Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T23:01:03.280Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The politics of house shape: round vs rectilinear domestic structures in Déla compounds, northern Cameroon

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Diane Lyons
Diane Lyons*
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby BC, Canada V5A 1S6. E-mail: lyons @sfu.ca Social Sciences Division, Douglas College, New Westminster BC, Canada V3L 5B2
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Building floor plans are frequently recovered by archaologists. A common first sorting of the shapes of small domestic buildings is between round houses and rectangular houses. What do these differences mean? Why do social groups change their building form from one to the other? An ethnoarchaeological study from northern Cameroon illustrates how four ethnic groups in a single community use building shape to blur or define group boundaries for political self-interests.

Type
Papers
Information
Antiquity , Volume 70 , Issue 268 , June 1996 , pp. 351 - 367
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barketeau, D., Breton, R. & Dieu, M.. 1984. Les langues, in Le Nord du Cameroun des hommes une region: 159–80. Paris: ORSTOM.Google Scholar
Bourdier, J.-P. 1993. The rural mosques of Futa Toro, African Arts (July): 32–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boutrais, J. 1973. La colonisation des plaines par les montagnards au Nord du Cameroun (Monts Mandara). Paris: ORSTOM.Google Scholar
David, N., Gavua, K., MacEachern, A. S. & Sterner, J.. 1991. Ethnicity and material culture in North Cameroon, Canadian journal of Archaeology 15: 171–7.Google Scholar
David, N. & MacEachern, A. S.. 1988. The Mandara Archaeological Project: preliminary results of the 1984 season, in Barreteau, D. & Tourneux, H. (ed.), Le Milieu et les hommes: recherches comparatives et historiques dans le bassin du Lac Tchad: 51–80. Paris: ORSTOM.Google Scholar
David, N. & Sterner, J.. 1987. The Mandara Archaeological Project 1984–87, Nyame Akuma 29: 2–8.Google Scholar
David, N. & Sterner, J.. 1989. The Mandara Archaeological Project 1988–89, Nyame Akuma 32: 5–9.Google Scholar
Denham, Major D., Clapperton, Captain H., & Oudney, Dr. 1826. Narrative of travels and discoveries in northern and central Africa in the years 1822, 1823, 1824. London: John Murray.Google Scholar
Denyer, S. 1978. African traditional architecture. New York (NY): Africana Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Forkl, H. 1984. Rapport final sur les ‘recherches ethno-historiques chez le peuple de la langue Mandara’ (17 fevrier–10 novembre 1984). Unpublished report.Google Scholar
Forkl, H. 1985. Der Einfluß Bornas, Mandaras, Bagirmis, der Kotoko-Staaten und der Jukun-Konföderation auf die Kulturentwicklung ihrer Nachbarn südlich des Tschadsees. Munich: Minerva Publikation.Google Scholar
Forkl, H. 1986. Social- und Religionsgeschichte der Wandala in Nordkamerun. Paper presentedat World Archaeological Congress, Southampton.Google Scholar
Forkl, H. 1988. Innerafrikanische Akkulturationbei den Wadela, einem Stamm der Kerdi-Mura (Nordkamerun), Münchner Beiträge zür Völkerkunde 1: 63–77.Google Scholar
Forkl, H. 1989. The development of urban structures with reference to political evolution in the Wandaia kingdom (17th to 19th century), northern Cameroon, in MacEachern, S., Archer, D. J. W. & Garvin, R. D. (ed.), Households and communities: 542–50. Calgary: University of Calgary Archaeological Association.Google Scholar
Hagenbucher-Sacripanti, F. 1977. Les arabes dits ‘Suwa’ du Nord Cameroun, Cahiers ORSTOM, série Sciences Humaines 14(3): 223–49.Google Scholar
Hallaire, A. 1965. Les monts du Mandara au nord de Mokolo et la Plaine de Mora. Paris: Office de la Recherche Scientifique et Technique Outre-Mer.Google Scholar
Hodder, I. 1979. Economie and social stress and material culture patterning, American Antiquity 44: 446–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hodder, I. 1982. Symbols in action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hodder, I. 1985. Boundaries as strategies: an ethnoarchaeological study, in Green, S. & Perlman, S. M. (ed.), The archaeology of frontiers and boundaries: 141–59. New York (NY): Academic Press.Google Scholar
Lentz, C. 1994. ‘They must be Dagaba first and any other thing second …’: the colonial and post-colonial creation of ethnic identities in northwestern Ghana, African Studies 53: 57–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lyons, D. 1992. Men's houses, women's spaces: an ethnoarchaeological study of gender and household design in Déla, north Cameroon. Unpublished Ph.D dissertation, Simon Fraser University.Google Scholar
MacEachern, A. S. 1990. DuKunde: processes of montagnard ethno-genesis in the northern Mandara Mountains of Cameroon. Unpublished Ph.D dissertation, University of Calgary.Google Scholar
Mcintosh, R. 1974. Archaeology and mud-wall decay in a West African village, World Archaeology 6: 154–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mohammadou, E. 1982. Le royaume du Wandala ou Mandara au XIXe siècle. Tokyo: Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa.Google Scholar
Moore, H. 1986. Space, text and gender. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Morrissey, S. R. 1984. Clients and slaves in the development of the Mandara elite, northern Cameroon, in the nineteenth century. Unpublished Ph.D dissertation, Boston University.Google Scholar
Mouchet, J. 1947. Prospections ethnologiques sommaires de quelques massifs du Mandara, Bulletin de la Société d'Etudes Camerounaises 17/18: 99–139.Google Scholar
Prussin, L. 1969. Architecture in northern Ghana: a study of forms and functions. Berkeley (CA): University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prussin, L. 1986. Hatumere Islamic design in West Africa. Berkeley (CA): University of California Press.Google Scholar
Vossart, J. 1953. Histoire du sultanat du Mandara Province de l'Empire du Bornou, Etudes Camerounaises 35–36: 99–52.Google Scholar
Willis, J. 1992. The makings of a tribe: Bondei identities and histories, Journal of African History 33: 191–208.CrossRefGoogle Scholar