the realm of witchcraft. 
However, as neatly functional as this strategy 
might seem, it can’t cope with the fact that the 
modem power structures legitimated by the nation 
state elude the seizure of traditional authority. In 
the attempt to make the experience of social re 
ality plausible, this acute gap is substituted by an 
appropriate change of the concept of witchcraft. 
In fact, parallel with the rise of the modem elites 
in Wimbum society the concept of witchcraft has 
changed as well. Whereas in the past witchcraft 
was primarily confined by the rule of co-residence, 
thus limited to the compound or the quarter, today 
it is said that the new form of witchcraft, generally 
known throughout the grassfields as kupe , recruits 
its victims from all over the place. 14 
Space limitations do not allow us to elucidate 
here the various correlations manifest between the 
14 For further literature on the nature of the relationship be 
tween economic transformations and changes in the belief 
of witchcraft, see Ardener 1970, Rowlands and Wamier 
1988, and Geschiere 1988.