Mola Mbua Ndoko: Wisdom and Ways of the Bakweri People

153. “Njonji fe wee-ka liongi”.

It is not necessary to emphasize that there is enormous fat in the body of Njonji.

Njonji = a whale. 

liongi = fat.

Njonji is widely known to contain enormous quantity of liongi in its body.   

At an assembly of a village traditional council when young fishermen repeatedly talked about the large quantity of liongi in a baby Njonji that they had just killed, an elderly person reminded the young fishermen that it is common knowledge that the body of every Njonji - baby, adult, sick, old - contains enormous quantity of liongi. 

152. â e-Kema ema nya maese

Kema a monkey has delivered twin babies.

Maito, maito, kaii  !  It’s time to narrate tales.

Yasi  nanu:  Three birds, Yuungu, Wombe and Kaki Inoni asked Ikula  Nyame to explain to them why Kema  Nyame (the monkey) does not deliver twin babies. 

They pointed out that although they rest on trees for long periods none of them has ever seen a Kema that has twin babies.  (mandenga  Kema  asa  nya  mae-se”?).

189. “Maliva ma ngeli Wonya Manjanga”.

Water is hostile to Wonya Manjanga.

Yasi nanu:  Manjanga was married to three wives with whom he had seven children.  It was remarkable that four of Manjanga’s children had been victims of water related accidents. The first accident occurred in far away Lake Barombi  Kotto in the lands of the Barombi and Vakundu.  One of Manjanga’s children was in a canoe that collided with a floating log when the canoe was ferrying passengers from a bank of the lake to Barombi  Kotto village.

201. “e-tiya moto ose-yake ligbweya”.

You don’t engage an idiot on farm work.

eti = foolish.

e-tiya  moto = a foolish person; an idiot.

ligbwe-ya = farm

Yasi  nanu. Njika  Nyame employed Nambese and Suume in his farm to weed and cut down shrubs at the edges of the farm.  Nambese and Suume being idiots could not distinguish weeds from crops.  They uprooted every thing that was green – weeds, crops, maize, coco-yams, sugar canes, pumpkins, yams, stems of plantain and banana plants. 

199. “Kooko Mbombe, Moto ne e-mweni moofo”.

Everyone should take full control of his or her personal safety and survival.

Maito, maito, kai  !  It’s time to narrate tales.

Yasi  nanu:  Ngaki Inoni died in circumstances that suggested that Ngaka had been assassinated by three birds, namely Moma  Wuve, Isa  Moonge and Mome  Elele.

At the commencement of the trial after Moma  Wuva  (cock) had crowed koke-le-ko, Moma  Wuve informed the court that his colleagues in the case suffer from a disability of not being able to speak clearly.  His colleagues had therefore in the circumstances asked him, Moma  Wuve to speak for them. 

164. “Maame nu ndeya e-nge-nge”.

There is no reason for me to suffer from fast heart beats.

As recent as fifty years ago e-Mokpwe  used Kpwave and Mangala to identify  practitioners of evil witch craft and thieves respectively. It is believed that a witch does not vomit.  A bowl of liquid Kpwave was imposed in public by a village community on an accused person.  If an accused person failed to vomit the Kpwave he/she was instantly declared a witch.  The punishment was expulsion from the village.

When a man was accused of stealing, the village community invited him to handle in public on each of his hands a bundle of Mangala ordained by a specialist Traditional Doctor.  The Mangala are expected to excite a thief to laugh foolishly, dance continuously until he becomes fatigued, drops on the ground and then fall into a trance.  Recovery from a trance takes a long time.

210. “e-Kpweli Mosongi”. (Fallen from grace).

A True Story: Laugh, the world will laugh with you.
Weep, you will weep alone.

Yasi Nanu: Mokoko mo Joo-njoh was in charge of a WAPV (West Africa Plantations Victoria) shop that was situated at Mutengene road junction.  That was about 1935. Mokoko was charismatic, kind and popular.

180. “o-wuuve maliva o-waana, u-ngele munya ?seke munya mo lima”

How dare you attempt to use your mouth to fan a fire when you have water in your mouth. The water will put out the fire.

Yasi  nanu:  A twelve years old boy Ekpwa sat on a couch (ewongo) close to a fire over which his mother was boiling food.  When in the course of drinking water Ekpwa was inconvenienced by a wave of smoke, he attempted to use his mouth to fan the fire when he still had water in his mouth. 

205.“Seke te i-Njoku ini, i-kpwaa-na mokomba mo”

I am not one of the feeble elephants that fall down when struck by one gunshot.

An elephant is doomed to death when a bullet penetrates into its eye or its ear.  When a hunter is unable to target the eyes or the ears he may decide to lame an elephant by shooting it on the knees.  Thereafter the hunter starts targeting an eye or the ear.

It is common knowledge among e-Mokpwe that some members of Maale societies claim that they are able to transform themselves into elephants.  They say they also possess varieties of melonda and mesomba (fetish) that protects their elephants from gunshots and also fetish that enables them to extract instantly without surgery any bullet that is lodged in their elephants. 

183. “fusa ene ndawo o-kpwe-eya ndi efefe”.

Depart from this house/home and enter into another house/home.

This is an extract from one of the citations of a Traditional Doctor at work.  The Doctor would introduce the sick person to his ekanga (relic) and to the medicinal leaves in these words:

“na  gbwe-eya  ndi  wami,  seke  te  wa  moto”.
(I am treating my own person, not an alien).
“wami” (own) in this case = my brother, my relative, my friend.
“seke  te  wa  moto” in this case = not the patient of some body that I do not know.

155. “Muuli, eva-nya ee !

Tornado disintegrate.

Yasi  nanu:  At a time when walls of houses were constructed with fragile materials and when ropes were used to hold roofs and walls together, severe hurricanes frequently disconnect roofs from walls. Approaching tornados therefore caused restlessness to heads of families.