Rehe: The Blacksmiths of Mogode
Filmmaker: Gamache Thomas Kodji
Year of production: 2009
Location: Cameroon
Duration: 31 min.
Sound: mono
Language: French
English Subtitles
Among the Kapsiki a mountain dweller ethnic group in Far North Cameroon, blacksmiths (rehe) perform many trades and crafts calling for specialization as music, divination, magic, medicine, pottery, leatherwork, funeral, forging iron and casting brass. All these trades are crucial for the clans and the whole village connecting to the social division of labor.
The main focus of this film is the death, the three days of performance of the blacksmiths during the burial ceremony. It is about how they organize and make the weeping less dramatic and unfortunate for the bereaved family with their special burial music but also how they take care of the body from the time the man dies until they bring him to the cemetery, ending by the traditional surgery that they made before the burial. In brief this film is about the traditional conception of burial among the Kapsiki.
Copyright: 2009 Visual Cultural Studies, University of Tromsø
Thesis
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