the guruna: a unifying cultural element in Logone Valley

Guruna, gruna or gurna, the practice of socio-cultural and artistic pastoral retreats around livestock among the Massa in North Cameroon, made the headlines in the press and on social networks at a time when the cultural element had just been registered on UNESCO's Representative List of the World's Intangible Cultural Heritage. The author contributes to the debate with a panoramic view of this emblematic institution that unites the ethnic groups living in the Logone Valley: Massa, Moussey, Tupuri and Kéra are not isolated entities. There is a "common denominator" to the four communities, whose specificities can be defined in each of the cultural domains. Originally a Massa cultural institution of great inter-community vitality, the Guruna is now being safeguarded by the whole of humanity.In this fast-changing world, ethnologists, anthropologists and researchers of all stripes, as well as the people who practice guruna, are engaged in fruitful reflection on the circulation and sharing of intangible heritage in a context marked by supra-ethnic cultural interpenetration.