Throughout Africa, blacksmiths occupy a special social position. An important artisan group, they are often acknowledged to possess special religious powers and to be endowed with responsibilities for ritual duties. In several cultures, their professional specialization has resulted in their being assigned a castelike social position. Despite the blacksmiths' knowledge of medicine and magic, such societies consider them members of a lower social stratum and do not allow them to marry outside their own group. As manufacturers of agricultural tools and weapons, or as officiators in rituals destined to keep the supernatural world at arm's length, the blacksmiths mediate between ordinary men and the surrounding world. To understand the circumstances of these specialists, this article will dwell upon a typical example of such a castelike organization, the blacksmiths of the Kapsiki of north Cameroon and Higri of northeast Nigeria.
Called Higi in Nigeria and Kapsiki in Cameroon (this article will hereafter use the term Kapsiki for both groups), the Kapsiki number around 150,000. They form one of the many tribes living in the Mandara Mountains, a range straddling the Cameroon-Nigeria border some three hundred kilometers south of Lake Chad. In common with their neighbors, the Kapsiki, have a primarily horticultural subsistence economy. They live on the edges of the small plateau that dominates their Cameroon habitat, and on mountain ridges in Nigeria. They cultivate millet, sorghum, maize, and groundnuts on the stony, terraced slopes, and raise cattle, sheep, and goats. Before the pax colonialis, this location offered protection against slave raiding by surrounding Muslim emirates as well as against predatory neighboring Kapsiki villages. After the establishment of colonial rule, they gradually moved out onto the plateau and into the lower river valleys, establishing themselves both as aggressive and able farmers and as traders and middlemen.
Kapsiki villages are quite populous (five hundred to two thousand inhabitants) and form the most important large social units; each is subdivided into wards, clans, and lineages. Descent groups are usually scattered over the various wards. The smallest social unit, the compound, is inhabited by a monogamous or polygynous family, which sometimes includes the man's parents. The compound is important in daily life and production. Kapsiki society is characterized by a pervading sense of privacy and individual autonomy, which precludes a close corporate social control. In this village-based and (by African standards) quite individualistic society, the blacksmiths' social grouping is of prime importance.
Kapsiki society is divided into two strata. The lower caste is composed of the rerhe (blacksmiths); all other people, the melu (nonsmiths) form the higher stratum. The melu make up the majority of the population (about 94 percent). As a small social minority, the rerhe occupy a special position characterized by its ambivalence. The melu consider them dirty and dangerous, yet the rerhe's craft specializations and medicinal knowledge render them indispensable and even grant them a degree of power. Let us consider their crafts, and then turn to their specialties' symbolic position.
The Many Specializations Of The Metalworkers
Kapsiki blacksmiths may be termed "general specialists" as they perform the majority of specialized functions and crafts: funeral practices, music, divination, magic
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