Part Seven/Cultural Impact of Indonesia/Cameroon Highlanders

George Peter Murdock
1897 — 1985

Professor of Anthropology, Yale University

Africa. Its Peoples and Their Culture History

New York. McGraw-Hill. 1959. 456 p.

Explore also (a) the SemanticAfrica Peoples Vocabulary
(b) the Cameroon Highlanders mind-mapping diagram

Part Seven
Cultural Impact of Indonesia
— 30 —
Cameroon Highlanders

The grassy uplands of central Cameroon, which connect the Eastern Nigritic and Southern Nigerian provinces, apparently lay on the very margin of original Negro territory, for a few Pygmy remnants still survive among the Tikar tribe in the cast. The inhabitants doubtless acquired Sudanic agriculture at an early period, for they raise coleus, earth peas, gourds, millet, oil palms, okra, roselle, watermelons, and yergan, and sorghum ranks as one of the staple crops everywhere except in the extreme south.
They nevertheless fall clearly into the Yam Belt, since all groups cultivate substantial amounts of bananas, yams, and especially taro, which is a staple or co-staple in most tribes. They have added Jew’s mallow, pigeon peas, and sword beans from the Indian complex, and in some instances have also adopted Ethiopian eleusine. The Cameroon Highlanders may well have mediated the transmission of the Malaysian crops from the Eastern Nigritic peoples to the inhabitants of coastal Nigeria. On the other hand, the route may have slain slightly farther to the north among the adjacent Plateau Nigerians, for the southern tribes of the latter also adopted bananas, taro, and yams and still cultivate them, with the last two ranking as major crops. But whatever the route may have been, it completed the transcontinental diffusion of the Malaysian complex from the Indian Ocean to the shores of the Atlantic.
The Cameroon Highlanders belong to the Bantoid subfamily of the Nigritic linguistic stock. More than that, they all speak languages of the Bantu subdivision of the Macro-Bantu branch of that subfamily. Together with the adjacent lower country to the southwest along the Nigerian border, upland Cameroon appears to have constituted the orginal homeland of the Bantu and the region to which they were confined until the advent of the Malaysian food plants. They gave them, like their Eastern Nigritic neighbors, the wherewithal to penetrate for the first time the tropical rainforest to the south previously inhabited exclusively by the Pygmoid hunters and gathereres. The resulting enormous expansion of the Bantu peoples, which we shall consider beginning wth Chapter 35, represents one of the most important indrect effects of the cultural impact of Indonesia on the peoples of Africa.
The Cameroon Highland Bantu, who are located on Map 13, fall into a very large number of distinct tribes, of which only the best known are mentioned in the following classification.

Nsaw Village.
(Courtesy of United Nations.)

Bantu subdivision of the Macro-Bantu branch of that subfamily. Together with the adjacent lower country to the southwest along the Nigerian border, upland Cameroon appears to have constituted the orginal homeland of the Bantu and the region to which they were confined until the advent of the Malaysian food plants. They gave them, like their Eastern Nigritic neighbors, the wherewithal to penetrate for the first time the tropical rainforest to the south previously inhabited exclusively by the Pygmoid hunters and gathereres. The resulting enormous expansion of the Bantu peoples, which we shall consider beginning wth Chapter 35, represents one of the most important indrect effects of the cultural impact of Indonesia on the peoples of Africa.
The Cameroon Highland Bantu, who are located on Map 13, fall into a very large number of distinct tribes, of which only the best known are mentioned in the following classification.

1. Bamileke, embracing the Babadjou (Babudschu), Bafang, Bafoussam, Bagam (Eyap), Baham, Bamendjou (Bamendzo), Bandjoun (Bandschu), Bangangre, Bangoo (Bangu), Bangwa, Bapi (Bapei), Barongtu, Chang, and numerous other tribes and chiefdoms. They number in excess of 450,000.
2. Fia (Bafia), with the Balom, Bape, Djanri (Njanri), Lemande (Omand), Mehele, Yambasa, and Yambera (Njabeta). They number about 50,000.
3. Fungom, with the Bum (Bafumbum). They number about 50,000.
4. Fur (Bafut, Fu), with the Babanki, Bafreng, Bamenda, and Bandeng. They number about 35,000.
5. Kom (Bahom, Bamekom, Bekom, Bikom, Hom, lkom). They number about 30,000.
6. Li (Bali, Balu, Bani). They number about 23,000.
7. Mum (Bamoum, Bamum, Banun, Mom). They number about 75,000 and have been largely Moslem for more than half a century.
8. Ndob (Mburukem, Tdop), embracing the Baba, Babessi (Bamessi), Babungo (Bamungo), Harnessing (Nsci), and other subtribes. They number about 45,000.
9. Nen (Banen, Banend, Banyin, Penin, Penyin), embracing the Ndiki (Indiki), Nyokon, and other subtribes. They number about 32,000.
10. Nsaw (Bansaw, Banso, Nso). They number about 60,000.
11. Nsungli (Dzungle, Ndzungli, Njungene, Zungle), embracing the Mbaw, Mbem, Tang, War (Mbar, Wa, Wot), and Wiya (Ndu, Ndum, Wimbu). They number about 40,000.
12. Tikar (Mbam, Ndomme). They number about 10,000 and have long been dominated by intrusive Fulani. The Fungom, Fur, Kom, Ndob, Nsaw, and Nsungli are sometimes classed as Tikar in a broader sense.
13. Widekum, embracing the Befang, Esimbi (Age), Menka, Meta (Menemo), Mogamaw, Ngemba (Bapindji), Ngie, and Ngwo (Ngunu). They number nearly 100,000.
14. Wum (Aghem). They number about 10,000.

The Cameroon Highlanders subsist primarily by agriculture. Long after their adoption of the Malaysian complex they, like their Eastern Nigritic neighbors, acquired a series of American food plants. Maize, in particular, ranks widely as a staple or co-staple today. Manioc, peanuts, and sweet potatoes are likewise important, and lesser American crops include cucurbits, haricot and lima beans, malanga, peppers, and pineapples. All in all, the American, Malaysian, and Sudanic complexes play approximately equal roles in the contemporary agriculture of the province.
Most groups possess goats, sheep, pigs (apparently recent), dogs, and chickens. The Bamileke, Li, Mum, and Tikar also keep a very few cattle but do not milk them. Hunting and fishing augment the food supply to a variable, though rarely significant, extent. The majority of tribes do a considerable amount of trading and maintain regular markets. Men hunt, clear land, and do most of the trading. Except among the Tikar and some Nsungli, they leave tillage largely to the women, who also engage in fishing, sometimes exclusively.
The Bamileke, Fia, Li, and Widekum reside in neighborhoods of dispersed family homesteads, but all other groups occupy compact villages. Among the Mum and Tikar these consist of a double row of compounds along either side of a single street. The prevailing house type is a square dwelling with a pyramidal thatched roof and walls of wattle and daub, but the Tikar and Widekum build cone-cylinder hues of Sudanic type, and the transitional Fia and Nen construct rectangular houses with gable roofs like those of the adjacent Equatorial Bantu.
Each village has a hereditary headman, who is usually advised by a council of lineage heads. The Fia, Nen, and Widekum lack political institutions of greater complexity, but all other groups are organized into states under paramount chiefs. Though for the most part small, these atrain substantial size among the Kom, Li, Mum, Nsaw, and some Bamileke. Whether large or small, they exhibit the usual characteristics of African despotisms: divine kings; territorial administrative organizations; and capitals with elaborate courts, specialized officials, and prestigeful queen-mothers. Though slavery is universal, hereditary aristocracies ordinarily appear only in conjunction with complex states. Circumcision is widespread, but clitoridectomy is not reported, and cannibalism is apparently confined to the marginal Fia and Tikar tribes.
Marriage normally entails the payment of a substantial bride-price, but the Nsaw and Tikar require only token gifts, the Fia more often resort to abduction, and the Nen and occasionally the Bamileke and Nsungli practice sister exchange. Unions between cross-cousins are forbidden, at least among the Bamileke, Kom, Nsaw, and Tikar. Polygyny prevails everywhere, and co-wives always occupy separate huts. The household unit tends to be an independent polygynous family among the southern tribes, an extended family in the north.
Except among the Kom and Wum, residence follows the patrilocal rule, and descent, inheritance, and succession the patrilineal principle. Exogamous patrilineages are generally localized as clan-barrios but occasionally a clan-communities, e.g., among the Fia, Nen, and Widekum. In contrast to all other tribes, residence is avunculocal among the Kom and often so among the Wum, and both groups adhere to the matrilineal rule in regard to inheritance and descent. These facts, coupled with a few seeming survivals in other tribes, support the hypothesis, advanced in Chapter 13, that the Bantu were originally matrilineal and avunculocal. Most of the Cameroon Highlanders, however, seem to have completed the transition to the patrilineate before they began to expand into the tropical rainforest.
The Mum share with the Vai (see Chapter 33) the distinction of being the only Negro tribes to have invented a system of writing. When first observed , in 1907, they were using 348 signs, largely ideographic or pictographic. King Njoya, knowing of both the German writing and the Arabic script employed by Hausa traders and feeling a need for communicating secretly with his local officials, called a meeting of his council and proposed the creation of a form of writing. Since the language consisted largely of monosyllabic roots, the original signs were readily converted, by 1909, into a syllabary, and after further evolution were developed into a true alphabet.

Selected Bibliography

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Bienvenue dans mon monde d'exploration et de découverte ! Je suis Ingrid Allain, une voyageuse passionnée avec une curiosité insatiable pour la riche tapisserie de la culture africaine. Pour moi, l'Afrique n'est pas juste une destination ; c'est une fascination de toute une vie et une source d'inspiration. Des rythmes vibrants des cercles de tambours d'Afrique de l'Ouest à la perlerie complexe des artisans Maasaï, chaque coin de ce continent détient un trésor de traditions à découvrir. À travers mes écrits, je vise à partager la beauté, la diversité et la résilience des cultures africaines avec le monde. E-mail: [email protected] / Linkedin