So our former Country Director, Robert Strauss, has been writing about Peace Corps since he left the position last February. The first link is to a NY Times op-ed piece and the second was in Foreign Policy magazine.
Too Many Innocents Abroad
Think Again: The Peace Corps
Friday, May 02, 2008
Cameroonian Superstitions
It seems everyone enjoyed the posts about Cameroonian magic, so I set about collecting some other tidbits & interesting superstitions. Here are a few:
-A pregnant woman mustn't eat cat or else the baby will purr
-Women should not eat snakes (pregnant or not) because she will give birth to snake babies
-The fur of a cat, if ingested, is a deadly poison
-Frogs should be chased from the compound because they listen to conversations and disclose secrets to your enemies
-People from the Mbam have an irrational fear of turtle shells and will not touch a tortoise shell nor enter a house with a turtle shell in view
-Hunters must be careful not to kill a shapeshifted person in his animal form. If a person comes to the house asking for a bit of the meat, he or she should be refused. The only way for a shapeshifter to regain their animal form once it's been killed is to ingest a piece of the body.
-Do not accept an open bottle offered to you by anyone. It may contain poison. Only drink from bottles you have opened. Some Cameroonians prefer to change their "gout" or prefered drink in order to thwart would-be poisoners
-A magical stick should be placed across the threshhold of a woman's room where she sleeps with her newborn baby. People with malice in their hearts will be unable to cross.
-The Bassa people believe that anyone who enters the sacred cave of Ngock Litouba without permission will disappear forever. A person cannot speak of what he saw inside the cave or he will die. An Italian priest once received permission to visit Ngock Litouba but he talked about it afterwards and died.
-The Yambassa say anyone hoping to climb their sacred mountain without the chief's permission will become lost and unable to find his way to the summit. (This actually happened to me, but I think we were lost because our guide lied when he said he knew the way. But who knows?)
-A pregnant woman mustn't eat cat or else the baby will purr
-Women should not eat snakes (pregnant or not) because she will give birth to snake babies
-The fur of a cat, if ingested, is a deadly poison
-Frogs should be chased from the compound because they listen to conversations and disclose secrets to your enemies
-People from the Mbam have an irrational fear of turtle shells and will not touch a tortoise shell nor enter a house with a turtle shell in view
-Hunters must be careful not to kill a shapeshifted person in his animal form. If a person comes to the house asking for a bit of the meat, he or she should be refused. The only way for a shapeshifter to regain their animal form once it's been killed is to ingest a piece of the body.
-Do not accept an open bottle offered to you by anyone. It may contain poison. Only drink from bottles you have opened. Some Cameroonians prefer to change their "gout" or prefered drink in order to thwart would-be poisoners
-A magical stick should be placed across the threshhold of a woman's room where she sleeps with her newborn baby. People with malice in their hearts will be unable to cross.
-The Bassa people believe that anyone who enters the sacred cave of Ngock Litouba without permission will disappear forever. A person cannot speak of what he saw inside the cave or he will die. An Italian priest once received permission to visit Ngock Litouba but he talked about it afterwards and died.
-The Yambassa say anyone hoping to climb their sacred mountain without the chief's permission will become lost and unable to find his way to the summit. (This actually happened to me, but I think we were lost because our guide lied when he said he knew the way. But who knows?)
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