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Warriors in Bamileke culture
The paper states
“In this study, we are going to limit ourselves to some tools among which feathers, ponytail and elephant’s tail, pearls.In the history of the Bamiléképeople, there are elements that emerge from the difficult war period through which these people went through. During war, when a warrior came back with ponytail, he was considered a winner who conquered the opponent. In this regard, Ecclesiastes Djeudji makes clarifications: “during the confrontations between the first Baleving16king and the Peuls, it was very difficult to disarm a rider. The king thus decided to attribute a title to anybody who comes back with ponytail as a sign of victory. Ponytail has then become a symbol of victory, power and invincibility. Its use during funerals is in homage to the deceased whose act of bravery are celebrated, power. It is the base, a simple ponytail whose color can be black or white but we should note that people who are sensitive to aesthetics add pearls on it in order to beautify the item. It is currently noted that chiefs use ponytails colored white. As for the elephant’s tail, we can say that it gets its name from the fact that it has many properties. In fact, compared to ponytail, it is not widely spread. Chiefs mostly own them because they are not only mystical but they also enable the chief to avoid being attacked by evil spirits, moreover, their hairs have therapeutic properties” (pg. 10)
Link: https://www.ephjournal.org/index.php/hss/article/view/1693/982
