UNFORTUNATELY, this heading may be a bit dated. Judging from what I read in a recent issue of People?s Daily, ?modernity? has already infected, to varying extents, a goodly portion of the formerly pristine Koma people.
The vectors of this deadly virus are reportedly missionaries, evangelists, assorted NGOs and purblind policy makers?people, who apparently believe that it?s better to beg for information and expertise from abroad than to generate our own knowledge through primary science and social science research.
Otherwise, they certainly would not have committed the grave and grievous error of carrying ?modernity? to the Koma. Especially, our perverse conception of it. Modernity, as we practice it, is a level-4 pathogen, a lethal social virus the Koma would certainly have been better off without.
Alas, Koma men may already have learned to stage fake miracles, wear ear-rings and use k-jelly. I wonder too, if the women have started to slap palms with their men, play with sex toys and wear jeans trousers.
By this time, there may even be one or two rap singers among them, extolling the virtues of violence and lawlessness. I can envision young Koma women painting their full rimmed lips so that they look like the vulva of the vagina?which, historians of erotica claim, was the original reason for wearing lipstick!
In case you?ve forgotten, or are simply too young to have known, the Koma were ?discovered? in 1986, in the mountains of Adamawa State?living pretty much as they apparently had been doing for centuries, before British and French colonisers came here to ?civilise? (and rob) us.
According to the ?Special Report? in People?s Daily, some 300 to 400 Koma reside in the Alantika Mountains, within Ganye Local Government Area, in northern Adamawa State (near the Cameroonian border).
There are three groups?the hill-dwelling Beye and Ndamti and the lowland Vomti. Males wear loin cloth, the Report says, while women cover themselves scantily with green leaves. The people practice polygamy and, as a gesture of hospitality, a husband can give a male guest access to his wife.
This has naturally drawn the ire of evangelists and missionaries, who have long been hell-bent on Europeanising these ?heathens.? It should be pointed out that wife-sharing in not unique to the Koma. It is practiced by other tribes in Nigeria, as well as, in eastern India and Nepal.
I can recall, when the Koma first came to public attention, Christian evangelists immediately announced their intention to ?bring these people to Christ.? I also remember seeing an article in The Guardian (I cannot remember, who wrote it) imploring missionaries and evangelists to keep clear.
Despite the passage of time, and the changes that must already have been wrought in their lifestyle, I still believe the Koma should be left alone, for the most part. Christian missionaries, in particular, should be driven out and the area declared a Strategic Research Reserve.
State and Local authorities should then cede their interest in the area to the Federal Government, which would establish a semi-classified Reserve Management Commission. Ideally, the membership of such a body should come from the State Security Service, Military Intelligence and selected universities.
Thoroughly Westernised Koma would be ejected from the reserve and less ?modernised? individuals re-acculturated, with the assistance of traditionalists. The idea is to preserve, for research purposes, the traditions, values, rituals, myth, lore, remedies and esoteric knowledge of the Koma.
To be continued.
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