English, The Bamiléké people are a Central African ethnic group that inhabits the Western High Plateau of Cameroon.

[9] Oral tradition collected by Alexis Maxime Feyou de Happy and his son, Joseph, suggested that the arrival of the Bamiléké in Western Cameroon occurred in multiple waves with two primary routes.

[7] Anthropologists G. Spedini and C. Bailly theorized that the Bamileke descend from the Ndobo, "Sudanic savanna dwellers who migrated into Western Cameroon from the north.

While they have become a significant factor in the national economy, their success has also generated some jealousy and resentment, especially among the original inhabitants of areas where Bamiléké migration occurred.

[15] The researchers caution the assumption that the Bamileke are the source of the Bantu migration because the genetic variations in the region could have been very different 4000 years ago.

[4] In the present day, however, this type of construction is mostly reserved for barns, storage buildings, and gathering places for various traditional secret societies.

Roofs are usually made of metal sheeting.During the colonial period, parts of the Bamileke region adopted Christianity, though some of them practice Islam.

To satisfy the Ancestors, the person believed to be a murderer must perform a special ritual that consists of the pouring out of libation during the burial ceremony.

Colorful, beaded masks are donned at special events such as funerals, important palace festivals and other royal ceremonies.

An elephant mask, called a mbap mteng, has protruding circular ears, a human-like face, and decorative panels on the front and back that hang down to the knees and are covered overall in beautiful geometric beadwork, including triangular imagery.

[18] On occasion, a Fon may permit members of the community to perform in an elephant mask along with a leopard skin, indicating a statement of wealth, status, and power being associated with this masquerade.

[21] Before they were colonized, popular beads were obtained from Sub-Saharan countries like Nigeria and were made of shells, nuts, wood, seeds, ceramic, ivory, animal bone, and metal.

Colonization and trade routes with other countries in Europe and the Middle East introduced brightly colored glass beads as well as pearls, coral and rare stones like emeralds.

There were often agreements with these other countries to exchange these precious luxury commodities for slaves, gold, oil, ivory and some types of fine woods.

For the Bamileke statues reliefs and paintings represent life forces that safeguard intangible attributes of death that allow them to live eternally.

An heir takes his dead father's name and inherits any titles held by the latter, including the right to membership in any societies to which he belonged.

Siblings who did not share in the inheritance were, therefore, strongly encouraged to make it on their own through individual initiative and by assuming responsibility for earning their livelihood.

Rather than spend all of the inheritance maintaining unproductive family members, the heir could, in the contemporary period, utilize his resources in more financially productive ways such as for savings and investment.

[...] Finally, the system of inheritance, along with the large-scale migration resulting from population density and land pressures, is one of the internal incentives that accounts for Bamileke success in the nontraditional world".

[24] Donald L. Horowitz also attributes the economic success of the Bamileke to their inheritance customs, arguing that it encouraged younger sons to seek their own living abroad.