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The 'working-dead' in nyongo occult economy in cameroonian society

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 Journal of Dharma 37, 4 (October-December 2012), 427-440

THE ‘WORKING-DEAD’ IN NYONGO OCCULT

ECONOMY IN CAMEROONIAN SOCIETY
Vivian Besem Ojong
1. Introduction
Since the late 1980s, following the economic crisis and the subsequent
devaluation of the Communaute Financiere Africaine (CFA) franc, there
has been a sharp increase in nyongo accusations in Cameroon. Nyongo
falls within the anthropological discourse of occult. The term shrouds a
multiplicity of references, including that which is concealed, obscure,
mysterious, secret, sinister or forbidden.1 Nyongo has been identified in
Pool’s work as “national witchcraft.”2 It is no secret that the power of the
occult is subject to some human manipulation; which is often practiced in
secret, especially in nyongo where occult powers are used to enslave
others. The desire to become rich suddenly has driven some Cameroonians
to turn to nyongo. They benefit from the afflicted by using the abilities of
the latter to slave for them as ‘‘living dead,’’ an equivalent postmodern
terminology – zombies, after their presumed death.3 It is believed that
persons involve in nyongo are able to kill others, especially their own
relatives, and to use their bodies to work for them in an invisible town on
Mount Kupe in Bakossi country.4
Information about nyongo is spread through rumours about the secret
sources of people’s wealth. I am of the opinion that nyongo practice
should be recognised as a well-established genre in Cameroonian society.
On the basis of this and for the purposes of this article, I place nyongo
discourse in its contemporary context in which the ethnography collected
and the stories told are embedded. The ethnography consisted of
interviews conducted among twenty Cameroonians.

Dr. Vivian Besem Ojong, a senior Lecturer in Anthropology, is currently the Head
of Department of Anthropology at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.
1
Kiernan J., The Power of the Occult in Modern Africa: Continuity and
Innovation in the Renewal of African Cosmologies, Berlin: LIT Verlag, 2006.
2
Pool Robert, Dialogue and Interpretation of Illness: Conversations in a
Cameroonian Village, Oxford: Berg, 1994.
3
Nyamnjoh F., “Images of Nyongo amongst Bamenda Grassfielders in
Whiteman Kontri,” Citizenship Studies 9, 3 (2005), 241-691.
4
Ardener E., “The Plantations and the People of Victoria Division” in S.
Ardener, ed., Kingdom on Mount Cameroon: Studies in the History of the Cameroon
Coast 1500–1970, Oxford: Berghahn Books, 1960.

© 2012 Journal of Dharma: Dharmaram Journal of Religions and Philosophies (Dharmaram Vidya Kshetram, Bangalore), ISSN: 0253-7222
428 Vivian Besem Ojong

Nyongo is an emergent form of witchcraft whereby witches do not

cannibalise victims but transform them to some form of zombie and use
them in wealth creation. Commonly known as “the witchcraft of wealth”5
Geschiere has elaborated how these witchcraft entrepreneurs accumulate
wealth (by occult means) through zombies’ unpaid labour.
The word “zombie”6 refers to the ‘living dead’. In folklore, zombies
are portrayed as innocent victims who are raised in a comatose trance from
their graves by malevolent sorcerers, and led to distant farms or villages
where they toil indefinitely as slaves. Zombies are recognisable by their
docile nature, their glassy, empty eyes, and by the evident absence of will,
memory, and emotion. Part of their souls may also be captured by the
sorcerers. Zombies can only return to the world of the living upon the
death of their masters. Accounts are sometimes cited of actual people who
have undergone this ordeal, were declared dead, and later turned up at the
homes of their kin.
In Cameroonian society, there are two schools of thought on the
aesthetics of wealth, power and success. There are those who believe that
if anyone is diligent enough, no matter their background, they can become
wealthy, powerful and successful, while the other school believe that only
those from wealthy, powerful and successful families can actually succeed
in life. Irrespective of the school of thought, it is generally believed that to
achieve this status in Cameroonian society, one needs help. However,
there are contestations as to where this help should come from. Some
practice nyongo for financial power, others for social power while others
engage in it for political power. Rumour holds that people in different
regions in Cameroon practice nyongo for different reasons. The Bamileke
practice it for economic power and success in business, while people from
the coastal region practice it for social reasons.
Godwin, a 42 years old businessman in Durban, shared a story of the
mysterious death of a famous literary scholar at the University of Buea on
the 22 of November 2007, who supposedly died of nyongo and was seen
in Nigeria a few months after his death. His death was associated with
social nyongo because he was too intelligent (he received his PhD from the
University of Ibadan, Nigeria within two years of registration, when three
years is the norm).
5
Geschiere P., “Witchcraft and Modernity: Thoughts about a Strange
Complicity” in Kiernan, The Power of the Occult in Modern Africa, 45-62.
6
Colin Blakemore and Shelia Jennett, “zombie,” The Oxford Companion to the
Body, 2001. http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O128-zombie.html, 13April 2012.

Journal of Dharma 37, 4 (October-December 2012)

 “The ‘Working-Dead’ in Nyongo Occult Economy in Cameroonian Society” 429

2. Informants’ Rationalisation of Nyongo

This article is based on fieldwork conducted in South Africa among
Cameroonian migrants. The article probes through the use of the
perception-based method to capture their perceptions and experiences of
nyongo. Twenty people were interviewed for this research but the
information used was based on the inclusion criteria which privileged the
depth and richness of individual interviews. The snowball method of
sampling was employed since the informants all come from the same
country of origin. Ethnographically positioned, data was collected and
analysed through the use of critical ethnography. The information
collected shows the different types of nyongo as well as its manifestations.
This feeds into the diverse perceptions as the paper will show. Below are
excerpts from some of the informants, which attest to the complex nature
and meaning of nyongo occult in Cameroonian society.
2.1. Beatrice
According to my understanding, it is a group that uses powers from
the devil to get money and influence. The group has secrets and such
secrets are only known to members. The sources of power vary for
each group and the rules will be based on what the particular demon
giving the group its powers demand. There are even Cameroonians
who go to Nigeria to join different occult groups. It is said that even
the president of the country and all the ministers and all those in
different high positions belong to these occult groups. In the past
when we were growing up there used to be fewer people than they
are in nyongo today. In each society people could identify who is in
nyongo and who is not. To the extent that they even made it a
common talk: ‘if you can only know you are a rich man then you
have been labelled a nyongo man.’ This was because some people
would also out of jealousy label others in their community nyongo
people. Recently, the issue of nyongo has increased enormously. You
even find youths in their 30s and 20s who are said to be in nyongo
groups; especially those youths who are in businesses. Some join
these groups involuntarily as they do not even know that the groups
that the groups they are joining are occult groups.
2.2. Agbor
Nyongo is widely practiced in Cameroon and has grown more
popular recently, though it is said that it is more common in some
ethnic groups than others. For example everyone generally knows

Journal of Dharma 37, 4 (October-December 2012)

430 Vivian Besem Ojong

that Bamileke are more into occultism. And in Bamenda where I

come from everyone say that Akum people also are involved in
nyongo a lot. I wouldn’t know if nyongo is practiced differently but
all I know is that whether they do it this way or that way, it is still the
same thing. They kill people for money. Many people I know have
died through nyongo, from friends to family members.
2.3. Angeline
People who die through nyongo often appear as ghosts because their
spirits are not at rest. They are crying for vengeance, for justice to be
done. Though some people say that they go and appear in some
places and work for the occult people but I’m not sure about this.
There is a man who sells sifters in my village and they said that man
is a ‘die wokup.’ That is, someone who had died through nyongo
from somewhere else and appeared in my village and is selling and
that all his money go to those people. He doesn’t have any family or
friend. No one has ever visited him. He just works every day. Yes I
think they will eventually die. For, if they are living then they will
die some day.
2.4. Valerie
Nyongo is commonly called an occult group of individuals who trade
human soul for money, possessions and business purposes. Some
people enter this group deliberately because they want a fast way of
getting what they want out of life. Others go there unknowingly and
once in, there’s no turning back. It is either you join them or they kill
you. Normally in Cameroon they believe people who die in nyongo
do all the cheap jobs, harloting, labourers, farming, etc.
2.5. Melvis
Nyongo is a kind of secret society that people go into because they
want to become rich. But they have to do bad things such as killing
other people like friends and family members in order to use their
blood to make money. Sometimes they even exchange people’s
destinies; that is, they may disguise themselves like beggars and go
to the street, and anyone who helps them and gives them money they
take it to their society and drag the person’s wealth. The person will
work very hard but will always be poor as all their money and luck
will be disappearing spiritually and going to the nyongo people so
they will become rich. Nyongo people are rich. And if they exchange

Journal of Dharma 37, 4 (October-December 2012)

 “The ‘Working-Dead’ in Nyongo Occult Economy in Cameroonian Society” 431

someone’s destiny that person will be poor while they are rich. They
are also wicked. They do not want to help people for nothing, if a
friend or family member asks for help they will keep promising and
never give. Sometimes they will prefer to make that person who is
asking them for help to join their society. Some groups do not make
innocent people their victims. Except that you take their money or
something of theirs they cannot kill you; but with others they will kill
you whether or not you take their money or not.
3. Types of Nyongo
There are different kinds of nyongo as far as the Cameroonian society is
concerned. In as much as wealth, success and power are the main reasons
why people engage in nyongo practices, there are some kinds of nyongo
associated specifically with some of these aspects while others are
associated with other concepts which will be examined below.
The Bamenda Grassfields people differentiate between various
categories of nyongo or witchcraft. There, witchcraft is as much a source
and resource of personal and collective power or powerlessness as it is a
call for “domesticated agency” against various forms of exploitation,
marginalization, inequality and individualism7 In Bum, a village in the
North West region of Cameroon there are two kinds of nyongo: the
Awung and the Msa. Awung is identifiable mainly through words and
actions. Members are seen as jealous and destructive, as they eat rather
than slave their victims mysteriously and their victims must be kin, as they
are expected to prove intimacy, and it is dangerous to victimize strangers.
Members can enhance their power through this and also protect themselves
against other nyongo practitioners with whom relations are of mutual fear
and distrust. Nyamnjoh continues that Msa on its part is an omnipresent
mysterious world of beauty, abundance, marvels and infinite possibilities,
inhabited by very wicked, hostile and vicious people. It is visible only to
the members who alone can visit it anytime, anywhere, and who can
conjure it up to appear for the innocent or non members to glimpse.
Everywhere in this community Msa is above all, an ambivalent place
where good and bad, pleasure and pain are all intertwined. Its inhabitants
are both the source of admiration and envy, especially for their material
abundance. Msa is like a market, complete with traders and buyers, a
bazaar where many come but where, unfortunately, few are rewarded with

Nyamnjoh F., “Images of Nyongo amongst Bamenda Grassfielders in

7

Whiteman Kontri,” Citizenship Studies 9, 3 (2005), 241-691.

Journal of Dharma 37, 4 (October-December 2012)

432 Vivian Besem Ojong

clear-cut choices. To get what one wants, one must bargain and pay for it.
But the only currency in Msa is the human being, euphemistically known
as “goat” or “fowl.” Villains tether their victims at Msa like goats or fowl,
hoping for the best while risking the worst, as everything good or bad from
Msa is believed to proliferate like a virus once acquired.
In other parts of Cameroon as described by Harries,8 Ekong is the
most widespread form of nyongo today. It is performed by members, who
accept money from their clients and then provide them with slaves. Their
victims can be seen to weaken and finally die, while others get rich
without apparent reason. But even before they are dead, the Ekong victims
can be used. For the Douala, every person has an invisible double, which
can be bewitched and transported to work for his or her owner even as the
person is lying visibly on his bed. The connection between those that die
and those that accumulate wealth is one of cause and effect, proof being
provided by people being returned from the dead by nganga (healers) who
can see the occult slave trade.
To add to this, according to some participants of the research, there
are many kinds of nyongo with names unknown but which can be
identified through their activities. In some places, for example, village
local champions belong to nyongo houses as a thing of pride, while in
other societies in the stakes of each nyongo house or group, identifies it.
There are nyongo groups for poor or seemingly poor people, for the
average in the society and some for the elite class. For some membership
is restricted to the kind of influence you have in the society. One thing
stands out clear as far as nyongo is concerned, no matter the kind that its
members or practitioners seek to sever links with kin as far as their wealth
is concerned but mend things with them in relation to family ties. Indeed,
the fact that witchcraft accusations usually occur among kins is indicative
of how much people in the region are bound up in issues of solidarity,
intimacy, trust and the extent to which they are implicated in anxieties
surrounding social reproduction.
4. The State of Death
Generally speaking, death is considered to be accompanied by a change of
form or external appearance, but with some part of the original essence
surviving. Nyongo is a typical example of how the self can be transformed
through death. Ethnographic examples used in this article of living

Harries P., Dead Men Working: A Historical-Anthropological Look at the

8

Modern Zombie Phenomenon in Africa, Basel: University of Basel, 2005.

Journal of Dharma 37, 4 (October-December 2012)

 “The ‘Working-Dead’ in Nyongo Occult Economy in Cameroonian Society” 433

relatives who have come across their dead relatives (those perceived to
have died through nyongo) suggest that the people are different from their
previous selves since they fail to interact with family members in the way
they did when they were alive and live lonely lives.
Melvis (a 32 years businesswoman in Durban) explained that her
aunt came home one day from her shop panting and stressed because,
according to her, her late second cousin’s daughter who had died as a
result of nyongo had come to her looking for a job. It seemed that she did
not know that her aunt knew that she was dead. When she introduced
herself, her aunt was so shocked that she gave her a seat and asked her
maid to watch her while she went to call her sister to come and check if
she was the same person who had died. When they returned to the shop,
they found the maid screaming because the ghost had seen them coming
and, knowing that her other aunt would recognize her, had disappeared.
Elizabeth, a 36 years old PhD student at the University of KwaZulu-
Natal in Durban, narrated the following story:
In Pinyin, my village, a young girl died. The death was so mysterious
that family members and friends were concerned actually to know
what took this young girl’s life. A witch doctor was being consulted
and he testified that the girl has been sold in to ‘Nyongo’ by her
mother’s sister. People could not believe what this man said, but
after this girl was buried, three years later, she was found in a
different town selling in the market. During these years, her aunt had
flourished and had two new cars and three houses. The person who
saw this little girl, called her by her name, and at that same spot, she
disappeared and has never been seen again.
In contemporary Cameroonian society, nyongo has become so real
that it cannot be omitted from any ontological conception of belief. Beliefs
and views about nyongo pose serious hermeneutical and epistemological
questions of whether or not those dead through nyongo practices are still
living and working and, if so, what the implications are for the living as
well as the dead. When I asked respondents whether it is possible for
someone to be dead yet alive, there were various responses. Valerie, a 30
year old man, said, “practically no, but in terms of Nyongo, yes.”
According to Melvis, spirits of people who do not die a natural death
linger until such time that they were supposed to die. Emmanuel, a 34 year
old man, said “I am not really sure but from the stories I have heard,
people who die from nyongo are seen elsewhere. So I can say that if
witchcraft does exist then it is possible.”

Journal of Dharma 37, 4 (October-December 2012)

434 Vivian Besem Ojong

5. Appropriations of Nyongo
This form of witchcraft was first observed among the Bakweri of West
Cameroon and reported by Ardener in the 1950s. According to him, a
person possessing nyongo spirit is able to kill others, especially his/her
own relatives, and use their bodies to work for him/her in an invisible
town on Mount Kupe. Some people enter this occult group deliberately
because they are looking for a quick way of getting what they want out of
life. Others go there unknowingly and once in, there is no turning back.
They have the option of either joining or being killed by those in the
nyongo occult group. It is an easy option for those who love money and
also people who are impatient, who want to become rich at all costs
because their friends are rich.
When nyongo originally appeared in the 1950s, as Edwin Ardener
observed when he first encountered this form of witchcraft among the
Bakweri,9 it was believed that only family members could be sold. This is
still largely the case, but of late non-family members have also been sold
to nyongo. According to the informants in the study, anyone can be sold to
nyongo.Bongmba notes that all the practitioner needs is some link with the
intended victim – a gift of money, for example, or even something as
simple as dropping money for the innocent victim to pick up.
6. Death through Nyongo and Transformation of Self
Death through nyongo is a type of rebirth because it ushers the individual
into a new life with new experiences and a new existence. This is because
the person dies when sold and is ‘reborn’ into a new category. The
question is whether people who die through nyongo should be given a new
name since they are still living and working in an invisible economy. This
is debatable since technically, they are the same people but at the same
time different because they cannot fit into their previous roles in life.
Stephen Eliis and Gerrie Ter Haar believe that “anything that ceases to
exist in one category, and which may more appropriately be assigned to
another category as a result of changes it has undergone, may thus be
considered to have “died” in the first category, even while some elements
of its previous nature is transferred to its new existence.”10 These elements
enable some continuity of life to be experienced, rather than life consisting

9
Ardener E., “The Plantations and the People of Victoria Division” in S.
Ardener Kingdom on Mount Cameroon, 151-226.
10
Ellis Stephen and Haar G. T., Worlds of Power: Religious Thought and
Political Practice, Johannesburg: Wits University Press, 2001.

Journal of Dharma 37, 4 (October-December 2012)

 “The ‘Working-Dead’ in Nyongo Occult Economy in Cameroonian Society” 435

of phases completely unrelated to one another. This would mean that there
are some boundaries of identity that are crossed. The question then arises:
do these people actually cross boundaries? There may not be any
straightforward answer to this question but it would appear that, such a
person is a boundary crosser, who is both human and spirit (in the sense
that they have a human appearance but also have the ability to appear and
disappear, which is not human. These people temporarily cross the
boundaries of life and death. Van Gennep11 and Victor Turner12 both
described this type of dwelling on the margins as “liminality.” This is a
subjective state of being on the threshold of ‘betwixt’ and between two
different existential positions.
To be in this space is to be caught up in intense “boundary work.”13
Waiting in the grave or mortuary for the nyongo people can be considered
a rite of passage, where the bodies of those who will be used in slave
labour are in a liminal space, waiting for something to happen.14 In this
case, they are waiting to be deployed to their work destination. Such a
space is embedded with secrecy (since this activity is carried out at night
and only nyongo people are privileged with such information. In the case
of nyongo, waiting is an undesirable state where the victims wait to begin
a new life of oppression and loss of self. Such a space places them in
liminality. A distinction is made here between transitional and perpetual
liminality. Being in transitional liminality is the state of waiting to be
abducted from the grave into forced slave labour, but perpetual liminality
is a state of being in continuous loyalty to the owner until he/she dies,
when the person is freed to die. This type of liminality appears to be
mandatory and is at the centre of nyongo economies.
7. The State of the Working Dead
Nyongo seems to freeze the distance between life and death, causing a
grey area between the living and the dead. Through nyongo discourse, it is
becoming increasingly difficult to discuss life and death in absolutist
terms. It would appear that those sold to slave labour are not dead but are
‘living people’ waiting for real death. The debate about when a person is
11
Van Gennep A., Les Rites de Passage: Etudes Systematiques des Rites, Paris:
E. Noury, 1981.
12
Turner V., The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-structure, New York: De
Gruyter, 1969.
13
Hernes T. and Paulsen N., ed., Managing Boundaries in Organisations:
Multiple Perspectives, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, 1-5.
14
Crapanzano V., Waiting: The Whites of South Africa, London: Granada, 1985.

Journal of Dharma 37, 4 (October-December 2012)

436 Vivian Besem Ojong

really considered dead began in 1975 and the conclusion was that a person
should be declared dead once they have lost the ability to meaningfully
interact with others. Such thinkers15 argued that the legal boundary of
death should be the state of permanent unconsciousness, which marks the
death of a person.
Based on the interviews and the general perception that those who
have been enslaved by nyongo labour are not really dead, they should be
reconceptualised as living people because they are actively involved in
wealth creation economies. They are seen in the market places, shops,
plantations and so on. They should be considered living on the basis of
their contribution to the economy. The main question is whether these
people can be reintegrated into society by any means. The interviews
revealed that, if the person had been sold and had not died the ‘first death’
(that is, before being buried and working in the nyongo economy), the
person can lead a normal life. The story below by Audin, a 28 year old
female, exemplifies the above point.
It is common practice in Cameroon for people to join njangi, fund
rising groups. When these youth go to the markets they join these
small njangi groups and they do not know that most of these groups
are nyongo societies. They contribute all their money all the time
knowing that they will benefit from it and plough back the money
into their business to make it grow. When it is their turn to benefit,
only then they are told how much money they will be getting and
what they need to bring which is usually some family member.
A cousin of mine has been a victim of such groups. He was
trading in ‘nchang shoes.’ He would live from Bamenda and go to all
the bush markets surrounding the North West to sell his goods and he
was doing well until his friend told him of the njangi they were doing
in Pinyin market and how beneficial it is. The friend lured and
cajoled him to join the group and he did. Pinyin market is once a
week so each time they went to that market, the friend would come
to his shed to collect his money for the njangi. That went on every
week until one day his friend came and told him that he is the one
benefitting from the njangi the following week and as such he needs
to be present at the meeting this week so that they’ll tell him about
what he needs to do. He agreed and went to the meeting that week
and they told him that he will be getting five million francs CFC. He

15
Gervais K. G., Redefining Death, New York: Yale University Press, 1986.

Journal of Dharma 37, 4 (October-December 2012)

 “The ‘Working-Dead’ in Nyongo Occult Economy in Cameroonian Society” 437

was surprised and asked them how it was possible since he thought
he would be getting only 500 000 CFA. It is only then that they
explained things to him. And they told him he had to sacrifice his
mother to get that money. He loved his mother so much and his
father had died a long time ago and their mother single raised him
and his two younger sisters up. He begged and pleaded with them
that he didn’t know that is what it entailed but they wouldn’t listen.
He said he is not interested in the money anymore and that they
should keep it and let it go but they wouldn’t listen. He ran out of the
place and went to his shed. Packed his things and left the market that
day. He didn’t go to that particular market again just to keep away
from them. But still they wouldn’t live him alone. They would
appear to him and taunt him, threaten him. Things became worse and
his friend came to him and told him to pay ten million in exchange
for his life and that of his mother. He decided to stop his njangi
business. Borrowed money from money lenders and bought two taxis
thinking this would make money faster. The taxis worked only for a
day and he parked the one he was driving in front of the house and it
mysteriously caught fire and was burnt to ashes. Two days later the
other one also caught fire. Both the occult people and the money
lenders were after him for the money. The occult people told him the
only way out for him is to sacrifice his mother and he will get back
everything and they’ll also make him rich.
To cut the long story short, he finally ran away from Bamenda
and went to Yaoundé. There the people were still after him to the
extent that they asked him to remove his cloths and go naked. He
was going around only in underwear. He entered the taxi and a lady
sitting next to him asked him why he is going around naked. He
explained to the lady. She felt sorry for him and told him that the
same thing had happened to his sister. The lady took him far away to
the land of the pigmies and showed him where they delivered his
sister from the occult powers. He didn’t have money to pay. So the
pigmies decided after the women pleaded to heal him and he would
come back and pay and finally they delivered him using their own
powers. They told him that he should come back and pay and that if
he doesn’t they will cast a spell on him and that theirs will be worse
than that of the njangi.
It is possible for someone to be dead but alive. This is not only
with nyongi but even some groups in Cameroon believe that people

Journal of Dharma 37, 4 (October-December 2012)

438 Vivian Besem Ojong

die and come back. For example, the Bayangis believe that a person
would die and come back to life so they will pack the person’s things
and keep them somewhere believing that the person will come to
collect the things so that they can use it in their next life.
The above scenario, according to the interviews, is the only possible
way people can easily reintegrate. However to consider reintegration after
burial would depend on two factors: 1. the ability of the person to return to
their previous self and 2. the ability of society to accept the person as a
living person. This would probably depent on how we reconceptualise
nyongo death. If we redefine nyongo dead as a ‘type of migrant worker’
who has travelled, their reintegration might be possible and easier. It is
important to note that nyongo death creates a situation where people may
or may not return. Families who have lost people through nyongo death
will continue to live in limbo, especially in instances where people have
claimed that, that person has been seen working somewhere. One major
challenge here is the lack of appropriate research to support the assertion
that forced slave nyongo labourers are not dead. Pronouncing these people
dead shows society’s inability to deal with the possibilities of treating
them as living and accepting them in the normal routines of life.
Contemplating reintegration poses serious methodological and
epistemological challenges to the current discourse. Firstly, will that
person be conscious enough to remember their role and status in the family
and society at large? Secondly, if that person has lost all consciousness of
their previous self, but the living are able to recognise them; how will the
person be reintegrated? Will he/she be given a new identity and birth
certificate, be assigned to a neighbourhood, etc.? These are practical
questions but difficult to answer since more research is needed. It is an
area that is not currently under investigation.
8. Conclusion
In conclusion, there are two views on the issue of life after death through
nyongo; on the one hand there are those who ontologically believe that
there is a site of life and economic activity beyond the world that we
know. This group, on the basis of their perceived choice to believe in its
existence, (as the interviews show) live and interact with others bearing in
mind the existence and dangers of nyongo. For this group, it is becoming
increasingly difficult to accept a gift from friends or family members
without envisaging a nyongo transaction. Nyongo is so enshrined in their
minds that acts of goodwill and reciprocity are misjudged or

Journal of Dharma 37, 4 (October-December 2012)

 “The ‘Working-Dead’ in Nyongo Occult Economy in Cameroonian Society” 439

misinterpreted. It has also become difficult for them to recognise genuine

success without the tendency to relate it to nyongo. This is because every
successful, powerful and rich person is often thought of being associated
with nyongo economies. There is also the other view (not elaborated in
this paper because discussions and suspicions of nyongo was only
discovered in Cameroon in the early 1950s) that beliefs are located in
people’s belief system regarding life after death. In Cameroonian society,
death through nyongo is not rooted in the belief system but was introduced
through modernity and industrialisation.
Despite the fact that accusations and suspicions of nyongo have
increased over the years, there is still no substantial evidence that nyongo
can be used as a means to increase one’s wealth and socio-political
position. Because of its popularity, one would assume that it is easily
accessible for anyone who wants to get rich, be politically connected or
socially recognised, but paradoxically, although it creates a window of
opportunities, it still remains a mystery.
In conceptualising the boundaries between the living and the dead,
nyongo poses a dilemma, because several possibilities of identity present
themselves. One is to consider nyongo as people on a journey who can be
reintegrated and the second is to concentrate on societal perceptions of
these people. If we consider them as people on a journey, it therefore
implies that we should await their return. One of the problems with their
return is that, from the stories and rumours in Cameroonian society, people
who have been killed through nyongo and mystically brought back to life
lack the consciousness of their previous lives and identities but are able to
live, trade and work in their current state. In this state, they have no self-
will and live at the mercy and instruction of their owner. This is unsettling
for families who find it difficult to find closure at the death of their loved
ones who they believe are alive and working in some invisible economy.
Focusing on societal perceptions insinuates new areas for research and
scholarship. Because of the claims made by some people about seeing
dead people working, it creates an opportunity for new forms of mobility
and the crossing of boundaries; with its implications on the concept of
liminality. Through the claims and accusations of nyongo, the boundary of
life and death is being stretched. This creates possibilities of new forms of
identity as nyongo technologies seem to undermine any idea on being
strictly predicated on what is understood and validated.
This second possibility seems more appealing, since it offers a
suitable structure to elaborate on previous research and popular

Journal of Dharma 37, 4 (October-December 2012)

440 Vivian Besem Ojong

perceptions. This approach also appealed to me since it focuses on the

eliciting peoples’ assessment of the nyongo phenomenon through
interviews and conversations. After seriously considering the two
possibilities that presented themselves for this study, I decided to pursue
both for the following reasons: firstly, my belief that perceptions and
rumors carry a form of truth, when data is collected through the use of
critical ethnography and analyzed; and secondly, to avoid interrogating
what would happen if the possibilities for reintegration were opened up.
The findings would, however, have been enriched by an interview with
someone who has retired from ‘nyongo work’. This is not currently
possible; hence my reliance on stories told by people and family members
who have lost loved ones, friends and community members to nyongo
wealth economies.
The article has shown that nyongo is a very flexible and common
type of occult practice; occasioning the possible co-existence of suffering
(the working dead) and affluence (witchcraft entrepreneurs). These two
groups in my opinion seem to be caught in a ‘hard place’ where they are
trapped in the culture of ‘either ... or,’ and a society that does the labelling.
Whether they engage in making sense of these ‘labelled’ identities or not
in what Giddens16 calls ‘discursive consciousness,’ or are aware of the
embeddedness of their identities in the occult economies conceptualised by
Giddens as ‘practical consciousness,’ is part of what was interrogated in
this article. The interviews revealed that there is a possibility (based on the
stories and perceptions) of dead people working in an invisible economy to
enrich a few people who appear to be diligent enough to know what it
takes to become wealthy and powerful. Through nyongo, a new discourse
of consciousness is being insinuated with possibilities and implications for
life after death, as well as reintegration into society.
Since no individual is happy for his or her social location to be
associated with nyongo, it is still surrounded by secrecy, thus allowing
pleasure and pain in life and life after death to be intertwined. To what
extent the dead people actually work, can retire and be re-intergrated into
society is doubtful, on a rational level, especially because there is no
evidence at the moment to substantiate claims of nyongo made by people.
However, no amount of rationality can be compelling enough to persuade
Cameroonians that nyongo does not exist.

16
Giddens A., The Construction of Society, Cambridge: Polity Press, 1984.

Journal of Dharma 37, 4 (October-December 2012)

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