Gestes dansés et enculturaltion de la femme bayangam de l’ouest-Cameroun : cas Du //ma’a banŋ //, //məto’o// et du //gwa//. Contribution à une anthropologie Sémiologique

Abstract

This Master Research Dissertation entitled, '' Dance Gestures and the Enculturation of Bayangam Women of the West Region-Cameroon: Case of //məto’o//,//ma’a banŋ//et//gwa , a Contribution to Semiotic Anthropology''. The research problem here is that of deciphering a form of writing of the female body and their units of talking in view of understanding the real and symbolic message, the meaning and significance it produces. To better understand this problem, we posed a main question: in what way does the choreographic matrice of dance gestures constitute bearers of cultural references for the enculturation of the Bayangam Women in the West Region-Cameroon? The anticipated response to this question states that, “ma’a banŋ”, “ məto’o”, et “ gwa” constituted knowledges, kills, know-how, capacity to carry out works, texts, learning modules, passage cycles written by the female body via diagrams and choreographic practices amongst the Bayangams for its overall training. The set objective here was to bring out the socio-cultural foundation of the Bayangams, which re- transcribes, reports and transmits a collective soul, dissimulated in the forms of dance, play and songs. The methodology used took into account the documentary research on the one hand, and the collection of primary data from the field on the other hand, thanks to a qualitative research. Qualitative technics such as direct observation, detailed individual interviews, and focus group discussions were exploited. Direct observation consisted of observing the games, the musical instruments, body technics, directions, axes, patterns, geometric figures, training and evolution with help of individual interviews. Focus group discussions permitted us to understand the auto- elimination of boys, the significances of the units of talking of these three practices, the messages vehiculated by these dance gestures, their philosophy, modules and competences transmitted. We respectively made use of the theories of Functionalism, Ethnomethodology and Symbolic Interactionism, for the interpretation of data collected in the field. At the end of our research work, we arrived at the following findings that '' ma’a banŋ” “ məto’o”, et “ gwa” ''are general female extra curricular educational methods, borrowed by the human language to "communicate", " educate", "train", " teach" and to build the collective soul of the Bayangams people of West Cameroon. It reveals several dimensions of knowledges on the Bayangam woman such as the symbolic universe related to the woman and the man, the It celebrates the heterosexuality and prohibits homosexuality via the pair (meure-player).'' ma’a banŋ” shows spacing birth via the «billions-sillons» notions via the diamond materialized by the angle drumstick thigh-trunk. The sexual poetry of geometric figures celebrates maternity and fertility, of the breast feeding mother. “Gwa” by the arc of circle resulting from the disposition of players reveals solidarity while the choregraphic diagrams and pratices trace financial saving route