Climate
Cameroon has a tropical climate which varies from equatorial in the
south to sahelian in the north.
The Seasons
The
Bamiléké people in the West live experience a dual-season
climate made up of wet and dry seasons.
There are two seasons in the region where the Bamiléké
people live:
*
Rainy season - mid-February to mid-November
* Dry season - mid-November to mid-February
Funeral
ceremonies usually occur during the dry season, from November to February.
The
great dry season is also known as funeral season.
During the rainy season, people are very busy cultivating their farms,
growing food. By the begining of the dry season, food is plentiful.
This makes supplying food for the ceremony much easier during the dry
season. Travel is also difficult during the rainy season, when the unpaved
roads in the village often flood and become very dangerous. Funerals
ceremonies are a time for family living outside the village to reunite.
With more and more people living in cities, the timing of funeral ceremonies
is changing. People are no longer limited by nature's seasons as they
were in agriculture based subsistence. When a person dies in Bamiléké
society, no matter where that person lives, the body must be buried
in the village, even if the person never lived in the village. This
is not changing. What is changing is the place and time of the funeral
ceremony. More and more ceremonies are taking place in cities during
holiday vacations and weekends.
Cameroon is known as Africa in minature because of its diversity in culture and landscape. In the North, there are deserts and in the south, dense tropical forests. A chain of volcanic mountains (some recently active) runs from the coast along the border area with Nigeria.
The west province, where the Bamiléké people live, is one of the most beautiful areas of the country with mountains rising above 200m. The cooler climate and beautiful landscape make it one of the more popular areas of the country to tourists.
"The
day does
not return."
-African Proverb
