Beti Culture: Mvet Epic Poetry & Southern Cameroon Traditions
Yaoundé sits in Beti country — the cultural homeland of one of Cameroon's largest forest peoples, keepers of the mvet oral epic tradition and the abbia game of destiny
- 1
Mvet Epic Performance
The mvet – a musical epic poem performed on the harp zither of the same name – recounts the cosmological struggles of the immortal Engong people in an all-night performance
- 2
Beti Village Cultural Visit
Villages surrounding Yaoundé maintain traditional Beti life — round houses, communal meeting halls and gardens of plantains, cassava and coconuts grown by women
- 3
Abbia Game of Destiny
A traditional Beti game of chance with carved seed pods — once used for divination, abbia is played at village festivals and is available in the National Museum
- 4
Nkul Drum Communication
The hollow log drum used by the Beti for long-distance communication — each message encoded in tone patterns — was the "telegraph" of the Central African forest
- 5
Palm Wine Tapping Village
Fresh palm wine drips from incisions made in the crown of oil palms — a village elder demonstrates the bottling technique and offers cups of the milky, sweet-sour drink
- 6
Beti Forest Kitchen
Traditional Beti cooking uses the forest as a pantry — wild mushrooms, forest leaves, caterpillars and river fish stewed with peanuts and wrapped in plantain