babanki_illness-2 Multimedia Documentation of Babanki Ritual Speech

It is a consultation of ancestral spirits to seek help for healing a sick person. This project documents the language of Babanki traditional ritual performances. Babanki is an endangered Grassfields language spoken in Babanki Tungo and Big Babanki, northwest of Cameroon. The language of rituals contains poetic forms, lexical items and grammatical structures not found in everyday Babanki speech. Unfortunately, these special speech forms are threatened by the strong influence of modernism and especially Christianity which have caused the number of people who still engage in ritual performances to drop drastically. Consequently, the Babanki cultural values inherent in the ritual performances are no longer cherished and transmitted to younger generations. A child is ill and attempts to treat him have not been successful so his father consults the ancestors and requests their help to heal the child.