Przemiany w systemie społeczno-politycznym północnokameruńskich Kirdi

Kirdi - acephalic peoples of north Cameroon, joined together in the history, mainly by contacts and fights with the large state organisms, based on the Islam. Their main characteristic feature was acephalic social structure based on the blood relationship. To those structures there was linked the whole system of law, social life, economy, religion and morality. Crucial period in the history of Kirdi people was time of pressure of the Islam from the northern Cameroon through Fulbhe (Fula, Fulani). The permanent danger from the Fulbhe people created two strategies among those Kirdi, which didn't surrender to their total dominance. One strategy was to withdraw to more inaccessible lands and the second was the attempts of organizing the military resistance in political unities - chief commands formed at the resemblance of the Fulbhe structures. Also those groups which chose to escape to inaccessible lands (mountains, bogs) changed their organizational structure moving the accent from the importance of blood ties to territorial bonds. Introduction by the colonial and postcolonial state of the institution of "traditional leader" weakened even more traditional Kirdi structures, giving advantage to feudal Fulbhe structures. A tendency of weakening this traditional structures of Kirdi people is deepening also in our times through introduction of the new cultivations, by using money, through the phenomenon of the urbanization and by the system of education. Traditional bonds of acephalic communities based on the self-sufficiency and family life have problems in new reality, since they also do not have a basis in traditional religious structures which are undergoing severe crisis. Communities which developed system of the chief command do better. It is more adapted to new administrative reality.