Rhumsiki & Kapsiki Peak
A 1,224 m volcanic plug rising over the Mandara Mountains, home of the Kapsiki people.
History
Rhumsiki village sits in the Mandara Mountains near the Nigerian border, ringed by dozens of jagged volcanic plugs — the eroded cores of long-dead volcanoes — the tallest of which is the 1,224 m Kapsiki Peak. The Kapsiki people who live here are known for crab divination, in which a diviner reads the rearranged position of small objects after a captured crab has disturbed them to answer questions about marriage, harvests or travel. It remains one of northern Cameroon's most visited landscapes.
Beyond the facts
Culture & traditions
A living tradition or belief tied to the place, distinct from its recorded history.
Crab divination (va kə gə́la) is practised by a hereditary caste of Kapsiki diviners, who arrange small carved stones, seeds and pottery shards representing questions around a buried calabash before releasing a freshwater crab over them; the crab's disturbance of the objects is read the next morning. Blacksmiths hold a distinct, semi-outcast social status in Kapsiki society, credited with both toolmaking skill and supernatural power, and traditionally marry only within their own caste.