By: CALISTUS ABANG
The Aghem of Wum in Menchum Division are among the most ethnographically distinct groups in the Cameroon Grassfields, due in part to their long history of matrilineal succession – a method of determining descent and transferring property and leadership through the female line. The Aghem term for the matrilineage, ‘seeh’ndugu’, means ‘buttocks of the house’ – a bodily and cosmic metaphor that encapsulates the logic of the entire system. This article seeks to explain this system by exploring three interrelated questions: Why did the Aghem ancestors choose and maintain matrilineal succession despite the predominance of patrilineal logic in the greater Grassfields? What were its social, ecological, and political roles in a pre-colonial community shaped and reinforced by conquest? And today, has it become obsolete in the face of statutes, missionaries, urbanization, and the ongoing Anglophone crisis, or does it still retain some value? The author draws on records from ethnographers, colonial reports, comparative studies of kinship in the Grassfields, and new empirical social surveys to argue that Aghem matrilineality was not a random choice, nor was it necessarily old-fashioned, but rather an intelligent coping strategy for life on the highlands frontier that remains relevant today, although its practice requires community-based adaptation.
