One of the most interesting and least studied dimensions of Christianity in contemporary Africa concerns the way in which the churches are actually perceived at the grassroots level, in the villages. How are the various denominations seen, by those within, and without? How do traditionalists see the Christian presence, and define their own role in relationship to it? The essay which follows seeks to shed some light on these questions, in a case study drawn from one of the most remote areas in Nigeria. As an area for study, Obudu has the great merit that up to now it has not been studied at all. It is not presented as "typical" though some of the responses may well be. Only a succession of such studies, in diffeerent places, could begin to establish where true typicality lies-if it exists at all.