Fali

Fali, a people who inhabit the rocky plateaus ringed by the northernmost peaks of the Adamawa mountains of northern Cameroon. “Fali” is from a Fulani (Peul) word meaning “perched” and describes the appearance of Fali family compounds on the sides of mountains.

The Fali have no traditional centralized political organization. They observe patrilineal descent and virilocal residence. Hamlets and wider villages are inhabited by given lineages and overseen by a chief who is a descendant of the village founder.

The Fali are farmers; their principal crops are millet, chickpeas, peanuts (groundnuts), squash, tobacco, and okra, as well as cotton as a cash crop. Goats, a few sheep, some cattle, and occasionally a horse are kept. Fali women are known for their pottery and for the pyrographic designs they make on bottle gourds; they also make cotton thread and weave fabrics out of it.

Fali believe in a very abstract supreme deity called Fao. The centre of religious life is the cult of the ancestors. Masks representing the original couple and the most illustrious descendants of a family line are kept in the family compound; in more recent times the masks have often been replaced by sacred stones. Granaries and other buildings are decorated with bas-reliefs and painting to represent cosmological motifs. Fali—like other groups in northern Cameroon—are best known to outsiders for the manner in which they have adapted to their harsh environment: their “sculpted” homes, granaries, and chicken houses seem to be a part of the hillside.