SYMBOLISM OF FUNERALS IN THE BAMILÉKÉ PEOPLE OF CAMEROUN FACING THE CHALENGE OF GLOBALISATION

Abstract

Every people have its culture at the heart of its existence and thereby presenting itself as the guardian of the later. This is the reason why the Bamiléké people through funerals promote their cultures in the whole world; hence the need to take an interest in this phenomenon. This study intends to show the place, the primary value of funeral practices in West Cameroun in contact with exogenous cultures, especially the western ones so-called modern. These cultures thereby meet themselves in the proliferation of globalization, taken as the meeting point for cultures of the whole world. We have thereby used semiological and anthropological methods to see how funerals as heritage in the Bamiléké zone do to keep their values in the context of globalization. Thus, the opening of African cultures to others is not devoid of consequences because if this cohabitation results in the spread of local cultures, the result is a progressive loss in the originality of the later, specifically the Bamiléké funerals.