Thaumaturgy in Contemporary Traditional Religion: the Case of Nso' in Mid-Century

THAUMATURGY IN CONTEMPORARY TRADITIONAL RELIGION: THE CASE OF NSO' IN MID-CENTURY BY E. M. CHILVER (University of Oxford) Introduction The kingdom (or Fondom as it is locally called) of Nso', once an independent polity, lies in the central high plateau of Cameroon: it is about the size of Luxemburg, contiguous with the larger kingdom of Bamum, and had a population of 150,000 in 1976, now larger. 1 This Fondom, which appears to have originated in a confedera- tion of clans, one of them the dynastic one, is one of over a hundred in the mountainous region called the Grassfields; these