La fonction des thrènes dans le témoignage de la mort et la pérennisation des trépassés dans la mémoire collective bafia (1880-1944)

Abstract The death of young people is a rupture for the survival of the Bafia lineages. This kind of death is pathetic because it is punctuated by tears and driven by feelings of despair. Women have composed laments to denounce the roundups of this type of death. The extinction of patriarchs, on the contrary, is perceived as the crowning achievement of a glorious earthly journey. If the journey is well accomplished, it allows the deceased patriarchs access to the other village. Beyond the mortuary and funerary rituals, the society has organised itself to address prayers to the previous deaths and to praise the bravery of the one who has just died. The semantic field of these songs traces the genealogies of the deaths and contributes to safeguarding the acts of bravery of the deceased patriarchs in the collective memory. The main question of this article is the following: How do the laments denounce the roundups resulting from the death of young people? How do the chanted prayers addressed to the deaths manage to establish their genealogies and preserve their heroism in the collective memory? To achieve this, we will apply participant observation and musical score of the audio-visual tapes recorded in the field. At the end, we will cross-check the transcribed melodies according to the living traditions of the land. Key words: Bafia, threnodies, genealogies, patriarchs, achievements.