The genesis of an idea for such a project, much like the history of the foundation of an African kingdom, is often difficult to elicit unambiguously - it too may become imbued with a foundation myth. We, as western liberal academics, may sometimes appear to claim undue proprietary rights over intellectual projects of diverse provenance. To continue the metaphor - and in this instance it is a very apt one - claims to unitary African dynastic origins frequently mask great diversity in the composition of populations, communities and polities.
Issues concerning cultural and political representations of identity have always been a strong undercurrent in anthropology. However, since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the eruption of conflict in Europe seemingly based on, or at least played out in, terms of ethnicity this has become the object of more focused attention. It is sometimes said that Africa exists in its very own temporal space, but in this instance there is simultaneity in the chronology of events and their interpretation. Here, too, the qualities and meaning of identity in cultural practice and political representation are deeply questioned in the context of the post-colonial African state. There are fascinating convergences and parallels here, in the events of Europe and Africa and the knowledge that is created in the interpretation of them, that remain to be explored.
Sally Chilver’s personal life and her academic endeavour touch upon all of these things. Her contribution to the Africanist world-view and the knowledge contained and generated by it is also highly significant. At a time when it was perhaps less than fashionable, Sally collaborated in field research and in print with the anthropologist Phyllis Kaberry. This personal and academic alliance flew in the face of the established academic bias in anthropology that eschewed the knowledge of missionary, administrator and trader in favour of the monopoly of the professional ethnographer. Happily for those of us who have followed them into the field, Chilver’s work with Kaberry did more than simply help neutralise the effects of this disciplinary bias against history. (For two instances of the consequences of this see Burnham and Warnier below).
The Grassfields area of Cameroon appears to exemplify Ardener’s formulation (1967: 298) that ‘self-classification never ceases’ or, similarly, Appadurai’s notion of the continuous production of locality. However, Kopytoff’s work on the Aghem presents a picture of an anomalous marginal society, an example of recent ethnogenesis (1981) and Geary, on the We, also interprets her data in terms of recent ethnogenesis (1981). It is not entirely contradictory to suggest that identity in the Grassfields has been constantly reworked across a range of groups of quite different orders of magnitude. In this sense all Grassfields communities are recent, irrespective of how long they have been around.
Ethnography and history are nowhere more tightly bound up with identity and ethnicity than in the broad field of colonial and post-colonial African studies. This is particularly well illustrated in the historical and ethnographic studies of Cameroon undertaken by Sally Chilver, associated Cameroonian scholars and other colleagues influenced and aided by her. The enormous diversity of Cameroonian culture, language and history is well known. Its geographical position makes it a true African crossroads, a microcosm of the continent. Chilver’s precise area of study, the Grassfields of Cameroon, is itself a microcosm of this microcosm. We have already noted that it has a host of linguistically diverse and independent polities, reworking a common core of ideas and practices into distinctive individual formations.
Ardener has stressed the complexity of this picture in the light of the large number of named sets for the wider region of anglophone Cameroon (1967: 295-6). It is clear that anthropologists and historians may play significant roles in the production of the kinds of knowledge that tie in to the emergence of broad social and political groupings in the colonial context. It is perhaps also the case that such knowledge becomes a part of the armoury of action in the contemporary struggle for definition of locality and its articulation with the agents and offices of the post-colonial state.
The partnership of Chilver and Kaberry, the early work of Kaberry, and Chilver’s continuation and enhancement of this up to the present day span a crucial period in the history of Europe and Africa. Effective administration of the Grassfields by the mandated British regime was very much in its infancy when Kaberry arrived in the 1940s. An example which illustrates this point is furnished by Chilver’s reworking of Kaberry’s 1947 field notes from the Funggom area in the north of the Grassfields:
16.vi.47: Chief and Court Messenger (interpreting in Pidgin) informants...Complex clan relationships and claims to hierarchy and ownership of the symbols of ritual power and political authority are presented in terms of a straightforward narrative of the past. In representing the ongoing interplay and negotiation of relationships of power and dominance in this framework of historical narrative the past is frozen as an eternal validation of the present. Fixed units of administration are created. Simultaneously, one version of history is recorded and becomes a contestable validatory text for political action or representation. Our own activities as historians and ethnographers of Africa lead to the production of knowledge that has dual currency in academic and political realms.
Atshaf is distantly related to Atshaf in Kom, similarly Akee to the Kom Ake village. Meeku is related to the Ekwu of Laikom, the chief’s lineage there. In Mme Meeku is‘like a chief’ and has ‘nggumba’ (presumably nkwifoyn). The first Atshaf chief of Funggom took it from Meeku and brought it here. In Mme the QH of Meeku not that of Atshaf is head of ‘nggumba’: here he does not have it but is recognised as being ‘distantly related’ to the Chief’s family. (Chilver, 1995a)
It is rare, however, for any one individual, or that individual’s works, to straddle or pass freely between these spheres. Knowledge produced at one time in academic endeavour becomes political usually only after many peregrinations and transformations. It may take considerable time to pass into the box marked ‘history’ from which contemporary combatants for power may select their costumes and props for the theatre of conflict. Individuals concerned with the actual production of knowledge move on to other things, or at the very least shift into a different kind of relationship with their subjects and the knowledge produced about them, as time goes on. In her work Sally Chilver incorporates processes of reanalysis and reflection not usually carried out by one individual. For a considerable period her work has problematised the relationship between ethnographic knowledge and cultural and political representations of identity. Meticulous attention to detail, to source and archive, are in Chilver’s case happily married to a personal longevity and a historical view of the long term; much that is academically crucial to the twentieth century is embodied in her life and work.
If identity is constantly reworked, it is nonetheless ‘fixed’ in narratives of the past; if classification is continuous it has, at least since the early colonial period, not usually been framed by one side alone. In these two key and related areas Sally Chilver has played, and continues to play, a major and dove-tailing role in the production of knowledge for and of the Grassfields. She adopted an early, if discordant, stance against the short-sightedness of contemporary professional ethnographic practice. She has retained a focus on historical issues in her archivist reworking of her own fieldnotes and those of Kaberry, and in ongoing correspondence with Cameroonian colleagues and dignitaries. Yet she has become far more of an anthropologist than she might perhaps care to admit. A recently published paper on thaumaturgical belief in Nso’ (Chilver, 1990) is a case in point. Not only has it been widely quoted in literature on the Grassfields but, more importantly, it has significantly advanced our knowledge of African religious belief in a region for which such knowledge has until now been sorely lacking.
Certainly, many of us associated with Sally Chilver have given thought to ways in which her very significant contributions to Cameroon studies might be satisfactorily acknowledged. At the last meeting of the Grassfields Working Group in Oxford (organised by Sally Chilver) a number of us, notably Miriam Goheen, Eugenia Shanklin, Shirley Ardener, Claude Tardits, Charles-Henry Pradelles and Jean-Pierre Warnier, took the opportunity to conspire. The project of which this volume forms a part is the welcome product of that happy conspiracy.
In order to thematise what we initially envisaged as a single volume we requested that papers should focus on the convergence of ethnography and history in the field of Cameroonian studies. The voluminous and overwhelmingly positive response to our call presented us with the ‘problem’ of a wealth of contributions that could not easily be meshed into a single unit. The very high quality of papers submitted meant that we would have been unable, should we have been so bold, to exclude any on the basis of relative merit. Dividing the contributions into connected themes produced three sets of papers.
The first set of papers focuses on contemporary views of the state, its emergence through partition and reunification, the developing role of the chieftaincy, and key issues of gender and accumulation. This set of papers has now been published as a major section of the 1995 issue of Paideuma, the journal of the Frobenius Institute. This is an appropriate place for papers in honour of Sally Chilver, since Leo Frobenius is considered by many to have been largely responsible for bringing West African art and culture to the attention of contemporary western intellectuals. In a similar, if more humble, way Sally Chilver has brought the complexity of the Cameroonian Grassfields in its history, material culture and ethnography to the attention of Africanist scholars. The direct German connection also fits very well with Chilver’s historical focus on the German colonial period and with her ethnographic studies of Bali-Nyonga, the earliest and main ally of the nascent German colonial regime.
A second set of papers deals with topics such as witchcraft, divination and religion in a more or less straightforwardly ethnographic way. 6 Sally Chilver’s links with Oxford encompass both formal and informal academic sectors. As an Africanist historian and ethnographer she has enriched the Oxford academic scene while nurturing young Cameroonist and Cameroonian students and scholars.
The third set of papers, published in this volume, is more tightly focused and theoretically orientated in analyses that combine historical and anthropological perspectives. Again it is highly appropriate that this volume should be produced by an Oxford-based publisher of German origin. This reflects the incorporation in the person of Sally Chilver of a combination of a productive Oxford academic base with a long-term interest in German colonial history.
The individual chapters adopt a set of interrelated approaches to the study of African societies, drawing deeply on the complex interrelationship of history and anthropology. We touch on some of the problems of ‘ethnic’ identity in the case of the Tikar and the Chamba below. This is discussed in Fardon’s chapter with which this volume begins. His explicit target is ‘the incommensurability between anthropological and local models’ and ‘the numerous historical links between them’. He treats this through an examination of the chiefdom of Bali-Nyonga, which while located within the Grassfields maintains a Chamba identity. Hence this chapter in its theoretical and methodological perspectives, as well as in its use of ethnographic data, keeps to the path laid down by Sally Chilver. In a complex argument Fardon explores the theoretical underpinnings of the conceptual clusters of the interrelationships between persons, ethnicity and identity in both ‘traditional’ and modern types of West African society. His examination of the Bali-Nyonga case ‘largely derived from Sally Chilver’s meticulous historical work’ analyses the use of history as part of the transition to modernity. In so doing he draws out the complexity of the relationships between local history and anthropology. He poses the question ‘who is writing whom?’ which sets our discussion firmly in contemporary anthropological theory and debate.
Burnham presents a reanalysis of the historiography of the early relationships between the Gbaya and the proto-colonialists, the explorers and traders, that presaged formal colonisation. He uses the results of anthropological research into the history of slave-raiding in the region to interpret the documentary evidence of the first French expeditions to the area in the late nineteenth century. In this he acknowledges the pioneering role of Chilver and Kaberry in breaking down barriers between history and anthropology. Burnham complements Chilver’s archivist work in his use of the Gbaya material to highlight the problems of interpreting early colonial documents and the difficulties in dealing with built-in biases. In this light he stresses the need to eschew disciplinary boundaries and confront contemporary European colonial documentation with, for example, data from oral tradition, archaeological evidence, historical linguistics and title systems.
Austen pursues this theme by considering both sides of the German-Duala relationship early in the period of German rule. His paper complements Chilver’s (1967) studies of the Germans in Cameroon and offers an interesting parallel to (and some convergence with) her focus on the so-called ‘Bali-Frage’. In each case initial German alliances led to subsequent difficulties. Ambiguities in relationships gave rise to serious problems with groups such as the Moghamo (see O’Neil below) and others who sought redress against the injustices that resulted from these alliances. Austen analyses the mythic representations of the German-Duala relationship in the light of three themes. These are first the Sonderweg, the exceptional historical path of Germany; secondly extreme oppression, the dramatic and oppressive climax of German rule in Douala; and thirdly the ‘golden-age’ myth that contrasts in a positive light the German period with that of the French. In reconciling these different threads Austen demonstrates both the ambiguities and the banalities of colonial history, and also how these underlying contradictions connect with ongoing confrontations between Africa and Europe. This material is of even greater interest since accounts of this period now figure in local debates about rights to land and power in the metropolis of the city of Douala and figures such as King Akwa bulk large in the creation of Duala identity. We start with political history and end with the contemporary processes of identity and its making.
Similar concerns underlie O’Neil’s study of the relationships between Bali-Nyonga and the Moghamo people in the early years of German penetration of the Grassfields. O’Neil presents a strikingly dramatic account of this key historical moment. Local informants recall great excitement upon hearing first reports of the arrival of Zintgraff ‘an unknown thing... skin red like fire’ and the great drama when the Fon of Bali took the white man by the hand and declared to the assembled chiefdom that he was indeed a human being, since his skin was cool and not like fire. Through the eyes of Hans Hutter we are offered the startlingly vivid picture of the bloody mayhem of a slave raid ‘over which shines the tropical sun from a deep blue sky’. And the words of those so enslaved, such as Simon Peter Nguti, provide an insight into experiences of enslavement and subsequent life-histories. Alongside this rich and descriptive account are deeper concerns of history and contemporary ethnography. From the point of view of the Moghamo villages, Bali-Nyonga are now represented as tools of the Germans, and the uprisings of the early years of the twentieth century (especially 1908) are the seed from which contemporary nationalisms (note the plural) can grow.
Fanso and Chem-Langhëë present an account of Nso’ military organisation and warfare. They demonstrate how a key innovation occurred in Nso’ military organisation after about 1825. Nso’ was divided into northern and southern sectors, each under a military leader, based in the capital. This facilitated and channelled a flow of information from lineage to village to the wider kingdom in one direction, and of directives from the centre to the periphery in the other. The individual elements of this military organisation are present elsewhere in the Grassfields but in the case of Nso’ these have been assembled in an innovative and effective configuration. The authors link the characteristics of this configuration to the reputation of Nso’ in the nineteenth century as a strong regional military force. Nso’ had resisted the intrusions of mounted northern raiders; it had defeated the larger and more centralised neighbouring kingdom of Bamum, and in victory had killed and taken the head of the Bamum paramount Nsa’ngu. On one level this is a straightforward historical reconstruction of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century systems on the basis of documentary and oral sources. However, this, like the two papers just discussed, has significant contemporary implications. Grassfields polities resemble no one as much as each other. This lends greater urgency to the pressure to claim uniqueness or distinctive differences from their neighbours (who are up to the same thing). Both Nso’ and Bali-Nyonga pride themselves on their military prowess. Nso’ rejoices in the memory of the wars against the far larger and more powerful state of Bamum, and Sally Chilver has been part of the intellectual wing of such movements.
The papers by Joseph Banadzem and Claude Tardits tackle the issue of conversion to world religions, in Nso’ and Bamum respectively, but from very different perspectives. It is of note that Banadzem has used documentary sources from the early Christian missionaries to help reconstruct the Nso’ pre-colonial religious system. While this is an increasingly common method in anthropological practice, it must be remembered how unusual it was when Sally Chilver first encouraged other scholars to use a wide variety of sources including missionary documents. The recent publication of one of her papers (Chilver, 1990) is a testament to a lifetime’s interest in this topic. Banadzem astutely makes the point that not only is it of little use to examine religious developments simply in terms of the play of foreign influences on an inert mass, but also that fictional sources such as the novels of Kenjo Jumban and Jedida Asheri may be even more revealing than historical and missiological literature. If this rejection of academic authority represents a form of post-modernism, it is nonetheless very welcome. We must note that while mention is made of the Fon of Nso’s leanings towards Islam in the 1960s, this account of conversion is not presented in terms of a paramount doing this or that, but rather in terms of the choices made by individuals in the light of personal experiences and knowledge of the opportunities for healing and advancement. Banadzem parallels Horton (1971) in his formulation of the Nso’ situation. The critical factor for Banadzem is the opening up of Nso’ by the Germans to the outside world. At the same time as individuals are confronted with new experiences in a freshly unbounded world they are presented (through world religions) with a means by which to accommodate themselves to it. He goes beyond Horton in emphasising the significance of what is termed inculturation, in which core symbols of local belief are incorporated into official Christian practice. Banadzem also presents some new data that bring together the hitherto disparate strands of apotropaic hunting rituals and beliefs in animal transforms (i.e. the shape-changing powers of titled elders); this throws important light upon a broader range of Grassfields ritual practices. Indeed, Banadzem’s contribution to this volume together with another paper on funerary rituals (Banadzem forthcoming) and Chilver’s (1990) discussion of ‘thaumaturgy’ enable us to fill a great gap in Grassfields studies, notably in providing an account of Grassfields belief systems.
Claude Tardits presents the first published discussion of the short-lived attempt by the Bamum paramount, Njoya, to syncretise Islam. Tardits discusses the document that the King wrote in 1916 entitled ‘Pursue to Attain’. This was written in the script ‘a ka u ku nfa mfo’ devised earlier by Njoya and his court. In order to explain this document, and Njoya’s motives, Tardits presents a short summary of Bamum history and religion in the nineteenth century. He uses a rich body of history, ethnography and oral tradition stemming from extended research in Bamum. Tardits focuses on Njoya as an individual, a paramount aware of the beliefs and ritual practices of his people. We see a ruler striving to manoeuvre between the different belief systems of his erstwhile northern Islamic allies and the newly arrived Christian colonisers from Europe. A third dimension to this struggle is that of customary belief and practice, from which the position of the paramount derives. The physical and symbolic space in which this takes place is the Palace. Tardits presents the striking image of individuals attending Njoya’s court but only substituting their customary dress for the required Islamic dress when they reach the Palace precincts. For a very brief period between 1916 and 1918 the Palace at Fumban became a very special space in which the paramount and his immediate entourage attempted to control, through mediation and interpretation, relationships between Bamum and the world. In so boldly seeking to syncretise local and world beliefs, we may perhaps see in the figure of Njoya an overreaching personal ambition of great intellectual proportions that was to culminate in the tragedy of his subsequent death in exile under later French rule.
The paper by Christraud Geary is firmly set in the crucial proto-colonial period of early contacts between German colonisers and local rulers (already discussed for the Duala [Austen] and the Moghamo [O’Neil] as well as by Warnier [see below]). At this time there was a distinct shift in the focus of colonial activity from Bali-Nyonga to Bamum, as well as increasing concern about maintaining control over allies given advantages (including weaponry) during the initial German penetration. Many Grassfields paramounts had adopted German-style military uniforms, and were not slow to show them off to visiting Europeans. The German cartographer Max Moisel visited Babungo in 1907 and recounted that:
Whenever a bath, meal or work intervened to interrupt the conversation with the inquisitive and chatty chief, he came back in a new uniform be it white or khaki coat or Green Litewka (German officer’s undress jacket), it was always spotlessly clean. (Chilver 1995b: 7)Geary picks up the theme of military and political dress in the court of the Bamum paramount Njoya. She treats dress as a cultural artefact that may generate multiple meanings in the construction of identity. She uses early colonial photography as well as Bamum ethnography to explore the shifting relationship between dress and identity at a moment of great and intense change when Islam, Christianity, and the German colonialists came dramatically together with Bamum in the court of Njoya. 7
Finally Warnier’s paper analyses a little-known historical phenomenon, the revolt of the ‘Kamenda Boys’ in the early years of German colonial rule. This was a multiple revolt of African against white colonialist and young African against elder. The latter monopolised Grassfields political systems in which young males were powerless. In a reflexive vein Warnier notes how at the time when he recorded these events he felt embarrassment at the revelation of disorder and violence unleashed by European colonialism, and also that he could not easily use the material in what was essentially a functionalist exercise in reconstructive ethnography. Moreover, Warnier’s account is of wider interest and great current relevance - there are significant resonances with descriptions of young guerrillas in Liberia, Somalia and the Highlands of New Guinea, and also in the politics of contemporary Cameroon versions of the revolt by the young against the old guard that are being played out even as we write. The villes mortes or boycott campaigns of the early 1990s were largely taken up by the current dependent male youth very much in opposition to customary chiefs and elders who largely support the current regime and the status quo.