Peoples of the Western Highlands
The western highlands straddle the border between the anglophone and francophone parts of the former Cameroon federation. There is a certain cultural homogeneity among the peoples of this region despite ancient histories of migrations and conflict. Almost all of them developed centralized chiefdoms that have powerful politicoreligious chiefs. About nine-tenths of these people are rural. They are often lumped together under the designation of "grasslanders" because of the characteristic vegetation cover of their region. Their languages, called Sudanic or semi-Bantu by some linguists, have been classified as Bantu. Bantu speakers make up a great part of the people in central and southern Africa, although Bantu languages constitute only a subcategory of the Benue-Congo family of languages, itself a branch of the Congo-Kordofanian stock.
The Bamileke
By far the largest of the ethnic groups in Cameroon is the Bamileke. Their name is a European corruption of an African word and not one that the Bamileke used in the past to designate themselves before many of them migrated. Rather they called themselves "grasslanders" or referred to the chiefdom to which they belonged. There are about ninety of these, varying in size from 500 to 30,000 people. Available evidence suggests that the Bamileke came from a region farther north (now settled by the Tikar), when the pressure of Fulani invasions in the seventeenth century led to a series of southward migrations. They covered their present territory south of the Bambouto Mountains and east of the Noun River little by little, with groups splitting off from previously established chiefdoms. This explains the origin of certain still-existing alliances and grievances. It may also account for the phenomenon of both unity and diversity in Bamileke society. Consciousness of a common culture and similarity of techniques and institutions coexist with political fragmentation and differ- ences of dialects, which in some cases vary from one mountain slope to the next.
The Bamileke are cultivators. They keep some livestock, but it plays a minor part in their economy. Some chiefs have small herds that are slaughtered on certain ceremonial occasions. The Bamileke associate little with the Fulani, who herd cattle on the highlands and, during the dry season, in the valley of the Noun River. The Bamileke inheritance system provides for a single heir, forcing younger sons to seek their fortunes elsewhere. Large-scale emigration started in the 1930s, and by the early 1970s more than 100,000 lived outside their home area, usually in the cities of the south. Economically, they control the area between their homeland and the coastal city of Douala.
The Bamileke adapted eagerly to the cash economy. They are willing to work at even the most difficult and unpleasant jobs and have a taste for monetary gain. They save their money, invest it profitably, and adapt easily to modern life. They own export-crop farms and with their earnings buy trucks, houses, hotels, stores, and factories. They dominated almost all the motor transport business. In the cities they become taxi drivers, shopowners, engineers, doctors, and government officials. Among them are the first Cameroonians who are rich by Western standards.
In Douala the Bamileke are said to hold 70 percent of the professional jobs and 30 percent of the civil service positions. They constitute over 60 percent of the traders, 80 percent of the artisans, and 40 percent of the laborers, but only 12 percent of domestic workers. In Yaounde they constitute a majority of the merchants. They also, however, number heavily among the unemployed in the larger southern cities.
The Tikar
Most numerous of the peoples on the Bamenda plateau are the Tikar, who are divided into a number of independent chiefdoms. Differences in Tikar dialect are so marked that people from villages only a few miles apart cannot understand each other. According to their oral traditions, the Tikar lived originally to the northeast of their present territory, somewhere between Tibati and Ngaoundere. Small groups began drifting southward in the eighteenth century or earlier in search of new land, a movement that became stronger during the Fulani invasions of the nineteenth century. Not all the Tikar went south. One group, the Ngambe, resisted a siege by the Fulani chief of Tibati for seven years until the Germans arrived and recognized Ngambe rights to the locality.
The Bamoun
The Bamoun are of both Tikar and Bamileke origin. They are said to have Tikar ancestors who came to their present site in the early 1700s, conquering the Bamileke who lived there and mixing with them. The Bamoun still speak a Bamileke dialect. They are a united people whose common leader is a member of a dynasty that has a recorded history of unbroken rule through forty-four generations. The Bamoun withstood the Fulani conquest by digging ditches around their territory to deter cavalry charges. One of their rulers, Njoya-Arouna, who was enthroned in 1888, devised a script having 510 signs, which he later reduced to eighty-three signs and ten numbers. He built schools and a printing shop and had a map made of his country. He also created a syncretic religion based on traditional beliefs with Islamic and Christian elements added. Bamoun rulers are called sultans because of the Muslim influence.
Traditionally far more urban than other highlanders, the majority of the Bamoun live in or near one main town, Foumban, where the sultan's palace is situated, and in the smaller town of Foumbot. Very few Bamoun live outside their traditional territory. The Noun River to the southwest separates their area from that of the Bamileke. The French encouraged the Bamileke to emigrate into sparsely settled Bamoun territory, but the effort met with little success because of the historic hostility between the two groups.
Other Highlanders
Additional highlanders include — among others — the Widekum, a forest people who probably came originally from the Congo Basin and later concentrated in the southwestern corner of the Bamenda Plateau; the Banen and the Bafia, two small but distinct groups living south of the Bamoun; and the Bali—the only group on the plateau not derived from the Tikar—who live in two small enclaves. Mounted warriors in the past, the Bali originally lived farther north but fled southward from the Fulani during the early part of the nineteenth century. They took refuge with the Widekum, whom they subsequently attacked and conquered. This historical event is still regarded with ill feeling. The Bali became important slave dealers in the Bamenda area, a trade they had learned from the Fulani. Their language, which is derived from those of conquered peoples of the area, was used by the Basel missionaries and became a lingua franca until it was replaced later by pidgin English.
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
