Oil on canvas from 2006, 144 x 114 cm – 56.6 x 44.8 in. Sold
The rite of “Leuru Benleng” among the Fali of Bossoum living in the mountains of northern Cameroon. For years, they resisted the influence of their Fulani Muslim neighbors who nicknamed them “Kirdi,” meaning “heathen.”
The Fali groups of Bossoum, Tinguelin, Kangou and Peské-Bori have preserved their ancestral traditions. The King of all of these groups remains a descendant of the founder of the tribe, he has power over all the surrounding lands.
Each year, offerings are given to the ancestors and the land they govern. During this ceremony, the women dance in honor of their ancestors, they come to share symbolically, placing on the ground in half a calabash, the boiled millet from the harvest. The dancers wear a belt made of rattan and strips of woven fibers, and leggings also made of intertwined rattan vines which they make collide during their rhythmic dance, thus producing a particular sound.
