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  DOI Prefix   10.20431


 

International Journal of Humanities, Social Sciences and Education
Volume 4, Issue 9, 2017, Page No: 75-87

Folk Art, Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Climate Change: An Assessment of Helpful Practices and Habits in Selected Communities in Cameroon

Donatus Fai Tangem

Department of Arts and Archeology, University of Yaounde 1, Cameroon

Citation :Donatus Fai Tangem, Folk Art, Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Climate Change: An Assessment of Helpful Practices and Habits in Selected Communities in Cameroon International Journal of Humanities Social Sciences and Education 2017,4(9) : 75-87

Abstract

Although the expression "climate change" is relatively recent among indigenous people, the question of climatic variation and its related changes in temperature is not an unknown phenomenon among indigenous communities. Rather, such transmutations are part of the practical realities that orchestrate resilience and measures that ensure man's survival. Therefore indigenous or traditional wisdom abound on how communities deal with harsh consequences of climate change. For communities whose livelihood practices and habits relate directly with the ecological system, there can be no mistake as to how traditional knowledge systems are developed to cater for mother earth, the source of life and life related support systems.This paper thus sets out to streamline native ways by which some communities in Cameroon demonstrate appreciable consciousness about the question of climate change and also go further in adapting coping mechanism. With the aid of folk artists, relevant information and strategic principles are integrated in folk songs and performances organized by the communities for information dissemination. Through traditional belief systems, practices and habits, climate change and its harsh consequences on man and his environment are combatted with a degree of success. Through traditional wisdom and complex indigenous technics,changes in climate are met with working strategies from which the "civilized" "modern" and "progressive" societies need to draw lessons and also capitalize. Ranging from agriculture to livestock breeding, animal husbandry and human health, the disastrous effects of climate change have characteristically been unsparing. It is therefore against the background of the dreadful consequences of the monstrous phenomenon that the strengths and worth of indigenous knowledge systems call for attention and further adoption by governments and or international bodies critically involved in the search for survival mechanisms. In all, this paper is set against the theory of Environmental Determinism as propounded by Ellen Churchill Semple (1911) Ellsworth Huntington (1945)


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