P
ottery production has been a central activity in the kingdom
of Babessi since precolonial times. Used extensively
as daily cookware, ritual containers, and prestige items
throughout the western Grassfi elds region of Cameroon,
Babessi pots have been part of a network of exchange of
objects that has played a crucial role in defi ning regional
cultural identity at least since the eighteenth century.1
As noted
by many scholars, material culture is an essential element in the
understanding of the commercial and competitive relationships
among independent Grassfi elds kingdoms. Th is is particularly
true of those items associated at various levels with hierarchical
political power through which prestige and identity are defi ned.
Consistencies among regional cultures, then, should not be
attributed to a common origin, but considered the result of an
elaborate system of commercial and symbolic exchanges through
which food, utensils, prestige objects and, in certain cases, institutions
and meanings have circulated
for centuries among independent polities
(Fowler 1997:67).