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There is written evidence among the Bamoun of a historical connection between the people of the Grassfields of West Cameroon and the peoples of Kemet/Kush(Njoya 1944). All of the Grassfields people descend from Tikar and are the children of Ngan Ha royalty also known as Mboum. Lets go deeper into the origins of the Bamoun.
The Bamoun kingdom was founded by a Tikar named Nshare Yèn in the 14th century. Nshare would have started from Rifum, land of the Tikar. Because of an argument he had with his brothers, he decided to go into exile by taking the direction of Foumban. Let’s hear what King Njoya himself says about this origin:
“Formerly the Pamoms were in Rifum: they did not did not know the word of God. Rifum is separated by three days of walking. The King of Rifum had three children: Nshare, Mfo Mbam and Mfo Nso. They left to make a plantation that each surrounded by a ditch to live there as in an entrenched camp. Mfo Rifum having learned this ordered his sons to return to him. They promised their father that they would come back. But after making this promise, they fleed. After they arrived near a river, Nshare said to his brothers: ‘Let me go through first.’ After his brothers accepted, Nshare crossed the river with all his entourage and rendered the canoe unusable, to the large dissatisfaction with Mfo Mbam. The latter went to downstream and settled in Njimbam. (It is he who will found the
Mbam department, where the Bafia live) while that Mfo Nso going up the Vi settles in Nkunso.” (Njoya pg. 22)So Nshare, according to Njoya is the founder of the kingdom Bamoun. In addition to the reasons that led him to leave the country Tikar, as well as that given to us by Njoya that we just quoted, there is another one that we find in his History and Customs of the Bamoun. In this second version, the king of Rifum would have chosen Nshare for him succeed, but fearing the challenges that this could beget among the children, he urged them to leave:
“Some time later, the brothers of Nshare
learned that their father had designated it for him succeed. Mferifum (the king) says; If I don’t take precautions my country will be lost. He called Nshare, Mfombam and Mfonso and said to them: ‘Go get a place that you will be able to live. May your feet receive no abrasions there.’ Nshare and those who accompanied him went to Banyi. Soon after, Mfombam and Nfonso asked Nshare to choose the place where he would settle. ‘It is you who must choose first’, replied Nshare. Mfomban went to the left, Mfonso left to the right and Nshare went straight ahead(Njoya pg 204).”According to another source collected in Mbankim by Claude Tardits, Nshare was reportedly kicked out of the kingdom because he had married a woman without paying the dowry(Tardits pg. 100). Perhaps this is the reason why he would be killed in his own country.
1.2. Descendants of the Pharaohs
From another version collected by Eldridge Mohammadou, it seems that the Bamoun kingdom has was founded long before Nshare. According to this source, the reigning dynasty would have an Egyptian origin or potentially Syrian. A family thus fled in Egypt then his descendants continued, following his commercial path they settle in Bornou and later among the Mboum de Nganha and Mbang at the center of the current Cameroon; a people whose descendants live near Ngaoundéré; each step of their migration process being accompanied by weddings with the locals. Children from these unions emigrated to the Mbam valley, specifically Mbankim where they submitted the populations found on the spot. Of the dynasty founded by those fugitives that the Mboum called “Tikar”, which means the “wanderers”, came out later the founders of the Bamoun and Banso kingdoms.
Prince Dika Akwa in “Descendants of the Pharaohs through Afrika” reaffirms this Egyptian origin of Bamoun(Dikwa Akwa pg. 249) For him, the Bamoun and the Banso, of Ngala origin mingled with Mboum and Tikar of Kissara and possibly Syrian origin:
‘The version of an Egyptian origin and hence Ethiopia is supported by three facts: the coronation rites of the Bamoun, the writing of King Njoya having very close resemblance to the Egyptian hieroglyphics, and blood kinship with the Wandalas.’
Regarding the royal serpent cult, D. W. Jeffreys was struck by its similarity to an Egyptian cult, as reported by Pedrals.
‘Having noted from various works of Egyptology the vulture-pharaoh and serpent-pharaoh ratio, then in particular the treaty indicated by Diodorus according to which the priests of Ethiopia and Egypt kept a aspic in their caps, having noted various examples of two-headed zoomorphic representations, especially in the Book of the Dead, Papyrus of Ani: sheet 7, D. W. Jeffreys is convinced that the Bamun cult derives from the analogous Egyptian cult.’
But this similarity goes beyond a simple influence which could be linked to the phenomenon of diffusion by the contact between the two civilizations; she finds herself also at the writing level. (Dika Akwa 430)
After comparing the handwriting of King Njoya of Bamoun to other writing systems discovered in Africa, Cheikh Anta Diop highlighted characters which are common to them and merge by their resemblance to Egyptian hieroglyphics. Then he shot a conclusion that seems very logical. For Prince Dika Akwa, Njoya enriched and unearthed a legacy of the old Egypt. Our research does not stop there. It goes back to parental origins of Bamoun.
‘An Egyptian merchant came to live in Bornu where he married a woman named Nébijou, and with whom he conceived three daughters: Nsien, the eldest, Métapen, the second, and Mboupouet the last. Mboupouet, the youngest left Bornou and came to marry a man in the village of Mboum (currently Ngaoundéré) where she had three sons: Mbouon, the eldest, Nyimboun, the second, and Kaî, the last. A moment later, the eldest of the three sons accompanied by his two brothers, changed village, he settled in that of Papirien, where he founded a family with the women of this tribe. After a period of 60 years, Mbouen, the great patriarch and all his family, abandoned Papirien to attack the chief by Mwaki.’ (Dika Akwa pg. 430)
According to this source, while claiming to be descendants of Mboum fathers at one point in their history, the Bamoun always made up a strict family. According to Prince Dika Akwa, if we admit that Adjara son of Adjia Makia was part of all the other Ngala by the Ambou migration from Xlth century.
‘There is no apparent contradiction that the ancestors of the future Mandjara met the Imagharam branch from which the father of Wandala in Bornu. Damgaram is found in Hausa country bordering Bornu. Furthermore, Adjara and her sister Sanda are respectively the 20th direct ascendant of the royal Bamoun lineage.’ (Dika Akwa pg. 431)
Work Cited:
Claude Tardits, Le royaume Bamoun} Paris, Armand Colin, 1980, pg.100.
Matateyou, E. (2002). 1.1-1.2. In Parlons Bamoun (pp. 12–18). essay, L’Harmattan.
Njoya, I. M. (1944). Bamoun Academy Session. In Translation of Njoya’s writing in Bamoun characters (1st ed., Vol. 1, Ser. 25-3-1944). Yaoundé, Mfoundi, Center; National Archives of Cameroon.
Prince Dika Akwa, Les descendants des pharaons à travers l’Afrique, Yaoundé, Osiris-Africa, 1935, pg. 249.
Sultan Njoya, Histoire et coutumes des Bamoun, Rédigés sous la direction du Sultan Njoya, Traduction du Pasteur Henri Martin, Série:
Population, No 5 1952, pg. 22.
