Nyongo working dead

Gape e bidiwa: nyongo, ekongi, kupe, Mount Kupe zombies

Dinaane tsa setso le ditlhamaneBaswi ba ba tsogilengBoloi1900 go ya go 1967

Nyongo is a Cameroonian witchcraft belief in which the newly rich are suspected of killing their kin by occult means and putting them to work as the living dead. The victims toil unseen on Mount Kupe, in Bakossi country, to build their owner's fortune. Anthropologists link the belief to colonial plantation agriculture and, later, to economic crisis. It is one of the best-studied African parallels to the Haitian zombi, and like it turns on the theft of a dead person's labour.1 2 3

Di lwantshe

E kwadilwe la ntlha

1950

Legends current from around the Second World War; first described by the anthropologist Edwin Ardener in the 1950s

Tshimologo

Cameroonian (Bakweri, Bakossi and neighbouring peoples)

Kamerune

Se se e bakang

Boloi

Members of a secret witch society are believed to 'sell' relatives, who seem to die but are taken from the grave to work.

O fetoga yone jang

A nyongo member makes a relative appear to die, then removes the person from the grave.

Botlhale

E sena tlhaloganyo

Bokoa

witch-finding: villages paid the witch-hunter Obasi Njom to cleanse them
suspected members were beheaded or buried face down so they would not rise as ekongi

E tlhagile la ntlha leng?

Lefatshe la bogologolo Motlha wa Bogare 1500 go ya go 1899 1900 go ya go 1967 1968 go ya go 1999 2000 go ya go 2009 2010 go fitlha gompieno

1950

Legends current from around the Second World War; first described by the anthropologist Edwin Ardener in the 1950s

dikwalo tsa patlisiso

Se metswedi e se buang

The victims' labour is said to make their owner rich1 2 3

Dead rats were said to be laid under the 'corpse' to hasten the burial1 2 3

Tin roofs were taken as a sign of membership, which for a time discouraged people from building modern houses1 2 3

Children were warned not to pick up coins from the ground, which might be bait1 2 3

Accusations rose sharply after the economic crisis of the late 1980s1 2 3

A 1992 road accident that killed schoolchildren was blamed on a headmaster 'giving' them to the society1 2 3

Metswedi

Ntlha nngwe le nngwe mo tsebeng e e tswa mo metsweding e, e kwadilwe ka mafoko a rona. O bone phoso? Re bolelele kwa [email protected].

Fepa letshwititi. Ga go na dipapatso, ga go na dilatedi, e duelelwa ke motho a le mongwe. Madi a tebogo a e boloka e le mo inthaneteng.Tlogela madi a tebogo

Motlha o o tshwanang: 1900 go ya go 1967

AmalanhigVisayan (Philippines), 1967

Felicia Felix-MentorHaitian, 1937