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124-572: The province is one of Cameroon's most culturally diverse. Over 50 different ethnic groups populate the area, including the Shuwa Arabs , Fulani , and Kapsiki . Most inhabitants speak the Fulani language Fulfulde , Chadian Arabic , and French . Sedimentary rock such as alluvium , clay , limestone , and sandstone forms the greatest share of the Far North's geology. These deposits follow

248-504: A host of men, a band of comrades as well as a swarm or flock of animals. In Classical Greek , the word took on a meaning comparable to the concept now expressed by "ethnic group", mostly translated as " nation , tribe, a unique people group"; only in Hellenistic Greek did the term tend to become further narrowed to refer to "foreign" or " barbarous " nations in particular (whence the later meaning "heathen, pagan"). In

372-520: A swamp. Maga Lake , south of the town of the same name at the eastern border, is an artificial body of 6,000 square metres. It is known for its fishing. Most of the Far North lies at a relatively low elevation. This lower-lying portion makes up part of the Chad Plain and slopes gently from about 500 metres in the southwest to 200 metres at the Logone River. The average elevation of this basin

496-534: A talus -bordered residual known as a castle koppie appears. By this association various inselberg fields in Africa and South America are assumed to be the vestiges of eroded etchplains . Clusters of inselbergs, called inselberg fields and inselberg plains, occur in various parts of the world, including Tanzania , the Anti-Atlas of Morocco , Northeast Brazil , Namibia , the interior of Angola , and

620-399: A diverse number of monkey and reptile species within 14 km. The status of the province's wildlife remains uncertain, as corruption has allowed even these protected areas to be used by poachers. Some villages have embraced the animals, however. The town of Logone-Birni , for example, is called "the village of the crocodiles". Savanna makes up the province's primary vegetation. Most of

744-421: A focus on the interface between groups. "Ethnic Groups and Boundaries", therefore, is a focus on the interconnectedness of ethnic identities. Barth writes: "...   categorical ethnic distinctions do not depend on an absence of mobility, contact, and information, but do entail social processes of exclusion and incorporation whereby discrete categories are maintained despite changing participation and membership in

868-503: A mercurial character. Ronald Cohen concluded that ethnicity is "a series of nesting dichotomizations of inclusiveness and exclusiveness". He agrees with Joan Vincent's observation that (in Cohen's paraphrase) "Ethnicity   ... can be narrowed or broadened in boundary terms in relation to the specific needs of political mobilization." This may be why descent is sometimes a marker of ethnicity, and sometimes not: which diacritic of ethnicity

992-510: A narrow or broad spectrum of genetic ancestry, depending on group identification, with some groups having mixed genetic ancestry. By way of assimilation , acculturation , amalgamation , language shift , intermarriage , adoption , and religious conversion , individuals or groups may over time shift from one ethnic group to another. Ethnic groups may be divided into subgroups or tribes , which over time may become separate ethnic groups themselves due to endogamy or physical isolation from

1116-642: A north–south band of hydromorphic soils at the border with Chad . The remainder of the territory, the Diamaré Plain and the El Beïd River valley, is made up of ferruginous soils . The province's dry/wet seasonal variations create relatively shallow, ferrous or lateritic soils. A number of rivers criss-cross the territory, many of them rising in the Mandara Mountains. The Mayo Kébi , Mayo Louti , and their tributaries form part of

1240-612: A people of a common language , culture , common sets of ancestry , traditions , society, religion , history, or social treatment. The term ethnicity is sometimes used interchangeably with the term nation , particularly in cases of ethnic nationalism . Ethnicity may be construed as an inherited or societally imposed construct. Ethnic membership tends to be defined by a shared cultural heritage , ancestry, origin myth , history , homeland , language , dialect , religion, mythology , folklore , ritual , cuisine , dressing style , art , or physical appearance . Ethnic groups may share

1364-519: A preoccupation with scientists, theologians, and the public. Religious institutions asked questions about whether there had been multiple creations of races (polygenesis) and whether God had created lesser races. Many of the foremost scientists of the time took up the idea of racial difference and found that white Europeans were superior. The ethnicity theory was based on the assimilation model. Park outlined four steps to assimilation: contact, conflict, accommodation, and assimilation. Instead of attributing

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1488-412: A process known as ethnogenesis, a period of several generations of endogamy resulting in common ancestry (which is then sometimes cast in terms of a mythological narrative of a founding figure ); ethnic identity is reinforced by reference to "boundary markers" – characteristics said to be unique to the group which set it apart from other groups. Ethnicity theory argues that race

1612-467: A small area of volcanic rock, such as trachyte and rhyolite . The Far North's soils are a bit more complex. Much of the province is composed of young soils rich in raw minerals. This is true of much of the land south of Lake Chad, and of the Mandara Mountains on the western border with Nigeria. Soil here is black clay (alluvial soil). The seasonal flooding of the Logone River gives rise to

1736-519: A stand-in for "paganism" in the 18th century, but now came to express the meaning of an "ethnic character" (first recorded 1953). The term ethnic group was first recorded in 1935 and entered the Oxford English Dictionary in 1972. Depending on context, the term nationality may be used either synonymously with ethnicity or synonymously with citizenship (in a sovereign state). The process that results in emergence of an ethnicity

1860-520: Is Waza National Park ( Parc National du Waza ), which occupies 1700 km. The park was created in 1968, and has since grown to be one of Cameroon's largest tourist attractions. Kalamaloué National Park ( Parc National de Kalamaloué ) is a smaller protected area, which protects 45 km in the narrow neck of land separating Nigeria and Chad at the province's northernmost reaches. This park protects those species that routinely traverse Cameroon in their yearly migrations. Mozogo Gokoro National Park houses

1984-488: Is 280 metres. The Diamaré Plain occupies the lower third of the Chad plain and is characterised by a number of isolated inselbergs. The Mandara Mountains at the southwestern border with Nigeria form the highest point, lying between 500 and 1000 metres, with an average of about 900 metres. Mount Tourou is the highest point, at 1,442 metres. These mountains likely arose as a result of the same tectonic activity that gave rise to

2108-413: Is a loan word from German , and means "island mountain". The term was coined in 1900 by geologist Wilhelm Bornhardt (1864–1946) to describe the abundance of such features found in eastern Africa . At that time, the term applied only to arid landscape features. However, it has since been used to describe a broader geography and range of rock features, leading to confusion about the precise definition of

2232-521: Is a major population centre, and over a dozen ethnic groups live in small areas there. These are the Matal , Wuzlum , Vame , Muyang , Mokolo , Dugwor , Marva , North Mofu , Mofu , Cuvok , Merey , Zulgo-Gemzek , Mada (Cameroon) , and Mbuko . The Buduma live on islands in Lake Chad north of Kotokoland. The various Kotoko peoples live in the strip between Nigeria and Chad. This group includes

2356-443: Is a social category and is only one of several factors in determining ethnicity. Other criteria include "religion, language, 'customs', nationality, and political identification". This theory was put forward by sociologist Robert E. Park in the 1920s. It is based on the notion of "culture". This theory was preceded by more than 100 years during which biological essentialism was the dominant paradigm on race. Biological essentialism

2480-840: Is also heavily fished. What little industry the north has mostly falls into the realm of handicrafts . Much of this revolves around cattle and related products, particularly in Maroua . This city is home to many tanneries , leatherworking , and embroidery and metalworking . Maroua even has a beef cannery . Maroua also has a large artisanat , which sells handicrafts such as pottery , beads . SODECOTON Cotton gins operate in Guider, Mora, Mokolo, Maroua, Yagoua, and Kaélé. SODECOTON also operates cottonseed oil mills in Kaélé and Maroua. Rhumsiki and other communities are home to spinners and weavers , who work primarily with cotton. Rice processing forms

2604-459: Is also home to a number of lakes. The most prominent of these is Lake Chad. The lake was formed by a tectonic depression that has since been filled in by the area's rivers. However, over time, these rivers have deposited sediment as well, making Lake Chad nearly disappear in the past. This is a cause of concern, since when the Logone and Mayo Kébi flood, they meet. This diverts water from the Logone to

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2728-554: Is another possibility within the Far North, and airstrips operate in Koza , Méri , Waza, Yagoua, and Kaélé . Maroua has a regional airport. Riverain transport is possible along the Logone and Chari Rivers during rainy season. The Far North is home to many of Cameroon's most popular tourist destinations. Waza National Park is the pre-eminent wildlife park in Cameroon, and it is well managed with knowledgeable guides and rentable rooms on

2852-423: Is called ethnogenesis , a term in use in ethnological literature since about 1950. The term may also be used with the connotation of something unique and unusually exotic (cf. "an ethnic restaurant", etc.), generally related to cultures of more recent immigrants, who arrived after the dominant population of an area was established. Depending on which source of group identity is emphasized to define membership,

2976-420: Is called ethnogenesis. Members of an ethnic group, on the whole, claim cultural continuities over time, although historians and cultural anthropologists have documented that many of the values, practices, and norms that imply continuity with the past are of relatively recent invention. Ethnic groups can form a cultural mosaic in a society. That could be in a city like New York City or Trieste , but also

3100-576: Is hilly, dissected by a number of rivers. The Far North is hot and dry. Beginning at 10° N, the climate is tropical and Sahelian , and rainfall is a relatively small 400 to 900 mm (16 to 35 in) per year, with rains falling a bit more frequently in the Mandara region. South of 10°, the region west of the Mayo Kébi and south to the border with Chad, in the Cameroonian beak. Here, climate

3224-544: Is in Maroua, which houses Sao, Tupuri, Musgum, and Fulani artefacts. Evidence of human habitation has been found in the Chad basin and at sites near Maroua and Mokolo. The Paleo-Sudanese peoples are the earliest known inhabitants of the territory. The arrival of Neo-Sudanese groups from the east and west forced the Paleo-Sudanese into the Mandara Mountains. The Shuwa Arabs , descendants of Banu Hilal deported from

3348-464: Is increased road banditry. Buses service the more traveled destinations, especially the road south from Maroua to Garoua. Smaller destinations are reachable by bush taxi or privately hired motorcycle drivers. Motorcycle taxis are the primary means of travelling about in the large towns. Travel on the open road has in recent years been curtailed by increases in road banditry. These outlaws often ambush buses or bush taxis and rob all passengers. Air travel

3472-463: Is left behind as an isolated mountain. The strength of the uneroded rock is often attributed to the tightness of its jointing . Inselbergs can be reshaped by ice sheets much the same way as roches moutonnées . In northern Sweden , examples of this type of inselberg are called flyggbergs . The inselbergs of Eastern Africa tend to be a refuge for life in the Serengeti of Tanzania and in

3596-461: Is marshlike conditions along its length during the wet season. Even during the dry season, some of these remain, called Yaéré in Fulfulde . The El Beïd and Serbewel Rivers drain these marshy areas into Lake Chad. The Diamaré Plain, part of the Chad plain, occupies the southeastern third of the province. It is not as prone to flooding due to a number of inselbergs through the area. The province

3720-655: Is not a noun in Britain. In effect there are no "ethnics"; there are only "ethnic relations". In the U.S., the OMB says the definition of race as used for the purposes of the US Census is not "scientific or anthropological" and takes into account "social and cultural characteristics as well as ancestry", using "appropriate scientific methodologies" that are not "primarily biological or genetic in reference". Sometimes ethnic groups are subject to prejudicial attitudes and actions by

3844-442: Is salient depends on whether people are scaling ethnic boundaries up or down, and whether they are scaling them up or down depends generally on the political situation. Kanchan Chandra rejects the expansive definitions of ethnic identity (such as those that include common culture, common language, common history and common territory), choosing instead to define ethnic identity narrowly as a subset of identity categories determined by

Far North Region (Cameroon) - Misplaced Pages Continue

3968-399: Is tarred as far north as Kousséri. National Road 12 handles traffic between Maroua and Yagoua, and National Road 14 goes between Mora west to Nigeria via Kerawa . The stretches between Maroua and Kousséri, Maroua and Mokolo, and Maroua south to Garoua are tarred. Away from these more travelled thoroughfares, roads in the Far North are unpaved and can be quite rough. This is particularly true in

4092-431: Is the belief that some races, specifically white Europeans in western versions of the paradigm, are biologically superior and other races, specifically non-white races in western debates, are inherently inferior. This view arose as a way to justify enslavement of African Americans and genocide of Native Americans in a society that was officially founded on freedom for all. This was a notion that developed slowly and came to be

4216-530: Is today something of a tourist trap , because, as Hudgens and Trillo put it, "[w]herever you look, the scenery is breathtaking." The Far North is very much divided between Muslim and non-Muslim. This manifests in the form of prejudice against non-Muslims, especially in rural areas. Moreover, the Kirdi groups remain disadvantaged socially, educationally, and economically. Human rights organisations cite Fulani lamibe (traditional rulers) as enjoying great leeway from

4340-716: Is tropical of the Sudan type , with higher rainfalls of 900 to 1,500 mm (35 to 59 in) per year. Temperatures average 26 °C (79 °F), except for the Chad Basin, where they climb to 28 °C (82 °F). Actual temperatures of course fluctuate with the seasons, however. At Kousséri, for example, there is an 8.9 °C (16.0 °F) difference between January (23.5 °C (74.3 °F)) and August (32.4 °C (90.3 °F)). The Far North has two seasons: one dry, and one wet. These are further broken down based on average temperatures, yielding four distinct periods in

4464-437: Is used to describe a mountain that rises from an area of relatively flat and/or lower terrain. For instance, Mount Monadnock rises 610 metres (2,000 ft) above its surrounding terrain and stands, at 965 m (3,165 ft), nearly 300 m (1,000 ft) higher than any mountain peak within 48 km (30 mi). Inselbergs are common in eroded and weathered shields . The presence of an inselberg typically indicates

4588-587: The Adamawa Plateau . At this point, Kanem and its successor Bornu were active participants in trans-Saharan trade . Slaves in particular were frequently traded in exchange for horses and salt. The Kanem-Bornu Empire lasted until 1893, when the Sudanese warlord Rabih az-Zubayr overthrew it. Other groups in the territory also formed kingdoms, such as that of the Kotoko . They were eventually split, as

4712-713: The Afade , Logone, Makari, and the Kotoko proper, and the Kuseri and Maltam. The Jina and Majera live south of Kotokoland, between Waza National Park and Chad. More distantly related groups include the Kera, with a small territory on the southern border with Chad, the Massa, who occupy the tip of the province's beak, including Yagoua, and the Musaya, on the Chad border at Dom village. With

4836-637: The Bénoué Depression in the North Province. The area was once volcanically active, as a number of freestanding necks of trachyte and rhyolite of extinct volcanoes attest. The most spectacular of these lie in the valley by the tourist village of Rhumsiki . The part of the range that lies within the Far North is on a middle plateau at about 800–900 metres. Isolated mountains continue into the Diamaré Plain. The mountains' northern extent

4960-463: The Caribbean and South Asia . Max Weber maintained that ethnic groups were künstlich (artificial, i.e. a social construct ) because they were based on a subjective belief in shared Gemeinschaft (community). Secondly, this belief in shared Gemeinschaft did not create the group; the group created the belief. Third, group formation resulted from the drive to monopolize power and status. This

5084-464: The Dutch diminutive word kopje . If the inselberg is dome-shaped and formed from granite or gneiss , it can also be called a bornhardt , though not all bornhardts are inselbergs. An inselberg results when a body of rock resistant to erosion, such as granite, occurring within a body of softer rocks, is exposed by differential erosion and lowering of the surrounding landscape. The word inselberg

Far North Region (Cameroon) - Misplaced Pages Continue

5208-615: The Fatimid Caliphate in Egypt , arrived from the northeast and settled around Lake Chad in the 15th century. Archaeological finds attest to the existence of the Sao culture in the Logone valley and around Lake Chad as early as the 5th century. Little is known about the Sao, except that they were copper and ironworkers and, legend says, fearsome giants. Legends of later peoples claimed that

5332-455: The New World were multi-ethnic from the onset, as they were formed as colonies imposed on existing indigenous populations. In recent decades, feminist scholars (most notably Nira Yuval-Davis) have drawn attention to the fundamental ways in which women participate in the creation and reproduction of ethnic and national categories. Though these categories are usually discussed as belonging to

5456-722: The Niger River basin. The Louti rises in the Mandaras, passing and swelling the Kébi in the North Province. The Kébi rises south of Yagoua and flows into western Chad. The province's other rivers are part of the Chad Basin . The El Beid River flows northwest from the Kalamalou National Park and forms the northernmost stretch of the border between Cameroon and Nigeria . The Mayo Tsanaga rises south and west of

5580-569: The 19th century, the term came to be used in the sense of "peculiar to a tribe, race, people or nation", in a return to the original Greek meaning. The sense of "different cultural groups", and in American English "tribal, racial, cultural or national minority group " arises in the 1930s to 1940s, serving as a replacement of the term race which had earlier taken this sense but was now becoming deprecated due to its association with ideological racism . The abstract ethnicity had been used as

5704-407: The 8th and 15th century. The prevailing opinion among scholars, however, dates them to no later than the 10th century. At this time, eastern invaders entered the Chad Basin and conquered them. The Sao likely disappeared through intermarriage with this and other groups. Many of the current ethnic groups in the Far North claim descent from the Sao. The Kanem Empire , originated in the 9th century AD to

5828-685: The El Béïd's source and moves eastward at the north of the Diamaré Depression. The Logone rises west of the territory and flows north to form most of the border between the Far North and Chad. It eventually meets the Chari , which also rises in Chad. The Chari forms the remainder of the Chad-Cameroon border beginning at Kousséri before emptying into Lake Chad. These rivers all follow a tropical regime , fluctuating between high water in

5952-507: The Far North and often wind up far south for sale in Yaoundé or Douala . Other ethnic groups are today becoming more involved in cattle raising. Horses and donkeys are common in the province, although these are usually employed as beasts of burden. Farmers also raise sheep and goats . Animal husbandry is less prevalent in the Far North than in the North and Adamawa Provinces , however, as

6076-447: The Far North's population has been migrating to large population centres, particularly Maroua and Garoua . The Fulani (Fulbe) make up a large portion of the Far North's population. The heart of the province is primarily Fulani territory, and Maroua is mostly a Fulani settlement. They also occupy smaller pieces of land south of there, one along the border with Chad, and one to the southeast. The Zumaya (sedentary Fulani group who reached

6200-530: The Fulani conquest of the 19th century. Many of these Kirdi today live in the province's mountainous western border, as this areas was more easily defensible against the Fulani invaders. The various Mandara peoples lie primarily in the Mandara Mountains along the border with Nigeria. The Mandarawa are furthest north with their base at Mora , and the Parkwa lie directly south of them. The Glavda and Gvoko lie southwest in smaller territories. Although not part of

6324-610: The Greeks. Herodotus (8.144.2) gave a famous account of what defined Greek (Hellenic) ethnic identity in his day, enumerating Whether ethnicity qualifies as a cultural universal is to some extent dependent on the exact definition used. Many social scientists, such as anthropologists Fredrik Barth and Eric Wolf , do not consider ethnic identity to be universal. They regard ethnicity as a product of specific kinds of inter-group interactions, rather than an essential quality inherent to human groups. According to Thomas Hylland Eriksen ,

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6448-455: The Kébi, and ultimately the Bénoué . This has caused some scientists to predict that in the future, river capture will occur, depriving Lake Chad of one of its major sources. Much of Lake Chad evaporates each year and must be replaced by rains from the wet season. Other lakes include Lake Fianga , which exists only during the seasonal flooding of the Logone; during the dry season, it is at best

6572-547: The Logone valley. This is largely due to the Rice Expansion and Modernisation Company of Yagoua (SEMRY), which operates some 129 km of rice fields. Elsewhere, cotton is the most lucrative cash crop. Both textiles and oil come from the cotton.. Société du Développement du Coton (SODECOTON) is the main government body working to improve cotton yields in the region. The Bororo Fulani and Shuwa Arabs both live principally as cattle raisers. Bororo herds roam much of

6696-443: The Mandara Mountains, where large stones litter the roadway. Motorcycles are often one of the few options for travel to more remote destinations. These vehicles also serve as the primary taxi service in town. Access to petrol is another problem, as supplies often run out during the rainy season. Merchants often hike or bicycle into Nigeria to obtain cheaper fuel there for resale in Cameroon. A major obstacle to road travel in recent years

6820-411: The Mandara Mountains. The seasonal flooding of the Logone River and Mayo Tsanaga supports large fields of rice . Millet and sorghum grow all over, though millet tends to grow better than sorghum in arid conditions. Cotton is common, especially in the Diamaré Plain, though it grows poorly in the swampy Logone valley. Beans are also common. Village farmers typically sow in concentric circles around

6944-576: The Mandara group, the Turu people , Mabas , and Matakam live along the border with their capital at Mokolo . The Kapsiki , Hya , Bana , Zizilivikan , Jimi , and Gude occupy the remainder of the border from north to south. The Bulahai , Buwal , Gawar, Besleri , Sharwa , Tsuvan , and Mazagway lie just east of this border grouping. The southern border of the province is home to the Daba and Muturwa . The territory between Maroua, Mokolo, and Tokombére

7068-456: The Sao were descendants of the Hyksos who arrived in the area in several waves. Another theory makes them the original inhabitants of the Chad basin, traditionally an oasis to the north of the basin. They may have been of Nilotic origin. Even the span of their civilisation is in dispute, with various estimates putting their rise at some point between the 5th and 8th century and their fall between

7192-583: The Sudan area: dry and relatively cool from November to January as the province experiences a shade of winter from climes further north, dry and hot from January to April, torrentially rainy from April to June, and cool and sporadically wet from June to November. In the Sahel zone, the wet periods are shorter, lasting only five to seven months in the south but shortening toward Lake Chad. Temperatures reach their highest levels from January to May. Beginning at about 11° N,

7316-525: The United States that the ethnicity theory was exclusively based on the immigration patterns of the white population and did take into account the unique experiences of non-whites in the United States. While Park's theory identified different stages in the immigration process – contact, conflict, struggle, and as the last and best response, assimilation – it did so only for white communities. The ethnicity paradigm neglected

7440-994: The added value of being able to describe the commonalities between systems of group identity in both tribal and modern societies. Cohen also suggested that claims concerning "ethnic" identity (like earlier claims concerning "tribal" identity) are often colonialist practices and effects of the relations between colonized peoples and nation-states. According to Paul James , formations of identity were often changed and distorted by colonization, but identities are not made out of nothing: Categorizations about identity, even when codified and hardened into clear typologies by processes of colonization, state formation or general modernizing processes, are always full of tensions and contradictions. Sometimes these contradictions are destructive, but they can also be creative and positive. Social scientists have thus focused on how, when, and why different markers of ethnic identity become salient. Thus, anthropologist Joan Vincent observed that ethnic boundaries often have

7564-653: The area is thus covered in thin grasses punctuated by thorny shrubs such as Baobab , Faidherbia , and Karita . Those areas that have higher rainfall—south of 10&729 N and the Mandara Mountains—have thicker grasses and more and larger trees. Here the shrubs have thick bark to withstand the fires that sometimes ravage the area during the dry season. The frequently flooded Logone Valley and the perimeter of Lake Chad also support thicker and taller fields of grasses. Human activities such as burning of fields, chopping down trees, and overgrazing of cattle have exacerbated

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7688-505: The arid conditions make watering large animals difficult and large population centres make fields scarce. Maroua has emerged as an important centre for animal raisers, with both a cattle market and a veterinary centre. Fishing is an important way of life for the peoples who live along Lake Chad. The Kofia Islands are home to the Budumu and to fishermen from Cameroon, Chad, and Nigeria, most of whom earn their living in this fashion. The Logone

7812-449: The belief of common descent. Jóhanna Birnir similarly defines ethnicity as "group self-identification around a characteristic that is very difficult or even impossible to change, such as language, race, or location." Different approaches to understanding ethnicity have been used by different social scientists when trying to understand the nature of ethnicity as a factor in human life and society. As Jonathan M. Hall observes, World War II

7936-403: The boundaries of the nation-state. Inselberg An inselberg or monadnock ( / m ə ˈ n æ d n ɒ k / mə- NAD -nok ) is an isolated rock hill, knob, ridge, or small mountain that rises abruptly from a gently sloping or virtually level surrounding plain . In Southern Africa , a similar formation of granite is known as a koppie , an Afrikaans word ("little head") from

8060-473: The chiefs' compounds serving as little more than tourist attractions. In contrast, traditional Fulani leaders, known as lamibe, retain much of their influence. In the 1990s, politics in the region was dominated by the National Union for Democracy and Progress ( Union nationale pour la démocratie et le progress , UNDP) with its large base of Fulani supporters. The UNDP is largely Fulani-based today, but

8184-513: The compound of the chief at their centre, and all houses have a granary nearby, as the long dry season prevents year-round food cultivation. Concentric farms surround the settlement, these surrounded by hedges to keep livestock away. Bororo Fulani are primarily nomadic, though they do establish some semi-permanent settlements for the old or infirm. The province is Cameroon's fourth most densely populated, with 1,855,695 people and an average of 54 inhabitants per km. Most of this population lives in

8308-573: The context of European colonial expansion, when mercantilism and capitalism were promoting global movements of populations at the same time that state boundaries were being more clearly and rigidly defined. In the 19th century, modern states generally sought legitimacy through their claim to represent "nations". Nation-states , however, invariably include populations who have been excluded from national life for one reason or another. Members of excluded groups, consequently, will either demand inclusion based on equality or seek autonomy, sometimes even to

8432-603: The corridor between Maroua, which has 214,000 inhabitants, and Mokolo . Another area of high density is the Mandara Mountains, a legacy of the Fulani conquest of the past, in the Diamaré plain, and at the Logone-Chari confluence and up to Lake Chad. The remainder of the province is moderately populated, and the Logone valley and the Chari division are sparsely populated until about the level of Kousséri. Since independence, much of

8556-422: The course of individual life histories." In 1978, anthropologist Ronald Cohen claimed that the identification of "ethnic groups" in the usage of social scientists often reflected inaccurate labels more than indigenous realities: ... the named ethnic identities we accept, often unthinkingly, as basic givens in the literature are often arbitrarily, or even worse inaccurately, imposed. In this way, he pointed to

8680-526: The cultural traits of such groups have no demonstrated genetic connection with racial traits. Because serious errors of this kind are habitually committed when the term "race" is used in popular parlance, it would be better when speaking of human races to drop the term "race" altogether and speak of "ethnic groups". In 1982, anthropologist David Craig Griffith summed up forty years of ethnographic research, arguing that racial and ethnic categories are symbolic markers for different ways people from different parts of

8804-530: The department of Diamare before the arrival of Massina Fulani) had first established their kingdom (Wouro-Laamorde) at Kalaki (Wouro Zangui). With the beginning of the Fulani jihad they joined the Massina Fulani to convert the Kirdi to Islam. The Bororo Fulani, tall, thin nomads with lighter complexions than their sedentary kin, drive herds of cattle through this region, though they also move through most of

8928-407: The development of inselbergs have been advanced, refuted and reiterated over a period of more than seventy years." Volcanic or other processes, such as a meteor crater , may give rise to a body of rock resistant to erosion , inside a body of softer rock such as limestone , which is more susceptible to erosion. When the less resistant rock is eroded away to form a plain , the more resistant rock

9052-451: The distant past. Perspectives that developed after the 1960s increasingly viewed ethnic groups as social constructs , with identity assigned by societal rules. The term ethnic is ultimately derived from the Greek ethnos , through its adjectival form ethnikos , loaned into Latin as ethnicus . The inherited English language term for this concept is folk , used alongside

9176-452: The distinctions of ethnicity and race that function to set off categories of workers from one another. It is, nevertheless, the process of labor mobilization under capitalism that imparts to these distinctions their effective values. According to Wolf, racial categories were constructed and incorporated during the period of European mercantile expansion , and ethnic groupings during the period of capitalist expansion . Writing in 1977 about

9300-478: The exception of the Fulani herders, most people in the Far North are subsistence farmers . Although predominantly Muslims , the province has a significant minority of a mixture of Christianity , and traditional religions . The Kirdi peoples resisted Islam in the 19th century, though today many of these have been Islamized and Christianized at least partially. However, most groups have converted more fully to Islam. The Fulani are dominant politically and religiously in

9424-403: The existence of a nearby plateau or highland, or their remnants. This is especially the case for inselbergs composed of sedimentary rock , which will display the same stratigraphic units as this nearby plateau. However once exposed, the inselbergs are destroyed by marginal collapse of joint blocks and exfoliation sheets . This process leaves behind tors perched at their summits and, over time,

9548-530: The extent of complete political separation in their nation-state. Under these conditions   when people moved from one state to another, or one state conquered or colonized peoples beyond its national boundaries – ethnic groups were formed by people who identified with one nation but lived in another state. In the 1920s, Estonia introduced a flexible system of ethnicity/nationality self-choice for its citizens, which included Estonians Russians, Baltic Germans and Jews. Multi-ethnic states can be

9672-414: The fact that identification of an ethnic group by outsiders, e.g. anthropologists, may not coincide with the self-identification of the members of that group. He also described that in the first decades of usage, the term ethnicity had often been used in lieu of older terms such as "cultural" or "tribal" when referring to smaller groups with shared cultural systems and shared heritage, but that "ethnicity" had

9796-528: The fallen monarchy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire or the United States. Current topics are in particular social and cultural differentiation, multilingualism, competing identity offers, multiple cultural identities and the formation of Salad bowl and melting pot . Ethnic groups differ from other social groups, such as subcultures , interest groups or social classes , because they emerge and change over historical periods (centuries) in

9920-410: The farm. Hedges surround the farm to keep away animals. Farming tools are typically simple hoes, sickles, knives, and machetes. Farmland is burnt during the dry season, then crops are planted at the first rains. These farms can be quite extensive, as in the Mandara Mountains area. Here, farms climb up the mountain slopes in terraces held in place by stones. Rice is the primary moneymaker for farmers in

10044-464: The final prong of the province's industry. Much of this hulling is done through SEMRY in Yagoua. Limestone mining operates at Figuil , and CIMENCAM produces cement there. Three major roads service the Far North. National Road 1 enters the province from the south via Yaoundé and Maltam . It continues north and east through Mora and on toward Kousséri and then veers northwest into Nigeria. This road

10168-596: The following types of (often mutually overlapping) groups can be identified: In many cases, more than one aspect determines membership: for instance, Armenian ethnicity can be defined by Armenian citizenship, having Armenian heritage, native use of the Armenian language , or membership of the Armenian Apostolic Church . Ethnography begins in classical antiquity ; after early authors like Anaximander and Hecataeus of Miletus , Herodotus laid

10292-672: The foundation of both historiography and ethnography of the ancient world c.  480 BC . The Greeks had developed a concept of their own ethnicity, which they grouped under the name of Hellenes . Although there were exceptions, such as Macedonia, which was ruled by nobility in a way that was not typically Greek, and Sparta, which had an unusual ruling class, the ancient Greeks generally enslaved only non-Greeks due to their strong belief in ethnonationalism. The Greeks sometimes believed that even their lowest citizens were superior to any barbarian. In his Politics 1.2–7; 3.14, Aristotle even described barbarians as natural slaves in contrast to

10416-558: The genes. Examples of various approaches are primordialism, essentialism, perennialism, constructivism, modernism, and instrumentalism. Ethnicity is an important means by which people may identify with a larger group. Many social scientists, such as anthropologists Fredrik Barth and Eric Wolf , do not consider ethnic identity to be universal. They regard ethnicity as a product of specific kinds of inter-group interactions, rather than an essential quality inherent to human groups. The process that results in emergence of such identification

10540-684: The government, which allows them to keep private prisons and administer justice as they see fit. Government prisons are no better, especially those given over to holding suspected road bandits. The province is divided into six departments ( departements ): These are in turn broken down into subdivisions. Presidentially appointed senior divisional officers ( prefets ) and subdivisional officers ( sous-prefets ) govern each respectively. Traditional leaders, usually referred to as chiefs in English, often preside over particular ethnic groups or villages; nevertheless, many of these wield very little power today,

10664-433: The kernel of a nation which must be defended in times of conflict, or in iconic figures such as Britannia or Marianne . Ethnicity is used as a matter of cultural identity of a group, often based on shared ancestry, language, and cultural traditions, while race is applied as a taxonomic grouping, based on physical similarities among groups. Race is a more controversial subject than ethnicity, due to common political use of

10788-654: The latinate people since the late Middle English period. In Early Modern English and until the mid-19th century, ethnic was used to mean heathen or pagan (in the sense of disparate "nations" which did not yet participate in the Christian ecumene ), as the Septuagint used ta ethne 'the nations' to translate the Hebrew goyim "the foreign nations, non-Hebrews, non-Jews". The Greek term in early antiquity ( Homeric Greek ) could refer to any large group,

10912-485: The marginalized status of people of color in the United States to their inherent biological inferiority, he attributed it to their failure to assimilate into American culture. They could become equal if they abandoned their inferior cultures. Michael Omi and Howard Winant 's theory of racial formation directly confronts both the premises and the practices of ethnicity theory. They argue in Racial Formation in

11036-404: The mercy of the [Boko Haram] sect, and are seen as threat to local security". Sustenance farming serves as the primary occupation for most Far North residents. Crops vary from area to area. Far to the south, planters may raise root crops such as manioc , but as one moves north, cereals dominate. Maize is found in the strip between Chad and Nigeria. Groundnuts are in Maroua and northwest and in

11160-483: The modernist understanding of ethnicity as proposed by Ernest Gellner and Benedict Anderson see nations and nationalism as developing with the rise of the modern state system in the 17th century. They culminated in the rise of "nation-states" in which the presumptive boundaries of the nation coincided (or ideally coincided) with state boundaries. Thus, in the West, the notion of ethnicity, like race and nation , developed in

11284-539: The most common type is a small building with a small entryway under a conical roof covered in palm leaves or thatching. Builders make walls from locally available materials, so the Matakam use stone, the Fulani use clay, and the Guizigi weave walls of straw. The head of a particular household or lineage often builds several small houses within a single, walled compound called a saré . These compounds tend to be built with

11408-492: The northeast of Lake Chad , and from there expanded in the region. Islam reached Kanem early, and the rulers converted in the 11th century. Kanem-Bornu strengthened as an Islamic stronghold, and the population converted as well. Embassies were traded with North African states, and trade increased. The rulers launched a series of conquests, culminating in Dunama Dabbalemi 's (r. 1221–1259) expansion south as far south as

11532-522: The northern Kotoko became a vassal state of the Kanem Empire, while the southerners paid tribute but remained mostly independent with their capital at Logone-Birni. This part of the kingdom would eventually be Islamicised as well. Ethnic groups An ethnicity or ethnic group is a group of people who identify with each other on the basis of perceived shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include

11656-485: The northern portions of Finland and Sweden . The classification of Anthony Young (1969) distinguishes six types of inselbergs; buttes , conical hills , convex-concave hills, rock crest over regolith-covered slope, rock dome (sugarloaf) and kopje or tor . The types of rock of which inselbergs are made include granite , gneiss and gabbro . Summarizing the understanding on the origin of inselbergs in 1974, geomorphologist Michael Thomas writes "Hypotheses for

11780-531: The northern strip of land between Nigeria and Chad, as well. The Fulani speak Fulfulde, a Senegambian language . Adamawa-language speakers make up a smaller group, with about 169,700 members in the country in 1982. These are broken into the Mundang and the Tupuri , whose territories lie adjacent to one another on the southern border with Chad. The Kanuri , on the western border between Nigeria and Waza Park, are

11904-551: The parent group. Conversely, formerly separate ethnicities can merge to form a panethnicity and may eventually merge into one single ethnicity . Whether through division or amalgamation, the formation of a separate ethnic identity is referred to as ethnogenesis . Although both organic and performative criteria characterise ethnic groups, debate in the past has dichotomised between primordialism and constructivism. Earlier 20th-century "Primordialists" viewed ethnic groups as real phenomena whose distinct characteristics have endured since

12028-474: The premises. The wildlife there is relatively easy to see, and, of Cameroon's wildlife parks, Lonely Planet names it "the best for viewing wildlife", and Rough Guides calls it the "probably the best site for savannah game viewing in West Africa". Another of the Far North's draws is the picturesque scenery. Dozens of small villages dot the province, and each of these provides its own unique draws for

12152-456: The problem of desertification in the Far North. In response, the Cameroonian government, with aid from various non-governmental organisations, has begun Operation Green Sahel . The project aims to reverse the effects of desertification by reintroducing trees to the region. In larger towns and cities, such as Maroua , houses tend to follow the modern model of concrete walls and metal roof. Though house construction differs from people to people,

12276-450: The problem of racism became the sole responsibility of already disadvantaged communities. It was assumed that if a Black or Latino community was not "making it" by the standards that had been set by whites, it was because that community did not hold the right values or beliefs, or were stubbornly resisting dominant norms because they did not want to fit in. Omi and Winant's critique of ethnicity theory explains how looking to cultural defect as

12400-705: The province celebrates its own traditional festivals and holidays. Among the Fulani, the chief among these are Ramadan and the Feast of the Ram . Other notable festivals include the Cock Festival of the Tupuri. During the ritual, the nephew of the head of a family kills a cock and throws its head into the fire. The head is said to always land on its right side. The Dance of the Cock is another Tupuri affair. A museum of local art

12524-530: The province only experiences about 25 to 30 rainy days each year. The whole territory of the Far North Province was once home to most of Africa's iconic species: antelope , jackals , cheetahs , crocodiles , elephants , giraffes , heron , hippopotami , hyenas , leopards , lions , monkeys , warthogs , and others. Centuries of human habitation have today forced these species back to a few protected areas and national parks. Foremost among these

12648-460: The province's rivers, such as the Logone and Mayo Tsanaga , as they empty into Lake Chad to the north. At the province's south, a band of granite separates the sedimentary area from a zone of metamorphic rock to the southwest. This latter region includes deposits of gneiss , mica , and schists . The Rhumsiki Valley , a mountainous field littered by the cores of extinct volcanoes, constitutes

12772-530: The province. As of 30 October 2013, IRIN reports: "There are 8,128 Nigerian refugees in Cameroon's Far North Region, but only 5,289 are registered by UNHCR ... Many of the Nigerians who have fled into Cameroon prefer to stay with friends and family near the border areas. The refugee population fleeing from Boko Haram are scattered in very inaccessible localities in the north of Cameroon, and many who refuse to be registered and stay in camps are still at

12896-433: The public, political sphere, they are upheld within the private, family sphere to a great extent. It is here that women act not just as biological reproducers but also as "cultural carriers", transmitting knowledge and enforcing behaviors that belong to a specific collectivity. Women also often play a significant symbolic role in conceptions of nation or ethnicity, for example in the notion that "women and children" constitute

13020-571: The result of inherited traits and tendencies. With Weber's introduction of the idea of ethnicity as a social construct, race and ethnicity became more divided from each other. In 1950, the UNESCO statement " The Race Question ", signed by some of the internationally renowned scholars of the time (including Ashley Montagu , Claude Lévi-Strauss , Gunnar Myrdal , Julian Huxley , etc.), said: National, religious, geographic, linguistic and cultural groups do not necessarily coincide with racial groups: and

13144-488: The result of two opposite events, either the recent creation of state borders at variance with traditional tribal territories, or the recent immigration of ethnic minorities into a former nation-state. Examples for the first case are found throughout Africa , where countries created during decolonization inherited arbitrary colonial borders, but also in European countries such as Belgium or United Kingdom . Examples for

13268-562: The ruling Cameroon People's Democratic Movement (CPDM) party is careful to address Fulani interests. The Far North has few hospitals. These are located in Mokolo, Maroua, Logone-Birni, Bini, Kousséri, and Waza. Furthermore, many of the inhabitants cannot afford Western medicines. Three cholera outbreaks have occurred in the Far North since 2010, in 2010, 2011, and 2014, as sanitation and access to clean drinking water became more difficult due to extended drought conditions. Each ethnic group in

13392-588: The second case are countries such as Netherlands , which were relatively ethnically homogeneous when they attained statehood but have received significant immigration in the 17th century and even more so in the second half of the 20th century. States such as the United Kingdom , France and Switzerland comprised distinct ethnic groups from their formation and have likewise experienced substantial immigration, resulting in what has been termed " multicultural " societies, especially in large cities. The states of

13516-481: The sole speakers of a Nilo-Saharan language . They numbered about 56,500 individuals in 1982. Some 63,000 semi-nomadic Shuwa Arabs live in the north of the province up to Lake Chad. More than 974,408 people in the province speak one of the various Chadic languages and thus comprise the plurality of the population. Many of these are Kirdi , ( pagan in Fulfulde) peoples who refused to convert to Islam during

13640-420: The source of inequality ignores the "concrete sociopolitical dynamics within which racial phenomena operate in the U.S." It prevents critical examination of the structural components of racism and encourages a "benign neglect" of social inequality. In some cases, especially those involving transnational migration or colonial expansion, ethnicity is linked to nationality. Anthropologists and historians, following

13764-407: The state or its constituents. In the 20th century, people began to argue that conflicts among ethnic groups or between members of an ethnic group and the state can and should be resolved in one of two ways. Some, like Jürgen Habermas and Bruce Barry, have argued that the legitimacy of modern states must be based on a notion of political rights of autonomous individual subjects. According to this view,

13888-441: The state should not acknowledge ethnic, national or racial identity but rather instead enforce political and legal equality of all individuals. Others, like Charles Taylor and Will Kymlicka , argue that the notion of the autonomous individual is itself a cultural construct. According to this view, states must recognize ethnic identity and develop processes through which the particular needs of ethnic groups can be accommodated within

14012-512: The study of ethnicity was dominated by two distinct debates until recently. According to Eriksen , these debates have been superseded, especially in anthropology , by scholars' attempts to respond to increasingly politicized forms of self-representation by members of different ethnic groups and nations. This is in the context of debates over multiculturalism in countries, such as the United States and Canada, which have large immigrant populations from many different cultures, and post-colonialism in

14136-524: The term in social studies in the 1980s and 1990s. Barth went further than Weber in stressing the constructed nature of ethnicity. To Barth, ethnicity was perpetually negotiated and renegotiated by both external ascription and internal self-identification. Barth's view is that ethnic groups are not discontinuous cultural isolates or logical a priori to which people naturally belong. He wanted to part with anthropological notions of cultures as bounded entities, and ethnicity as primordialist bonds, replacing it with

14260-737: The term. In a 1973 study examining the use of the term, one researcher found that the term had been used for features in savannah climates 40% of the time, arid or semi-arid climates 32% of the time, humid-subtropical and arctic 12% of the time, and 6% each in humid-tropical and Mediterranean climates. A 1972 paper defined inselbergs as "steep-sided isolated hills rising relatively abruptly above gently sloping ground". This definition includes such features as buttes ; conical hills with rectilinear sides typically found in arid regions; regolith -covered concave-convex hills; rock crests over regolith slopes; rock domes with near vertical sides; tors (koppies) formed of large boulders but with solid rock cores. Thus,

14384-446: The term. Ramón Grosfoguel (University of California, Berkeley) argues that "racial/ethnic identity" is one concept and concepts of race and ethnicity cannot be used as separate and autonomous categories. Before Weber (1864–1920), race and ethnicity were primarily seen as two aspects of the same thing. Around 1900 and before, the primordialist understanding of ethnicity predominated: cultural differences between peoples were seen as being

14508-568: The terms monadnock and inselberg may not perfectly match, though some authors have explicitly argued these terms are completely synonymous. Monadnock is derived from an Abenaki term for an isolated hill or a lone mountain that stands above the surrounding area, typically by surviving erosion. Geologists took the name from Mount Monadnock in southwestern New Hampshire . It is thought to derive from either menonadenak ( transl.  smooth mountain ) or menadena ( transl.  isolated mountain ). In this context, monadnock

14632-400: The tourist. Oudjilla has a picturesque chief's compound, and Tourou is renowned for the fact that the women there wear hats made from calabashes , which convey details such as marital status. The Mandara Mountains are another major draw, as they offer hiking and striking views. This is most evident at Rhumsiki, where the "much photographed" Rhumsiki Peak is located. The village of Rhumsiki

14756-468: The usage of the term "ethnic" in the ordinary language of Great Britain and the United States , Wallman noted The term "ethnic" popularly connotes "[race]" in Britain, only less precisely, and with a lighter value load. In North America, by contrast, "[race]" most commonly means color, and "ethnics" are the descendants of relatively recent immigrants from non-English-speaking countries. "[Ethnic]"

14880-448: The ways in which race can complicate a community's interactions with social and political structures, especially upon contact. Assimilation – shedding the particular qualities of a native culture for the purpose of blending in with a host culture – did not work for some groups as a response to racism and discrimination, though it did for others. Once the legal barriers to achieving equality had been dismantled,

15004-404: The wet season (May to September) and low water in the dry season (October to April). At the height of the dry season, many of the waterways disappear completely or else diminish to a mere trickle. The Logone all but disappears during the wet season. The low elevation of the Chad basin (200–500 metres) causes flooding during the wet season; the Logone is especially prone to this, and much of its basin

15128-442: The world have been incorporated into a global economy: The opposing interests that divide the working classes are further reinforced through appeals to "racial" and "ethnic" distinctions. Such appeals serve to allocate different categories of workers to rungs on the scale of labor markets, relegating stigmatized populations to the lower levels and insulating the higher echelons from competition from below. Capitalism did not create all

15252-483: Was a turning point in ethnic studies. The consequences of Nazi racism discouraged essentialist interpretations of ethnic groups and race. Ethnic groups came to be defined as social rather than biological entities. Their coherence was attributed to shared myths, descent, kinship , a common place of origin, language, religion, customs, and national character. So, ethnic groups are conceived as mutable rather than stable, constructed in discursive practices rather than written in

15376-407: Was contrary to the prevailing naturalist belief of the time, which held that socio-cultural and behavioral differences between peoples stemmed from inherited traits and tendencies derived from common descent, then called "race". Another influential theoretician of ethnicity was Fredrik Barth , whose "Ethnic Groups and Boundaries" from 1969 has been described as instrumental in spreading the usage of

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