The Mambilla or Mambila people of Nigeria live on the Mambilla Plateau (in 'Sardauna' local government area (formerly, Mambilla LGA) of Taraba State in Nigeria). A small fraction of Mambilla migrants left the Mambilla Plateau for the Ndòm Plain (also known as northern Tikar Plain) on the Cameroon side of the international border as well as in a couple of small villages, such as New Nàmba, on the Gashaka Plain in the north, and Jiini-Nyalang-Langa area close to the Kwanja. The Mambilla also occupy the Nyorrong-Lii-Ngùum area of Cameroon and are traceable in history to the Bang District of Mambilla Plateau. Today, the preferred ethnonym is spelt Mambila in Cameroon and Mambilla in Nigeria. "Norr" is also used (the word for person in Nigerian dialects of Mambilla) (Bami-Yuno, 2013 ms).
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Mambila people in the context of Nggàm
Nggam ([ŋgam]) is a type of divination found among many groups in western Cameroon. Among the best documented is its practice by the Mambila people of Cameroon and Nigeria, in which the actions of spiders or crabs are interpreted by the diviner. The form used by the neighbouring Yamba people was described by Gebauer, in 1964 based on experience in Mbem, going back to before 1939, and more recently by Hermann Gufler (1996 and 2003). Good documentation of Nggam has also been published for the Bekpak (Bafia) people by Dugast and Leiderer and for the Bamileke people by Pradeles de Latour. The crab form has been studied in north Cameroon by Walter van Beek (2013, 2015).
The comparative linguistics of spider divination in Cameroon was surveyed by Blench and Zeitlyn in 1989/1990.