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Introduction The Cameroon Demographic and Health Survey 2004, or Enquete Demographique et de Sante Cameroun (EDSC-III), was conducted by the Institut National de la Statistique, Ministere de la Planification, de [...]

ABSTRACTS Many studies of fertility implicitly equate temporal management, biomedical contraception, and 'modernity' on the one hand, and 'tradition,' the lack of intentional timing, and uncontrolled fertility on the other. [...]

This study analyzes the distribution of ten protein genetic polymorphisms in eighteen populations from the most densely inhabited areas of Cameroon. The languages spoken belong to three different linguistic families (Afro-Asiatic (AA), Nilo-Saharan (NS) and Niger-Kordofanian (NK). The analysis of variation of allele frequencies indicates that the level of genetic interpopulation differentiation is rather low (F(sub st)=0.011+/- 0.006) but statistically significant (p

In this article I analyze the ways in which Bangangte ideas about marriage and procreation reveal the gendered experience of kinship. In Bangangte kinship ideology, notions of procreative cooking are central to representing the sometimes conflicting demands of double descent. Kitchens, cooking, and commensality are simultaneously the basis of marriage - enclosing the wife within the husband's patrilineage - and the maintenance of matrilineal ties. Culinary imagery provides an alternative emphasis to a dominant agnatic ideology in Bangangte discourse on social belonging. [procreation, kinship ideology, gender, cooking, sociospatial categories, metaphor, Cameroon]

Longitudinal data collected by the UN Demographic Training and Research Institute's Yaounde Infant and Childhood Mortality Survey were examined to identify the factors that affect early childhood survival in Yaounde, Cameroon. The results show that overcrowding, low household income, ethnic differentials and marital status have negative effects on childhood survival, while full immunization status significantly enhanced childhood survival.

In two population samples of 77 Bamileke (Bantu sensu lato) and 18 Bakaka (Bantu sensu stricto) from southwestern Cameroon, the mtDNA RFLPs for the HpaI, HaeII, MspI, AvaII, and HincII enzymes were studied. Two of the MspI morphs had not been reported before. Six new types were found, four of which represent new combinations of previously described morphs. The AvaII morph 3 was found in association with the 'African' HpaI morph 3. This finding is in line with previous observations in Negroids and demonstrates the usefulness of this combination as an indicator of black African ancestry. Two differences were noted between the groups: a lower frequency of HpaI morph 3 and a higher frequency of HaeII morph 4 in the Bakaka with respect to the Bamileke (0.44 versus 0.62 and O.17 versus 0.03, respectively). The importance of these differences could not be evaluated because the Bakaka sample was too small. Nevertheless, because the Bamileke show a relatively low frequency of mtDNA type 1 (2.1.1.1.1.-) and high frequencies of mtDNA types 2 (3.1.1.1.3.-) and 7 (3.1.1.1.1.-), they can be placed with the other Negroids so far examined, but they are closer to the Senegalese than to the Bantu from South Africa. In comparing the Bamileke and the Bantu, mtDNA type 3 (3.1.1.2.2.-) appears particularly discriminative because it is present in all the Bantu subgroups examined but not in the Bamileke. mtDNA type 39 (2.1.4.1.1.-), which was observed only in the Bamileke, might be considered likewise discriminative, although to a lesser degree., The central-western African region of Cameroon has been an area of great interest for anthropological and linguistic studies. Its long and complicated history of peopling has led to considerable ethnic [...]