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Illustration of Nyongo working dead
Original AI-made illustration based on the descriptions in the sources. Not an official design.
Ifayile No. 072 kwa-446

Nyongo working dead

Ikwabizwa ngokuba: nyongo, ekongi, kupe, Mount Kupe zombies
Iintsomi zemveli namabali amanduloIvuswe ekufeniUbugqwirha1900 ukuya ku-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.123

Yiphose edabini
Yabhalwa okokuqala
1950
Legends current from around the Second World War; first described by the anthropologist Edwin Ardener in the 1950s
Imvelaphi
Cameroonian (Bakweri, Bakossi and neighbouring peoples)
IKhamerun
Oko kuyibangelayo
Ubugqwirha
Members of a secret witch society are believed to 'sell' relatives, who seem to die but are taken from the grave to work.
Indlela umntu aba yiyo ngayo
A nyongo member makes a relative appear to die, then removes the person from the grave.
Ubukrelekrele
Ayinangqondo
Iindawo ezibuthathaka
  • 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

Yavela nini okokuqala?

Ihlabathi lamanduloAmaxesha Aphakathi1500 ukuya ku-18991900 ukuya ku-19671968 ukuya ku-19992000 ukuya ku-20092010 ukuza kuthi ga namhlanje1950

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

amanqaku ophando

Oko kuthethwa yimithombo

1

The victims' labour is said to make their owner rich123

2

Dead rats were said to be laid under the 'corpse' to hasten the burial123

3

Tin roofs were taken as a sign of membership, which for a time discouraged people from building modern houses123

4

Children were warned not to pick up coins from the ground, which might be bait123

5

Accusations rose sharply after the economic crisis of the late 1980s123

6

A 1992 road accident that killed schoolchildren was blamed on a headmaster 'giving' them to the society123

Imithombo

  1. Nyongo society - Wikipedia
  2. Vivian Besem Ojong, 'The Working-Dead in Nyongo Occult Economy in Cameroonian Society', Journal of Dharma 37 (2012)
  3. Zombies - Encyclopedia.com

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Yondla umkhosi. Akukho zintengiso, akukho zilandeli, ihlawulelwa ngumntu omnye. Ithiphu iyigcina ikwi-intanethi.Shiya ithiphu

Ixesha elinye: 1900 ukuya ku-1967

AmalanhigVisayan (Philippines), 1967Felicia Felix-MentorHaitian, 1937
Yondla umkhosiShiya ithiphu