I am Lukong Joseph Tardzenyuy a stutterer since birth and father of two children who stutter. Many of my brothers, sisters, half brothers, half sisters as well as several of my nephews and nieces also stutter. Many of my paternal cousins and some of their children stutter. The above mentioned relations of mine and I are citizens of the Republic of Cameroon a country found in the Central African sub region. All of us are natives of the Banso tribe that live in the grass fields of the North Western part of Cameroon. Many of us were born and raised in our village called Kuintar Mbam a rural village without electricity, telephone or portable water. All of us were breastfed by our mothers for a period of over 2 years as is the custom and we were very attached to our mothers. In our region, the main staple food is corn fufu that we eat with huckleberry (vegetables). We typically eat this for 5 of the 7 days of the week.

I have to mention here that my late father, Sebastain Lukong was a polygamist having a total of three wives and 21 children. All of these children, I am told by reliable sources, stuttered when they were young and as they grew up some recovered from this disorder while others did not. At present 17 of the 21 children stutter severely, three have mild stutters, one is a fluent speaker. Of the 21 of us children of my father, 13 are boys and 8 are girls. All of the boys stutter severely while only 4 of the 8 girls stutter severely. Paradoxically, neither my father nor any of his wives stutter. From the investigations that I have done on my mother's family, none of her relations stutter. In the family of my first step mother nobody stutters, while in the family of my second step mother, one person stutters. Though my father was not a stutterer, the investigations I carried out showed that there is a history of severe stuttering in his family. All this information comes from my paternal grandmother who was called Baty whom I am told was not a stutterer nor was my grandfather.

MY PATERNAL GRANDMOTHER BATY AND HER CHILDREN.

My grandmother was called Baty. She was an animist (a person who does not belong to a religious organization) and married to a FAI (a sub chief) in our village who was called Ngitir. A Fai in our village is a traditional ruler who ascends to the throne through succession and inherits all the assets and liabilities of the deceased Fai. My grandfather had to inherit the wives of his deceased father and ended up having a total of 17 wives with my grandmother Baty being the youngest. My grandmother bore 4 children to my grandfather. They were as follows: Felix was the first and was not a stutterer. Felix had three daughters. They are Adela, Ita, Emelia. Of these, only Ita is a stutterer. Ita has five children and two of her children are stutterers. Felix's other children are Adela and Emelia who are not stutterers and have a total of 8 children of which 3 stutter.

My grandmother's second child was called BIH who was a stutterer and had only one child, Charles, who is not a stutterer. Charles married 2 wives and now has a total of 14 children of which 3 are stutterers.

My grandmother's third child was called Odilia whom I knew very well and who was a severe stutterer. She had 5 children of which 2 stutter. Some of my aunt Odilia's grandchildren stutter.

My grandmother's fourth child was my father whom as I earlier said had 3 wives with a total of 21 children. My mother has six children 4 boys and 2 girls. All the boys are stutterers while one of the girls is a stutterer. My father's second wife has 8 children- 5 boys who are all stutterers and three girls of which 2 are stutterers. My father's third wife has 7 children- five boys who are all stutterers and three girls of which 1 is a severe stutterer and the 2 others have mild and occasional stuttering. This is a brief description of stuttering in our family and I want now to examine the legends that circulate in our village concerning the cause of stuttering in our family

BELIEFS ABOUT STUTTERING IN OUR FAMILY.

People have often insulted and teased us as to the cause of stuttering in our family. I had never paid particular attention to all these and of late I had to confront my mother and some elderly members of our family to throw more light on this. At first they were not open to this issue and the reason is the untold shame and disgrace that stuttering in our family has brought to us as we are often looked upon as outcasts in our village.

The first legend associated with stuttering in our family is that it was a mystical and magic curse inflicted on my grandmother by the one of her maids. I am told my grandmother was the youngest of my grandfather's wives and it is suspected that she received particular attention and care from my grandfather. This resulted in hatred and jealousy from her maids. One of her maids by the name of Dinyuy is believed to have once quarreled with my grandmother and cursed her using her magical powers that she was going to give birth to 'abnormal children'. This was when my grandmother had her second pregnancy after delivering her first son. When she gave birth to her second child, this child stuttered, as did all her subsequent children. It was therefore believed strongly that it was the fulfillment of DINYUY's magical curse. It is even said that DINYUY at the moment of her death confessed to the evil deed she had done to my grandmother.

The second legend that I learned from one elder member of our extended family is that my grandfather as landlord of a large piece of land in our village, allocated a certain piece of that land to my grandmother for farming. This was a very fertile piece of land that was reserved only for traditional sacrifices. It is then believed that the gods of our land got very annoyed by this and cursed the children of my grandmother by turning them into stutterers.

WHAT SOME MEMBERS OF OUR FAMILY AND I HAVE DONE AS TREATMENT FOR OUR STUTTERING

To counter the action that DINYUY had done, many traditional sacrifices were offered by my grandfather and other members of my family. Palm wine, hens, goats and other articles were sacrificed to wipe away the curse. It would appear the sacrifices yielded no results as the stuttering in our family continues.

The first method that my elder brother and I went through ourselves was prescribed by one traditional herbalist in our locality. This consisted of drinking a yellowish liquid substance that comes from the roots of the rafia palm called in the Banso dialect, 'KILU' This liquid has a kind of grayish layer on top indicating the presence of some rusted iron. This liquid is drunk every day at sunrise and at sunset for an uninterrupted period of six months. I remember myself and my elder brother being forced out of bed as early as 5.30 a.m. in the cold harmattan dry season of our village to trek the 8 kilometers that separated our compound and the rafia palm bush with this liquid. I believe this did not yield any fruitful results for us but many stutterers in my area of origin are said to have been cured by this practice.

After failing to be cured using this method my parents resorted to the other methods. We had to travel out of our village during the long summer vacation to go to one village called Vekovi situated some 30 km from our village where one traditional herbalist was charged with the duty of treating us. His treatment is one that still frightens me to this day. His treatment consisted of squeezing the leaves of the cola nut trees to get a yellowish liquid This liquid is inserted to our head through the nostril while we lie down. In the evenings the outer layer of the cola nut seeds are burnt in a small hut constructed with bamboos and mud with no windows. The smoke from the burnt seeds are inhaled through our mouth and nose.

Another form of treatment which we would use in our family consisted of eating a greenish insect called KIBEM in our dialect. I as well as many relations of mine ate this insect but no good results were obtained.

The last form of traditional help I had for my stuttering was when I was 17 years old when one of my cousins who had traveled to the coastal area of Cameroon brought a new method of treatment which consisted of drinking water from the shell of the snail that our cousin had brought from the coastal resort town of Victoria (Limbe) in the South west province of Cameroon. We drank water from this object for a period of 2 months and yet no good results were brought to our speech.