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PEOPLE GROUP PROFILE

The Doyayo of Cameroon

The Doyayo of Cameroon, numbering approximately 56,000 people, are No Longer Unreached. They are described as a people of Cameroon's Poli area in Benue department governed by a caste system topped by hereditary rain witches, whose rites were documented in Nigel Barley's 1983 memoir The Innocent Anthropologist, bringing them international attention They are an Indigenous people, with Dowayayo as their ethnic/kinship group and are in the Adamawa-Ubangi people cluster of the Sub-Saharan African Peoples. Their primary religion is Animism. They primarily speak Doyayo.

Photo by Google. (2026). Image generated by Gemini 2.5 Flash: Doyayo

Fast Facts:

Affinity Group: Sub-Saharan African Peoples
Country: Cameroon
People Cluster: Adamawa-Ubangi
Primary Language(s): Doyayo (dow)
Primary Religion(s): Animism
Population: 56,000
Strategic Progress Index (SPI): No Longer Unreached
Global Status of Evangelical Christianity (GSEC): 5% or Greater but Less than 10% Evangelical
People Group ID: PG012578
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Pray for the Doyayo of Cameroon

Join others around the world in praying for the lost to be saved, the gospel to advance, the global Church to grow, and for laborers to be sent out and sustained in the harvest.

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Dig Deeper (Religion):

Primary Religion: Animism
Religious Affiliation: Ethnoreligion

69%
%
Animism Adherents

Dig Deeper (Language):

Primary Language: Doyayo
Language Family: Atlantic-Congo

100%
%
Doyayo Speakers

Media Resources in Doyayo:

Films:

No film resources are listed for this language.

Provided by the Jesus Film Project

View all resources

Bible Resources in Doyayo:

Bible Name (Translation)VideoAudioText
1988 Bible Society of Cameroon✓

1 entry

Provided by Faith Comes by Hearing

Or check out the Doyayo bible at Bible.com

Linked from YouVersion

View all resources

SPI: No longer Unreached

The Doyayo are No Longer Unreached, which means there are more than 2% evangelical Christian populations and there are churches consistent with evangelical faith and practice. There is still more to be done among them.

Next steps for the Doyayo:
Empower local believers to begin praying for their own people
Continue gospel seed sowing and church planting
Encourage local leaders to being leading church planting strategy and looking for Unreached and Unengaged groups nearby

Pray specifically for the Doyayo of Cameroon

During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.
readExodus 2:23-24

As the lost among them labor, groan, and cry out under false religions and sin, pray God will have mercy on them and hear their cries, that He will be their Rescuer from the kingdom of darkness and bring them into the kingdom of light.

And many nations shall join themselves to the LORD in that day, and shall be my people. And I will dwell in your midst, and you shall know that the LORD of hosts has sent me to you.
readZechariah 2:11

Pray that many will take refuge in the Lord and be His people who share the good news of salvation in Jesus with others.

Those who look to him are radiant, and their faces shall never be ashamed.
readPsalm 34:5

Pray that as people place their faith in Christ, they will see themselves as God sees them, with radiant faces and hearts that have been cleansed of all shame.

And he said to them, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest."
readLuke 10:2

Ask God to send out laborers into His harvest field, raising up believers from around the world to go and proclaim the kingdom of God with those who need to hear it.

Dowayayo Across Countries (ROP3 - 102727) reported in the following countries:

Strategic Progress Index
All

1 people group

PhotoPeople Group IDNameCountryPopulation ▼Strategic Progress IndexLanguageReligion
DoyayoPG012578DoyayoCameroon56,000No Longer UnreachedDoyayoAnimism

To download a comprehensive people group list in spreadsheet form, visit our Research Data page.

Peoplegroups.org relies on updates from the field and other organizations for much of our data, so if you have any updates, please contact us. We use various international naming standards. For a list of these standards and fields, visit our Data Standards section.

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