Introduction

Introduction

The first European penetrated the fastnesses of the Bangwa mountains in 1897. He was Gustav Conrau , a German colonial agent, seeking trading contacts and labour supplies for the southern plantations. He records his impressions of the country with some enthusiasm: the romantic mountain scenery with its narrow cliff paths and wild waterfalls; the imposing lines of the tall Bangwa houses; the quiet dignity of the chiefs and the deceptive subservience of their wives. To celebrate the arrival of their first white man (‘their huge red baby’) dances and ceremonies were performed during which the Bangwa men changed their simple bark-cloth loincloths for extravagant clothes and splendid masks. Conrau admired the works of art which appeared during the dances. At Fontem, the chief presented him with a splendid brass pipe. He later acquired, through sale or gift, a collection of masks and statues which were sent down to the coast with the plantation labourers and then to Germany and its museums. Two years later Conrau was dead, killed either by the Bangwa or by his own hand. In the reprisals that followed, the palaces of the chief and many of his subchiefs were razed to the ground. Many carved houseposts and ritual objects stored in retainers’ houses at the palace entrances were destroyed in the process.

The Germans maintained a military and trading station in Fontem until they were defeated by British soldiery in 1915. Thenceforth, until independence in 1961, the Bangwa remained a somewhat isolated outpost of the British Empire, four or five days’ trek away from divisional headquarters at Mamfe,

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Plate 1
Typical
Night mask

Southern Cameroons (now West Cameroon). In 1965 a general anthropological study was made of the Bangwa, during which it became clear that Fontem was an important artistic centre. Sculptors were found to be still at work providing masks and figures for dance and cult associations. Important pieces were kept by the chiefs and other nobles in the interior of their compounds, sometimes on display, sometimes hidden inside smoky hut-lofts (Plate 1) or skull-houses. In 1965 a summary study, with photographs, was made of the role of art in Bangwa society. Until now the pieces marked ‘Bangwa’ in German museums and private collections had been attributed to an eastern Bamileke chiefdom also called Bangwa (see map on p. xii), which had been included in a survey of Bamileke art by Lecoq. But when the expedition returned to Europe in 1966 many of the splendid ancestor memorials (Plate 2) and portrait figures in museums were seen to be very similar to those which had just been observed in the field. Closer study confirmed the similarity. Details in museum catalogues showed that many of the figures and masks were in fact from Fontem, Fotabong and Foreke Cha Cha, three southern chiefdoms of the West Cameroon, Bangwa group. Most of these objects had been sent back to Germany by

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Plate 2
Ancestor
memorials

Conrau. Fortunately he had included some meagre ethnographic notes about them and the names that the Bangwa had given them. These provide a check as to their provenance.
In 1967 both authors visited Bangwa for six months. They now had a better idea of the significance of Bangwa art, and planned to make a thorough study of sculptures in their social context.
This book is concerned with those objects of Bangwa art which make their appearance during the elaborate ceremonies following the death of an adult male or female. These ceremonies, known in pidgin English as a ‘cry-die’ or a ‘cry’, provide opportunities for the innumerable dance societies and cult associations to which Bangwa men and women belong. After a summary account of Bangwa culture, the bulk of the book is devoted to a description of a cry performed at the death of a paramount Bangwa chief. A final chapter gives a description, in more detail, of some of the more important groups of sculpture associated with typically Bangwa cult associations. For convenience the commonly used pidgin term for dance society or cult association – ‘juju’ – will be used. The Bangwa also apply this word to art objects, which have any ritual

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significance. The Bangwa term, although more exact, would have less immediate meaning to an English reader.

The account of the cry given in Chapter Four is an ideal one. The death, anointing and burial of an important Bangwa subchief were witnessed; these rites are similar to those carried out for a paramount chief. The elaborate and secret rites surrounding the installation of the chief of Foreke Cha Cha were also seen. During the dry season in Bangwa a cry may be held every week to celebrate the death of a person who has died during the long rainy season (Col. pl. ii). In Bafou-Fondong near Dschang an extremely splendid cry was held during this time, celebrating the death of the chief who had been killed by terrorists. But for the most part the model for the account given here was the death, and the ceremonies which followed it, of Chief Fontem , c. 1885 – 1951 (Plate 3), and the account is based on detailed and corroborative descriptions of the event given by participants in the rites, particularly by the present chief. The performance of the societies or jujus, of course, have all been witnessed by the authors on innumerable occasions.

Plate 3
Asunganyi,
Chief of Fontem
(1885 - 1951)

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